Naomi Klein Archives - the Numinous

SOUL FOOD #2: A NUMINOUS READING LIST FOR 2015

Posted on January 22, 2015November 5, 2018 by Ruby Warrington

Feed your mind, and the rest will follow…The 16 books in this Numinous reading list are guaranteed to rock your worldview, heal your life, and feed your soul.

:: Ruby Warrington ::
“As soon as I heard about Russell Brand’s Revolution, I knew I had to read it. I’m a bit obsessed with how Russell has reinvented himself, and gone from ridiculous if charismatic addict and Hollywood wannabe, to bone fide Now Age guru – it reeks of a genuine spiritual awakening. His experience of this, told through the filter of his pop culture background, his intelligence, and with his entertaining way with words, is positioning him as one of the voices with the potential to really cause a shift in consciousness at a very mainstream level. The book is every bit as brilliant as I’d hoped, as entertaining as it is profound and agitating.”

:: Erin Telford ::
“Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing by Caroline Myss was the first game changer for me. I read it in high school. I grew up in a total hippie household and we would get crystal therapy when we were sick and my parents had a guru, so this lifestyle was very comfortable to me but it wasn’t something that I had consciously chosen. It was just what I knew from my family. When I read Anatomy of the Spirit it was my first personal connection to the idea that we could heal our own bodies and that the Western medical system wasn’t the only model…was in fact a very poor and deficient model for healing. The concept of “dis-ease” blew my mind wide open because it just made so much sense. It opened me up to the vastness of what we could do as individuals to self heal.”

:: Alexandra Roxo ::
“The book Be Here Now changed my life greatly at age 19. I saw that this world was merely a TV screen, a matrix of lights, all a constructed illusion, and how everything works together. I learned about food, karma, God…and something clicked. The knowledge Ram Dass spoke touched my soul and awakened existing wisdom within my heart. It was the first major awakening I had, and I remember thinking: “YES. Finally.” In 2014 I decided to listen to all of his talks on my iPhone and was re-inspired,10 years later.”

:: Erica Jago ::
“What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, my dear friend who is a therapist and shaman. He shared the poem, “The Invitation,” with me and I wept. It was the first time I acknowledged and felt my own depth, and from that point forward my own personal healing began.”

:: Madeline Giles ::
“The Master’s Touch: On Being a Sacred Teacher for the New Age by Yogi Bhajan. Yogi Bhajan was not a man. He was an avatar in a human suit – I guess we all are in some sense, but Yogi Bhajan was wide awake to it and the technology he transmitted to us is guaranteed (with consistent practice) to make you happy, healthy, and holy. Need I say more?”

:: Dani Katz ::
“Right Use of Will: Healing and Evolving the Emotional Body. Hands down. No question. Right Use of Will came into my life several years ago, when I was heavily into ayahuasca, and tons of shamanic endeavors. It’s a channelled book – supposedly straight from the mouth of God – that lays out right and aligned third chakra relating. I take all channelled material with a grain of salt, but this book vibes high and true, and resonates on way too many levels for me to NOT take it to heart. It’s all about power – personal power, relational power, cultural power – what constitutes a distortion, and what serves the individual and the collective together. Since reading it, I move through life with a very clear certainty about how to exercise my own personal power with others and the world at large, while also being clear as to when others are out of line in how they are wielding their power with me/the world. It has since smoothed out my every human relationship, because I am clear as to what is right relating, as regards to will, and what isn’t. Armed with this knowledge, I know immediately when others are overcompensating for an underdeveloped third chakra, and can thus engage them in ways that support their empowerment.”

:: Sarah Hay ::
“This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas, and When A Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save Mankind — Or Destroy It by Jonathan Watts – these three books changed my life in 2014, and I believe that until people have read the information contained in them they will be functioning from a place of confusion, unknowing ignorance and powerlessness. Every single world event we are seeing today, from recent events of extremism in Paris, Nigeria and Syria, to extreme weather flashes in Gaza and the Philippines and water shortages in Yemen, plus extreme energy extraction in Canada, the US and the UK are all connected. We have the power to change everything, and climate is the one issue that’s teaching me this every single day.

:: Betsy Cohen ::
The book I feel every women should read is Make Every Man Want You by Marie Forleo. Marie is a huge hearted genius. Not many people know that this book exists, and when I read it I thought: “This is everything that I’ve been channelling through readings (in my work as a professional psychic medium) for the past four years about relationships all in one place!” I always tell people I hate the title but LOVE the book.”

:: Sarah Durham Wilson ::
“Shortly after my awakening four years ago, I remember being in a bath tub on a horse farm on Martha’s Vineyard and reading Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book), and watching my life change in the air around me. A wonderful human handbook, for certain.”

:: Jennifer Kass ::
“A Course In Miracles. I always tell my clients it’s the template for reality. After knowing the basic spiritual truth that only love is real and fear is an illusion, we can drop everything we hear, think, learn into that template and know what’s real and what’s false, what will best serve us and what will not. Discovering the truth of reality freed me from fear and activated my own ancient love and knowledge within and allowed me to step into my divine life mission and become who I really am.”

:: Victoria Keen ::
“It would have to be…The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality. I discovered it a couple years ago in my studies about Sound and the nature of reality, and it is a thorough and fascinating investigation into the gaping blind spots in modern science. It brings to light, in a very succinct and easily comprehensible way, a scientific paradigm for truly understanding our connectivity and the power our thoughts have on shaping ‘physical reality’. This books lays the ground work for all energetic medicine, and I am so grateful it exists!”

:: Raquel Griffin ::
“HANDS DOWN, Marianne Williamson’s The Law of Divine Compensation: On Work, Money, and Miracles. I discovered it a little over a year ago and it totally changed my life…..it’s the definition of a GAME-CHANGER. This book completely redefined how I thought about money, work – and miracles for that matter. Marianne clearly illuminates the spiritual aspect of money (i.e. that money and spirit are linked), which is absolutely key to understanding and ultimately breaking the lack cycle. I honestly believe if every human lived by the concepts she elucidates in this book, our world would be a VERY different place.”

:: Sophie Teakle ::
“Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. I have listened to this more than once as a recording, and find new meanings every time. I’m also in the process of rereading The Kybalion which has such astounding depth and profundity I know it will be at my side for a life time, its meanings changing as I too grow and evolve.”

:: Laurie Di Biagio ::
“The Alchemist. 18 months ago, this book opened my eyes to my own purpose – the fact that I too was on my own personal pilgrimage to the pyramids. That life is lived through the heart, not the head. And that what the heart tells you…you must follow. It came to be at the exact time it was meant to, as weeks later I embarked on a life of entrepreneurship.”

A STORY OF ASTROLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Posted on January 16, 2015November 5, 2018 by Ruby Warrington

Is Astrology helping tell the story of human responses to climate change? With Saturn in Sagittarius and a scary new deadline to cut fossil fuel emissions, it’s time to pick each pilgrimage wisely, says Ruby Warrington. Images: Mariano Peccinetti

So this was going to be a post about how to use astrocartography to plan your vacations and retreats in 2015. Astrocartography is the practise of placing your birth chart over a map of the world, to see where the different planets hold the most influence for you – which is obviously completely fascinating, and I urge you to download your map here STAT!

But then I started reading Naomi Klein’s climate change manifesto This Changes Everything – and it’s become a story about how air miles feel like my most guilty pleasure.

Scanning my mind for my very favorite, most life defining memories, so many of them were made following the burning of a shit-tonne of fossil fuels – like the time I travelled to Greece as a moody adolescent, and got to experience another culture first hand for the first time. Or to Ibiza as a happy-go-lucky rave babe in my twenties, and to Miami to marry my husband, just the two of us, nervous and giggling like teenagers in the garden at the Delano hotel.

These are the memoires that exist in 3D Technicolor for me, aromas, emotions and all, and I had been fully intending to create many, many more in 2015. I’ve already booked a trip down to the Bahamas to swim with dolphins in February, which, considering I have a life-long phobia of snorkelling (I am a human, last time I checked I am not equipped for breathing underwater) I’m anticipating will be a game-changer for me.

Then there’s Lauren and Joe’s wedding in London in March (my biggest matchmaking success story), and the big ol’ Santa-Fe-to-Big-Sur road-trip I’ve been loosely fantasizing about.

But since This Changes Everything, I’m beginning to relate to the part of my mind that continues to think it’s totally okay to jump on a plane somewhere every other month like that creepy, morally corrupt dude Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. There is shame, and there is a degree of disgust.

In her book, Klein says it’s our collective “climate change denial” (i.e. continuing to jump on planes places every other month) that means we’re currently facing a situation where, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA): “If we do not get our emissions under control by 2017 our fossil fuel economy will ‘lock in’ extremely dangerous warming.”

By “lock in,” they mean seal the deal on irreversible changes to our global climate, which could trigger completely devastating environmental disasters on an as yet unimaginable scale – the trailer for which disaster movie has already begun playing on a loop.

Klein’s manifesto makes for scary but what feels like essential reading. Relating to the 28% of fossil fuel consumption attributed to the transportation industry, it’s also got me thinking about Saturn, planet of harsh life lessons, restriction and karma, recently having stationed in globe-trotting, happy-go-lucky Sagittarius. Where it will remain until – you guessed it – December 19 2017, a.k.a. pretty much D-day on potential environmental Armageddon. Which suggests that the next three years are about a stern approach to re-thinking our attitudes to why, when and how we travel.

Wow, it sucks being stuck in this materialistic human suit sometimes. At the center of my being, my soul intelligence can be finally waking up to the fact that it’s time for some RADICAL FREAKING CHANGES, but still my physical body will argue; “not quite yet though, yeah? Swimming with those dolphins is seriously gonna rock your world…”

The hard-core environmentalists will argue that there is no room, or time, for compromise. But the Titanic won’t turn on a dime. Which is an interesting metaphor in itself, considering it’s also been predicted that a rise in sea levels resulting from the disintegration of the West antarctic ice sheet (due to global warming) could wipe out coastal metropolis’ like New York, LA and London by 2100.

And I know, I KNOW. But how about, for now (really though, NOW), we commit to only travel for true pilgrimage. It’s an idea that’s also in keeping with Saturn in Sag, the notion that our journeys must have real purpose, and if it meant we all took just one trip a year instead of five, wouldn’t that be going some way towards meeting the IEA’s 2017 targets? As for all those business trips, the jaunts across continents for meetings that really need to take place face-to-face…um, isn’t that why we invented Skype?

As always, writing and thinking about environmental issues makes me feel like a total hypocrite and also extremely naive (you too, I know, which is why it feels so much nicer to just keep looking the other way), because of course I’ll be going to that wedding. Obviously a trip to Berlin to meet my new nephew this summer counts as a pilgrimage too, right? And actually, isn’t this all just too little, too late?

But as a mere human, a microscopic particle in the organism of our collective Earthly consciousness, I have no real choice but to believe that even the one, or two, or three trips I choose not to take this year will make a difference. A theory that only really works if I’m not the only one making those choices.

So then how to choose the journeys that are really worth waiting for? A while ago I had my astrocartography chart read by a British astrologer called Zoe Hind. It’s all way too complicated for me to explain in detail here, but below is a map of my chart to give you an idea.

The different colored lines represent the planets, and the labels at the top and bottom – “MC, IC, AS, DS” – show their highest and lowest points, as well as where they are ascending and descending. The idea being that a planet ascending over a certain country means it’s influence will be strengthened there. The reverse if it’s descending. So where there are lots of lines, shows where in the world there is the most cosmic potential for you.

Thinking in terms of my personal and spiritual growth (i.e. “pilgrimage”), this looks a lot like Hawaii, South America, Africa, Scandinavia, and Russia / Tibet. None of which have factored in my travels to date. But with cosmic healer Chiron strong over the Pacific, Hawaii could be the ideal location for a solo retreat, says Zoe – opposed to a group trip, as Uranus, planet of group activity, is also at it lowest there.

South America, the Amazon in particular, is where my Sun, Venus, Mercury and Chiron, all in my fourth house of family roots, are “going to sleep.” The interpretation? “If you were going to have an; ‘I want to get away from myself, change my mind and challenge my core beliefs in a group scenario’ sort of trip, then obviously South America is looking very strong. Because the planets in your 11th house of groups (Uranus, North Node) are also lit up.” Which sounds about right for the ayahuasca experience in Peru I’ve got scheduled for somewhere around age 50.

As for putting my money where my mouth is for now though, and simply staying put? When I moved to New York from London in 2012, I had a visceral sense of destiny itself kicking me out of my comfort zone and into a new life across the Atlantic.

And wouldn’t you know, my Sun, the essence of my being, and Moon, representing my instincts and subconscious mind, meet high up in the sky, directly above this dirty, dramatic, endangered city. It’s my three-year anniversary next month, and the internal pilgrimage I’ve been on here has created some of my most momentous life milestones of all. So this year I commit to making lots more of those, RIGHT HERE.

Discover more about Zoe Hind’s astrology at AstroZo.com

Read more about This Changes Everything

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