essay series

In this review Caroline LeBlanc writes:

"What a WONDER full book! It is a picture book; a nursery rhyme; a love song; a repeating, gorgeous splash of color and an overview of what has been called 'the new cosmology.' Every sense is activated in the process of reading this book aloud — as it should be read, in the tradition of the author’s ancestral bards.

Endorsers write that it is a “winsome” …“cosmic canticle;” a “whimsical reverie” that is “provocative fun;” a “Dr. Suess for Adults”…in “the great oral traditions of storytelling.” I second all of the above, as well as Brian Swimme’s comment that “(o)ne can already imagine an entire generation of children lying in bed and listening to their parents as they read to them the mysterious story of where they came from in the midst of these one hundred billion galaxies.” And, I would add, one can imagine entire generations of parents and grandparents sharing the joy of the experience.

Varied and beautiful pictures grace the top of each page of text, drawing the reader into the mystery of the image and the rhythmic poetry on the bottom half the page. Each page of the ten (10) chapters--(averaging) 10 pages each--is coded with a distinctive visual image, nurturing the reader’s association between the cognitive context and visual images of the referent concept--and making it easy to locate one’s place in the book. The print is large, adding to the inviting feel of the copy itself. One has the holographic sense that the spaciousness of the universe is somehow replicated on each page.
 
What is the content of this “myth of our own?” It is the stuff of a cosmically oriented, individual ethic which “the new science” suggests is the only sensible attitude in the modern world. The Introduction ends with the naming of six (6) key concepts developed by mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme. Within this framework the next six (6) chapters expand our understanding of these dynamics of the universe in easy, down to earth metaphor and rhyme; naming and imaging each concept in turn: Allurement (spiral Milky Way); Sensitivity (waves of water breaking on the seashore); Memory (horizon view of repeating mountain ranges); Adventurous Play (astronaut on the moon); Unseen Shaping (the red flames of a roaring fire); and Celebration (flying hot air balloons). The next two (2) chapters — Good and Evil, and Death — refine the significance of the more abstract concepts for the day to day, human concerns of our time. The last chapter — Wrap Up — wraps things up.

My three (3) peeves are small. There is no table of contents. There is no index. And, though the picture sources are well credited, there are no references telling the curious where to search for more information on this intriguing perspective. However, these are frustrations only if you are a perennial “digger” like I am. And even then, there are enough cues for where to look next if one is really hungry for more — such as the work of Brian Swimme and many of the other endorsers as well as the individuals whose ideas are mentioned in the introduction.

So, to “Wrap Up” in the words of author, Robert Keller:

Now as we close this happy task,
  There are some questions we must ask.
Like how can people watch the sky,
  And never ask the question “Why?”
And how can people think they’re best,
  And have control of all the rest?...
And when will people ever learn
  To join the world, embrace her turn?...
 
The starry skies through luring shove
  Teach us that Cosmos’ made of Love.
The seas invite us to dissolve
  And be absorbed in Love’s resolve.
The memories now stored in land
  When realized help us expand.
The forms of life express surprise.
  Advent’rous play can vitalize.
The fire teaches proper way
  To move into creative play.
Then wind sums up what love wants done—
  “Just celebrate and live as one.”

-Caroline A. LeBlanc, MS, RN, CS
Wilderness Heart Workshops