The Red Book E-Book

Sera J. Beak

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 367

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The Red Book is nothing less than a spiritual fire starter -- a combustible cocktail of Hindu Tantra and Zen Buddhism, Rumi and Carl Jung, goddesses and psychics, shaken with cosmic nudges, meaningful subway rides, haircuts, relationships, sex, dreams, and intuition. Author Sera Beak's unique hybrid perspective, hilarious personal anecdotes, and invaluable exercises encourage her readers to live more consciously so they can start making clearer choices across the board, from careers to relationships, politics to pop culture and everything in between. For smart, gutsy, spiritually curious women whose colorful and complicated lives aren't reflected in most spirituality books, The Red Book is an open invitation to find your true self and start sharing that delicious truth with the world.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PREFACE: PRELUDE TO A KISS

Introduction

Losing My Religion

A Path with Heart

Let’s Lay This Puppy Out

CHAPTER 1 - Light the Match

CHAPTER 2 - The Beaming You Who

The Big G, with Breasts

Energy Is More Important Than Form

Who’s Your Daddy (or Mommy)?

CHAPTER 3 - Are You Really Gonna Eat That?

Gorging at the Spiritual Buffet

Chocolate Chip Cookies and Broccoli

Follow Your Heart, Not Your Ego

There’s Something About Mary

The Outsiders

Miz Appropriation

Let Divinity Disco

CHAPTER 4 - Sacred Lipstick and Cosmic Lattes

Booking Red

From Toothpaste to Nightclubs

Spin Your Prayers

Being the Wonder That You Are

CHAPTER 5 - Catapult Your Inner Waitress

Ritualize Your Self

Catapult Your Inner Waitress

Altar Your Self

Here’s Looking at You, Kid

CHAPTER 6 - Divine Winks

Answer My Damn Prayer Already

Connecting the Dots

This Will Totally Freak You Out

I Am So Not Worthy

Sign Language

Is That a Divine Sign or Just a Parking Ticket?

Your Lucky Number

Not Another Butterfly Tattoo

Natural Elements

The Loud Annoying Crow in the Park

My Perfect Shade of Red

It’s a Sign of Dependency

CHAPTER 7 - Dream On

Dreams Past

Carl Rocks While Sigmund Rolls

Do You Individuate?

Where Did You Go Last Night?

Dream Catcher

Leave Your Village

CHAPTER 8 - Peeling Your Onion

Your Skin May Stink

Strip Teasing Your Self

Mind Fck

Accept Your Self

You Cannot Force a Rose to Bloom

CHAPTER 9 - When Sparks Fly

Believe Me, You Need to Know You

Get Over Your Self

CHAPTER 10 - Breaking the Rules

Breaking Your Own Traditions

CHAPTER 11 - Open Up and Say Ahhh

Frisky Deities

Sex Is Sin, Woman Is Sex

Dutiful Orgasms

The Other Side of the Cosmic Bed

Tantra Unites

Turn Your Self On

A Whole Bunch of Sex Questions

Temple Yourself to Find Your Self

Jade Stalks and Lotus Flowers

Body Wise

CHAPTER 12 - Sitting Down and Shutting Up

Become More Buddha-full

My First (But Not My Last) Zen Spanking

Monkey Mind

Opening Your Present

What Shuts You Up?

Practice Makes Perfect

Just Be It

De-tach

But Mr. Whiskers Needs Me

Spiritual Hang-Ups

Flow Away

CHAPTER 13 - Know That You Know

Do You Know What I Know?

Imagine All the People

That’s Not a Bestseller with Me

Dare to Know

Help, I Think My Intuition Is Broken

Read Me

This Is Not a Whim

Mission Possible

Role Playing

CHAPTER 14 - Keep Your Self Buzzing

You Must Play with Puppies

Force of Life

CHAPTER 15 - The Joke’s on Us

No Laughter? No Heaven

Let There Be Gas

CHAPTER 16 - Roar

JUDGE A BOOK BY WHAT YOU UNCOVER: RESOURCES TO KEEP YOU BLAZING

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acknowledgments

THE AUTHOR

What People Are Saying aboutThe Red Book

“GORGEOUS! The Red Book is a deep, smart, and authentic guide to being more indelibly and powerfully yourself.”

—SARK, author/artist, Succulent Wild Woman

“Beak’s vision is a modern, femme fatale spirituality. The book lives up to its ‘unorthodox’ subtitle, advocating that young women search for the spiritual in all things.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Every so often there comes our way a glorious chunk of life so utterly unique that even the jaded blink twice. The Red Book is just such a chunk, gloriously dropped out of the mind of Sera Beak as a special message for today’s contemporary woman in the language of just such a woman, placing before us the wisdom of the ages. From gentle meditation to bouncing sexuality and much in between, the path to personal rejuvenation through the enlivening of the heart, mind, and spirit is laid out in such refreshing, sparkling, effervescent words that what results is a psychic shower for the soul. Get naked, get in, get wet. You’ll never feel as clean.”

—Neale Donald Walsch, author, Conversations with God

“The Red Book wrests spirituality from the death grip of the humorless believers and restores it to its wild natural state. If you’re hungry for real magic but allergic to self-righteous jive, sit yourself down at this feast.”

—Rob Brezsny, syndicated columnist, Free Will Astrology

“Smart, stylish, divine! I love this hip guide to exploring your creative spirituality. If you’ve ever hoped and prayed that there’s more to life than shopping, dating, and dieting, you’re going to dig this book.”

—Cameron Tuttle, author, The Bad Girl’s Guide to Getting What You Want

“Don’t be fooled. This book may taste like a juicy pomegranate, but what’s really going on here is nothing short of a revolution. Sera Beak’s radical call is for young women to start believing in themselves, to trust and use their innate spiritual authority, and to understand that authentic power can never come from anything or anyone else. Beak writes out of her years of academic study, her participation in diverse spiritual practices from the East and West, and importantly, her personal and intuitive experience. Beak’s knowledge is far-reaching. Her lightness of being is worth taking seriously.”

—China Galland, professor, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California; author, The Bond between Women and Longing for Darkness

“Particularly timely . . . Sera Beak has a beautiful gift of writing that turns sometimes difficult material into simple—but not simplistic—anecdotes for living a more profound life. This is a wise and wonderful book that reminds young women that life is not a rehearsal but rather a magnificent spiritual journey to be lived and experienced to the fullest. Read this book but, more importantly, apply it!”

—Baron Baptiste, renowned yoga teacher, educator; author, Journey into Power

“Sera Beak’s Red Book is a woman-wise, grrl power, rosy red and unabashed, hands-on road guide to grabbing our relationship with enlightenment by the scruff and riding it hard, all the way to ecstasy.”

—LaSara W. FireFox, sexual r/evolutionary; author, Sexy Witch

Copyright © 2006 by Sera Beak. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.josseybass.com

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Rumi, J., The Essential Rumi, (C. Barks with J. Moyne, A. J. Arberry, R. Nicholson, trans.). San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995. Used by permission of Coleman Barks.

Tom Robbins, Esquire, Oct. 1993. Used by permission of Tom Robbins.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beak, Sera, date.

The red book: a deliciously unorthodox approach to igniting your divine spark / Sera Beak.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7879-8054-2 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-7879-8054-4 (pbk.)

1. Spiritual life. I. Title. BL624.B393 2006

204’.4—dc22

2006006224

For Grandmother and Grandfather Beak: A Catholic and a Jew who taught me that love knows no boundaries, that exploring this wondrous world is a necessity, and never to underestimate the power of a good pun

PREFACE: PRELUDE TO A KISS

Do you ever get that funny feeling, slightly surreal and disorienting, maybe late at night or early in the morning, maybe right before lunchtime or perhaps when your friends are chatting, a lover is changing, a job is droning, or a TV is flickering, a feeling that there’s something more than all of this? That you are more than all of this? That perhaps life is more purposeful and magical than you give it credit for, and never mind all your unpaid parking tickets and bad work days that seem to prove otherwise?

You do? Me, too. As does your best friend, your boss, and your weird neighbor. As do Russian rocket scientists, Belgian sheep farmers, and the Dalai Lama. The feeling is, in fact, universal.

So, what is this funny feeling? Sure, you could explain it away as some Freudian childhood glitch or planetary retrograde or even some of last night’s margaritas coming up for an encore. But more likely, it’s something a bit more profound. Chances are it’s a coy catcall from the universe, disguised as existential angst. It’s the divine ringing your inner doorbell. It’s your higher self, stealing the spotlight. It’s your potential, aching to be realized, and your spirit, itching to be scratched. So then the question becomes, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to explore this feeling? Are you willing to open the door? Are you willing to refocus your lens?

If the answer is yes, here’s a book that can help. True, it’s a book about spirituality, but it’s probably not like anything you’ve read before. It’s been created with you and me in mind. Just being real. Just being our true selves. Just being. So let’s get started.

INTRODUCTION: WAKE UP

When sleeping women wake, mountains move.

—CHINESE PROVERB

Are you aware of the rather radical fact that, in truth, not only are you naturally spiritual but you are actually divine? Yes, you, young lady. And you need to start acting like it. Most of us have probably heard some variant of the old “you are divine” cliché. It’s a nice, catchy spiritual phrase that gets some people off a bit, a cute little bumper sticker on your soul’s VW. Let’s keep the mystical meaning but lose the sappy cuteness. Let’s undress this most flirtatious of phrases.

Like it or not, if you are alive, then you are spiritual. Let me repeat: If you exist, you can’t not be spiritual. But you can be unaware of this fact, deny it, forget it, take it for granted, hide from it, limit it. It’s all too easy, given the general chaos of the world, from religious dogma to political turmoil to relentless fashion trends to ruthless media messages, to feel detached from such an empowering suggestion, to ignore your true makeup, to inhibit your remarkable potential, and to keep your sight dim, your life experience at a low heat, devoid of any yummy sacred sizzle.