“Narcissism describes both a psychological and a cultural condition. On the individual level, it denotes a personality disturbance characterized by an exaggerated investment in one’s image at the expense of the self. Narcissists are more concerned with how they appear than what they feel. Indeed, they deny feelings that contradict the image thy seek. Acting without feeling, they tend to be seductive and manipulative, striving for power and control. They are egotists, focused on their own interests but lacking the true values of self – namely, self-expression, self-possession, dignity and integrity. Narcissists lack a sense of self derived from body feelings. Without a solid sense of self, they experience life as empty and meaningless. It is a desolate state.

On the cultural level, narcissism can be seen in a loss of human values – in a lack of concern for the environment, for the quality of life, for one’s fellow human beings. A power betrays its insensitivity to human needs. The proliferation of material things becomes the meausre of progress in living, aand man is pitted against woman, worker against employer, individual against community. When wealth occupies a higher position than wisdom, when noteriety is admired more than dignity, when success is more important than self-respect, the culture itself overvalues ‘image’ and must be regarded as narcissistic.”

Page ix.

By Juliet Mabey. Look inside or buy at amazon.com Click on image to enter site.

Rumi is a mystical Persian Poet and this collection of his work, compiled by Juliet Mabey, is quite beautiful to me.

It’s difficult to chose an example of his work, but I like this poem:

“The beauty of the heart is the lasting beauty; its lips give to drink the water of life.  Truly it is the water, the giver of drink and the one who drinks: all three become one when your talisman is shattered. That oneness cannot be grasped by reasoning.”

Masnavi II:716-18

♥Ali.

The Pregnant Virgin. By Marion Woodman. Available from Barnes and Noble. Click on image to buy.

♥Ali

Available on amazon.com Click on image to buy.

I first got into Bridget Jones when Helen Fielding was writing the story as a column in the Independent newspaper.

When the book came out, I loved it so much, towards the end I was reading really slowly, I just didn’t want it to end!

I think Helen Fielding inspired me to have an attempt at chick-lit. I think she inspired many writers. But can’t be compared, as she is in a class of her own. Very talented lady.

I can’t find my original copy just now, but if you’ve forgotten how funny Bridget Jones is, here’s a snippet  from the original columns, which I still have.

“Saturday 25 March

8st 10, alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, calories 200 (at last have found the secret)

6pm Oh joy. Have spent the day in a state I can only describe as shag-drunkenness, mooning about the flat smiling, picking things up and putting them down again. It was so lovely. The only down points were 1) immediately it was over Daniel said, “Damn, I meant to take the car into the Citroën garage” and 2) when I got up to go to the bathroom he pointe out that I ha a pair of tights stuck to the back of my calf.

But as the rosy clouds begin to disperse, I begin to feel alarm. What now? No plans were made. Suddenly I realise I am waiting for the phone again. How can it be that the situation between the sexes after a first night remains so agonisingly imbalanced? Call me old-fashioned, but I think it is biological. For a man, some part of him, however tiny, will be saying “Hah!”, feeling that a quest has been fulfilled and wanting to back off. Simultaneously in the female camp, no matter how cool the woman believes herself to be, age-old practical needs and vulnerabilities rear up inappropriately, demanding twigs, feathers, and cosiness. It is a hideous blunder of nature. Now I feel as if I have just sat an exam and must wait for my results. Oh my God, it’s Mother’s Day tomorrow.

Monday 27 March

9st (4lb in one day? how?), alcohol untis 4, cigarettes 17, calories 3,000

The last remaining tiny bathmat of security has been pulled from under my feet. Called my parents yesterday to say Happy Mother’s Day and offer magnaminously to pay suprise visit to deliver enormous gift (not yet purchased) only to get odd-sounding Dad on end of phone. “Er…I’m not sure. Could you hand on?” I reeled. Part of the arrogance of youth (well, I say youth) is the assumption your parents will drop everything and be thrilled the second you decide to turn up. He was back. “Bridget, look your mother and I are having some problems. Can we ring you later in the week?” Problems? What problems? I tried to get Dad to talk, tried to help, understand, but got nowhere. What is going on? Is the whole world doomed to emotional trauma? Poor Dad, poor Mum, poor me. Am I to be the tragic victim of a broken home, now, on top of everything else? As is the way these days, my mind turns instinctively to thoughts of compensation. But who is to blame for the emotional quagmire I find myself in? Cosmopolitan? Society, The feminist backlash? Myself? Opening the paper it seems policemen are suing police bosses for something which was the police’s fault. Maybe that means it would be all right to sue Daniel.”

Helen Fielding.

Bridget Jones’s Diary. The First Columns.

The Independent.

p18-p19

The Pirelli Calendar. Available on Amazon.com Click on image to buy.

I used this book for images when I was creating the characters for my BiBi novel.

It’s a beautiful celebration of the beauty of women.

It marks 40 years of the Pirelli calendar.

Women don’t find it offensive at all. All my girlfriends read this when they come to my house!

♥Ali.

This is an e-book from Dr. C. George Boeree. Click on image to read.

Dr. C. George Boeree originally wrote this e-book for his students at Shippensburg University, in Pennsylvania, and has made it available online, for free, to anyone who interested.

It’s very easy to read, and gives a brilliant background to the history of psychology, set in context.

I think it’s wonderful Dr. Boeree has posted such high quality material, which is available to people like myself, at no cost.

I also think we sometimes forget about the power of the internet and how brilliant it is that I can sit in my kitchen in London and access reliable, high quality, education from a University in Pennsylvania.

Thank You Dr. Boeree.

♥Ali.

Available on amazon.com Click on image to buy.

This translation of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching is by Ralph Alan Dale. I think it’s fantastic. In an earlier post I mention Timothy Freke’s translation and said it’s interesting to contrast and compare. So I’ll share the same verse again, verse 13, so you can see this author’s style.

13.

“Accolades can usher in

great trouble for your body.

Censure can herald misery.

Why can favour and disfavour

both be harmful?

Because both accolades and censure,

when filtered through self as ego,

always place us in jeopardy.

But when the universe becomes your self,

when you Love the world as yourself,

all reality becomes your haven,

reinventing you as your own Heaven.

Only then, will you transcend tense

to fully be here now.

Only then, no harm

will the universe proffer

nor you to her,

for you will be

not you but she

and both – the universal Great Integrity.”

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching

Verse 13

Translation by Ralph Alan Dale.

By Paul Wildish. Available on amazon.com Click on image to view/buy.

Some readers on amazon criticise this book in terms of accuracy. I found it a very useful and straightforward introduction to some of the Taoist concepts.

♥Ali

By James Redfield. Avaialable on amazon.com Click on image to view/buy.

I read this book years ago, when it first came out. I know it inspired me at the time, which is why I’m including it here. But when I was trying to categorise it, I realised I couldn’t really remember what it was about!

For those of you like me, who have forgotten, or for new readers this passage is from the Author’s Note: (In my old, paperback edition).

“For half a century now, a new consciousness has been entering the human world, a new awareness that can only be called transcendent, spiritual. If you find yourself reading this book, then perhaps you already sense what is happening, already feel it inside.

It begins with a heightened perception of the way our lives move forward. We notice those chance events that occur at just the right moment, and bring forth just the right individuals, to suddenly send our lives in a new and important direction. Perhaps more than any other people in any other time we intuit a higher meaning in these mysterious happenings.

We know life is really about a spiritual unfolding that is personal and enchanting – an unfolding that no science or philosophy or religion has yet fully clarified. And we know something else as well: we know that once we do understand what is happening, how to engage this allusive process and maximize it’s occurrence in our lives, human society will take a quantum leap into a whole new way of life – one that realizes the best of our tradition – and creates a culture that has been the goal of history all along.”

James Redfield

The Celestine Prophecy, p9

Having re-read this I might now go back and read the book again. Currently I agree with him, in the respect of a new awareness, most writers I read call it conscious living. I disagree with him on the bit about no science or philosophy or religion has fully clarified this. To my mind the teachings have always been there by the many great Spiritual Masters who have attained a conscious, or enlightened view. They are just different perspectives on the same theme. And to my mind, science has now evolved to such an extent we now know many of the answers. Psychology, for instance teaches us how the mind works, so we can fully understand the concept of ego. And science and religion/spirituality  (which teaches transcendence of ego) come together.

♥Ali.

By James Lovelock. Available on amazon.com Click on image to view/buy.