- Jeans at work
- Mostly hid in my office and got stuff done. Moods were umm... unhappy around the office today thanks to another flare of soap opera drama, so I quietly mostly stuck to my office and was quite productive as a result of looking to avoid getting caught in the flaring tempers
- Costco with Mom tonight - not my favorite place, but the one advantage of living with Grandma is freezer space, so I bought a few things I haven't eaten regularly since I moved out of Mom and Dad's house years back and didn't have freezer space anymore except for the mini fridge freezer
- Dinner at Mom and Dad's - grilled pork loin
- Caught up on Grey's again
- Mom and Dad loaned me a car overnight, to let me do some errands in the morning and then make it to and from my massage appointment without needing 4 or 5 different buses
- Started a new audio book that I'm also enjoying
- It's the weekend!
- peanut M&M's
- A soft throw blanket wrapped around me in bed.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Daily 5 - Day 212
Today's Daily 5:
The Horse Boy
The day before yesterday I finished listening to an audio book that captured my attention fully for the week and a half or so of afternoon commutes that it took to work my way through it's contents.
The book? "The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son" by Rupert Isaacson.
The Chapters website offers this synopsis of the book: "When his son Rowan was diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson was devastated, afraid he might never be able to communicate with his child. But when Isaacson, a lifelong horseman, rode their neighbor''s horse with Rowan, Rowan improved immeasurably. He was struck with a crazy idea: why not take Rowan to Mongolia, the one place in the world where horses and shamanic healing intersected?
THE HORSE BOY is the dramatic and heartwarming story of that impossible adventure. In Mongolia, the family found undreamed of landscapes and people, unbearable setbacks, and advances beyond their wildest dreams. This is a deeply moving, truly one-of-a-kind story--of a family willing to go to the ends of the earth to help their son, and of a boy learning to connect with the world for the first time."
I found the book fascinating and just a bit disturbing. Mental health, of course is a topic I have long been intrigued by, as is healing, and I love horses, though rarely do I get the chance to ride or be around them. The idea of travel and pilgrimage is also close to my heart, and this book combined all of those elements.
However, I do admit that I find myself somewhat disturbed in my world-view, as one deeply sensitive to spiritual things, when I pause to consider the healing that Isaacson's son found as a result of the Shamanic ceremonies. I've believed for a number of years now that healing is possible through an intervention of the supernatural, but had never really paused to consider healing as a result of spiritual forces that I, as a Christian, would consider to be "dark" or "evil."
There were times, too, over the course of listening to this book, that, given my great sensitivity to the spiritual realm, I seriously considered setting the book aside. These moments came particularly during the descriptions of the various shamanic rituals.
I'm left struck again by the power of the spirit realm, and thinking about the ideas of evil masquerading as good. The grey areas.
The book was compellingly written, and Isaacson reads well, with the added plus of a British accent tempered by years in other places.
Wrapping up a review like this is the hardest part, especially when I am left with much to process, as in this case. If I'm honest, I was most definitely rooting for Rowan to be healed, but I would have preferred other means than a series of shamanic rituals. I sympathized with the struggles of Isaacson and his wife in parenting their severely autistic son. And I was left with much to consider in terms of the impact of the spirit realm, and the grey areas the book stirred in the area of my thought on what is "good" and what is "evil".
The book? "The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son" by Rupert Isaacson.
The Chapters website offers this synopsis of the book: "When his son Rowan was diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson was devastated, afraid he might never be able to communicate with his child. But when Isaacson, a lifelong horseman, rode their neighbor''s horse with Rowan, Rowan improved immeasurably. He was struck with a crazy idea: why not take Rowan to Mongolia, the one place in the world where horses and shamanic healing intersected?
THE HORSE BOY is the dramatic and heartwarming story of that impossible adventure. In Mongolia, the family found undreamed of landscapes and people, unbearable setbacks, and advances beyond their wildest dreams. This is a deeply moving, truly one-of-a-kind story--of a family willing to go to the ends of the earth to help their son, and of a boy learning to connect with the world for the first time."
I found the book fascinating and just a bit disturbing. Mental health, of course is a topic I have long been intrigued by, as is healing, and I love horses, though rarely do I get the chance to ride or be around them. The idea of travel and pilgrimage is also close to my heart, and this book combined all of those elements.
However, I do admit that I find myself somewhat disturbed in my world-view, as one deeply sensitive to spiritual things, when I pause to consider the healing that Isaacson's son found as a result of the Shamanic ceremonies. I've believed for a number of years now that healing is possible through an intervention of the supernatural, but had never really paused to consider healing as a result of spiritual forces that I, as a Christian, would consider to be "dark" or "evil."
There were times, too, over the course of listening to this book, that, given my great sensitivity to the spiritual realm, I seriously considered setting the book aside. These moments came particularly during the descriptions of the various shamanic rituals.
I'm left struck again by the power of the spirit realm, and thinking about the ideas of evil masquerading as good. The grey areas.
The book was compellingly written, and Isaacson reads well, with the added plus of a British accent tempered by years in other places.
Wrapping up a review like this is the hardest part, especially when I am left with much to process, as in this case. If I'm honest, I was most definitely rooting for Rowan to be healed, but I would have preferred other means than a series of shamanic rituals. I sympathized with the struggles of Isaacson and his wife in parenting their severely autistic son. And I was left with much to consider in terms of the impact of the spirit realm, and the grey areas the book stirred in the area of my thought on what is "good" and what is "evil".
News to No One
The results of this quiz will be news to no one who knows me, but they made me laugh a little, so I thought I'd share them anyway.
You Are a Thinker |
 You are a dreamer and an idealist. You are much more concerned with how things should be than how they actually are. You believe that what people do is much more important to what people say. You take careful notice of everyone's actions. You tend to be quite rational. You try to think with a clear head, and you don't like it when your emotions get the better of you. You confront challenges head on. You actually enjoy solving problems - even when they seem impossible. |
Brownies for Breakfast
I slept pretty well, for me anyway, so it was surprising in those moments upon waking when I realized that I had a very bad headache, and that every muscle in my neck and back that I'd injured in the car accident and fall down the stairs, after a week or two of seemingly benign behaviour, had tightened painfully.
Ibuprofen and a heat pack are the order of the day as I sit in my office today.
And because I was feeling just a little bit miserable, I had brownies for breakfast. With a cup of pomegranate green tea. Because caffeine is supposed to be good for the headache, and chocolate eases most woes in life.
And with that, I have much to tackle today - hoping to have a day that is productive like yesterday, but demonstrably with checkmarks on my to do lists.
Ibuprofen and a heat pack are the order of the day as I sit in my office today.
And because I was feeling just a little bit miserable, I had brownies for breakfast. With a cup of pomegranate green tea. Because caffeine is supposed to be good for the headache, and chocolate eases most woes in life.
And with that, I have much to tackle today - hoping to have a day that is productive like yesterday, but demonstrably with checkmarks on my to do lists.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
