Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

“Putting the Mother Back in Mother Church”: A Review of Put the Blame on Eve: What Women Must Overcome to Feel Worthy, Melinda J. Rising, PhD (Larson Publications, 2010; larsonpublications.com). ISBN: 978-1-936012-47-3 Put the Blame on Eve is a survey of two at-first-glance distinct histories that have actually developed on parallel tracks—Christianity and Women’s Rights, and the book is organized accordingly. The first part is a thoroughly researched and fascinating history of the creation and codification of Christianity and women’s ill treatment at the hands of the Church’s founding fathers in their historical and persistent (mis)representations of Eve, Mary Mater, and Mary Magdalene. The second part is a report on the state of women’s status in modern society using the results from focus groups and Federal government departments and other reports. Rising’s treatment of the subject evolves from three primary sources: Joseph Campbell, Elaine Pagels, and Paul Johnson. Campbell’s work...

A couple of quick bits of business, and we’re off. 1. Euphiction is a new genre wherein authors create “literary covers” of songs. Although many writers have probably been doing this very thing for years, it is formalized by name in this anthology for the first time. 2. I edited the stories by N. Pendleton that appear in this collection. I can take no credit for the success of the stories, or the immense talent of their author. I merely cleaned up the edges… he did all the work. This excellent collection¬—“100 stories, 10 authors, 1 new genre” (plus an intro by Mike Dawson and an Afterword by Sean P. Murray¬) hints at the future of the short story. Longer, but just as visually rich, as flash fiction, these euphicational stories seek to reproduce the compressed narrative structure of the songs on which they were based. They read quickly and make a wide arc from ‘80s genre homage and fun-poking to deep, dark, and seedy. Most of the authors offer a microcosm of the larger variety, ...

“Daring to Be Audacious”: A Review of Richard G. Geldard’s Emerson and the Dream of America (Larson Publications, 2010, www.larsonpublications.com; ISBN 978-1-936012-46-4) As I write this review, the Republican party has just unveiled its new “Pledge to America,” similar to their 1994 Contract With America, which is an interesting and thought-provoking parallel to the title of this book, which, to me, is really two books in one, a notion I would like to explore up front and then move away from. Richard Geldard, an internationally known expert on the writings of R.W. Emerson, shares his subject’s passion for the state of America, including what is wrong, ideas on how to fix it, and who is to blame. While I agree in theory with much of what Geldard says in chapters such as “A Call to a Nation,” “A New Great Awakening,” “America as Opportunity,” and “Wealth and Economy” I feel compelled to warn the reader that Geldard puts the blame squarely on the Right-Wingers and Republicans and paint...

(Larson Publications, 1995) Lex Hixon was a fascinating individual. He studied five religions (he was an initiated Sufi Sheikh, a practicing member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and was about to be inducted as a priest in the Soto Zen order when he died in 1995) and published seven books. He received his doctorate in world religions from Columbia University. For 13 years he hosted WBAI’s “In the Spirit” radio program, during which time he interviewed both Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama. Living Buddha Zen is a commentary on Zen Master Keizan’s Denkoroku: The Record of Transmitting the Light, written in the fourteenth century. Like most Zen works, with their premise that “ultimately knowing nothing always eclipses knowing anything” (p. 13), this book, and no doubts its predecessor, can be a difficult and oftentimes frustrating read, considering as it does highly abstract concepts such as “nonduality,” “mind,” and “enlightenment,” but Hixon encourages the reader to stay with it wit...

“Walker Between the Worlds”: A Review of Timekeeper II, by John Atkinson (September 2010, Fisher King Press, www.fisherkingpress.com) ISBN: 978-1-926715-11-7 Thirteen months ago I had the opportunity to read and review Timekeeper, the prequel to this new work from author John Atkinson. In Timekeeper II, the protagonist, Johnnyboy/Timekeeper, continues the journey begun in the first book, although, because of his vision quest on the Sacred Mountain, he can now live up to his Native American–bestowed name and unfold his tale on multiple planes and through multiple blocks of time. This extra angle adds much to the second book, as Timekeeper, through his first-person narration, takes the reader back in time to experience events only hinted at in the first book. His experience of prejudice and intolerance from both sides of the family as a half-blood Indian are revealed in poignant vignettes, called up as Timekeeper makes a second journey in an effort to better understand his heritage and e...

“Walker Between the Worlds”: A Review of Timekeeper II, by John Atkinson (September 2010, Fisher King Press, www.fisherkingpress.com) ISBN: 978-1-926715-11-7 By Joey Madia Thirteen months ago I had the opportunity to read and review Timekeeper, the prequel to this new work from author John Atkinson. In Timekeeper II, the protagonist, Johnnyboy/Timekeeper, continues the journey begun in the first book, although, because of his vision quest on the Sacred Mountain, he can now live up to his Native American–bestowed name and unfold his tale on multiple planes and through multiple blocks of time. This extra angle adds much to the second book, as Timekeeper, through his first-person narration, takes the reader back in time to experience events only hinted at in the first book. His experience of prejudice and intolerance from both sides of the family as a half-blood Indian are revealed in poignant vignettes, called up as Timekeeper makes a second journey in an effort to better understand his ...

(forthcoming from CW Books, May 2010) Bobbi Lurie writes poetry that hurts. Grief Suite follows the decline and deaths of its subjects with unflinching honesty. From the sterile hospitals rooms and invasive procedures that fill them to the exposure of decaying family dynamics through the course of illness and its aftermath, Lurie takes the reader on a journey through guilt, anger, denial, accusation—aspects of the “five stages” so many counselors talk about. But after reading this collection of free-verse and prose poetry, the truth seems to be that when it comes to Grief, nothing is cut and dry enough to be categorized. It must be simply lived. Or, truer still—survived. The collection begins with “Traveling North,” a prose poem that uses strings of image-phrases that call to mind Kerouac’s Mexico City works and Burroughs’s cut-up style. The punctuation works like a drum beating the battle-rhythm before the carnage. (In a later poem she writes: “I fragment short prayers, picking at the...