DESCRIPTION:
This anthology is filled with short stories and essays, poems and quotes that
can touch your heart, turn your head, clarify your vision, and tickle your fancy.
A glance at the contents reveals the wide range of living touched on: tears
and laughter, wisdom and foolishness, dreaming and action, knowledge and ignorance,
thinking and feeling, loving and purpose, anguish and gratitude, separation
and connection, mistakes and perfection, certainty and mystery, good and evil,
aging and dying, mind and spirit. All of these are stepping stones on the path
of discovering what it means to be a fully human being.
EXCERPTS:
Choose life-
Only that
And always
And at whatever risk.
To let life leak out
To let it wear away
By the mere passage of time
To withhold giving it and spreading it
Is to choose nothing.
--Sister Mary Corita Kent
Napoleon and the Furrier
During Napoleon's invasion of Russia, his troops were battling in the middle
of yet another small town in that endless wintry land, when he was accidentally
separated from his men. A group of Russian Cossacks spotted him, and began chasing
him through the twisting streets. Napoleon ran for his life, and ducked into
a little furrier's shop on a side alley. As Napoleon entered the shop, gasping
for breath, he saw the furrier and cried piteously, "Save me, save me! Where
can I hide?" The furrier said "Quick, under this big pile of furs in the corner,"
and covered Napoleon up with many furs.
No sooner had he finished when the Russian Cossacks burst in the door, shouting
"Where is he? We saw him come in." Despite the furrier's protests, they tore
his shop apart trying to find Napoleon. They poked into the pile of furs with
their swords, but didn't find him. Soon they gave up and left.
After some time, Napoleon crept out from under the furs, unharmed, just as Napoleon's
personal guards came in the door. The furrier turned to Napoleon and said timidly,
"Excuse me for asking this question of such a great man, but what was it like
to be under those furs, knowing that the next moment would surely be your last?"
Napoleon drew himself up to his full height, and said to the furrier indignantly,
"How could you ask such a question of me, the emperor Napoleon!! Guards, take
this impudent man out, blindfold him, and execute him. I, myself, will personally
give the command to fire!"
The guards grabbed the poor furrier, dragged him outside, stood him up against
a wall, and blindfolded him. The furrier could see nothing, but he could hear
the movements of the guards as they slowly shuffled into a line and prepared
their rifles. He could hear the soft ruffling sound of his clothing in the cold
wind, and he felt it tugging gently at his clothes and chilling his cheeks,
and the uncontrollable trembling in his legs. Then he heard Napoleon clear his
throat and call out slowly, "Ready,...aim...." In that moment, knowing that
even these few sensations were about to be taken from him forever, a feeling
that he couldn't describe welled up in him, and tears poured down his cheeks.
After a long period of silence, the furrier heard footsteps approaching him,
and the blindfold was stripped from his eyes. Still partially blinded by the
sudden sunlight, he saw Napoleon's eyes looking deeply and intently into his
own--eyes that seemed to see into every dusty corner of his being. Then Napoleon
said softly, "Now you know."
--Steve and Connirae Andreas (with thanks to Greg Brodsky)
Heaven and Hell
The old monk sat by the side of the road. With his eyes closed and his legs
crossed and his hands folded in his lap, he sat. In deep meditation, he sat.
Suddenly his zazen was interrupted by the harsh and demanding voice of a samurai
warrior. "Old man! Teach me about Heaven and Hell!"
At first, as though he had not heard, there was no perceptible response from
the monk. But gradually, he began to open his eyes, the faintest hint of a smile
playing around the corners of his mouth as the samurai stood there waiting ...
impatient ... growing more and more agitated with each passing second.
"You would know the secrets of Heaven and Hell?" replied the monk at last. "You
who are so unkempt. You whose hands and feet are covered with dirt. You whose
hair is uncombed, whose breath is foul, whose sword is all rusty and neglected.
You who are ugly and whose mother dresses you funny. You would ask me of Heaven
and Hell?"
The samurai uttered a vile curse. He drew his sword and raised it high above
his head. His face turned to crimson, the veins on his neck stood out in bold
relief as he prepared to sever the monk's head from its shoulders.
"That is Hell," said the old monk gently, just as the sword began its descent.
In that fraction of a second, the samurai was overcome with amazement, awe,
compassion, and love for this gentle being who had dared to risk his very life
to give him such a teaching. He stopped his sword in mid-flight and his eyes
filled with grateful tears.
"And that," said the monk, "is Heaven."
--Father John W. Groff, Jr.
REVIEWS:
"The perfect book for the
'90s. You can read it all in one sitting or, if you are as busy as I am this
decade, a bit at a time. Some of it will delight you, some of it will move you.
Like reading the I Ching, you'll find just the gem of wisdom or solace you need
whenever you pick it up."
Bill O'Hanlon, therapist and author
"I loved this book. I find myself going back to it over and over for new insights
and awareness. It has taken up permanent residence on the night stand next to
my bed."
Jack Canfield, co-author, Chicken Soup for the Soul
"Ninety percent of the selections in this book you will not find in any other
anthology. If you love anthologies--or if you are even mildly tolerant of them--you
have no choice but to buy this book."
Hugh and Gayle Prather, authors, I Will Never Leave You and A Book for Couples
"This new book is a humble yet profound offering to us all--humble in the sense
that it draws not only on the author's wisdom, but celebrates the truth that
'No one is smarter than all of us,' and profound in his rich and varied selections
of inspiring wisdom from around the world and across the ages."
Dan Millman, author, Way of the Peaceful Warrior and The Laws of Spirit
"Steve Andreas' gift is to see the essence and then embrace it. In this book
he opens his arms to share with us what he has found. And what you will find
on every page is the beat of the human heart."
David Gordon, author, Therapeutic Metaphors
"This is an absolutely gorgeous book. The mosaic of selections weaves a tapestry
of beauty and encouragement, and wipes away the dust of everyday living."
Stephen Gilligan, author, Therapeutic Trances
AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY:
Steve Andreas has been involved
in the human potential movement since the early 1960s, when he studied with
Abraham Maslow, and later Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy. In the 1970s he and
his wife Connirae began to learn about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Over
the past twenty years they have written three books about NLP and edited four
others by the original co-developers, Richard Bandler and John Grinder. They
have developed a number of NLP patterns, for helping people reach greater well-being
and wholeness. They live in the foothills of the Colorado mountains with their
three teenage sons.
AUTHOR'S COMMENTS:
In the cliff dwellings of
the desert southwest, the red sandstone walls and ceilings often bear muddy
handprints, mute testimony to the people who labored there a thousand years
ago. Protected from wind and rain--the messengers of time-each detail is as
clear as if the hands had placed them yesterday. Why did someone pause from
bonding stone with mud to leave these prints?
In the white limestone caves of Lascaux, in France, are outlines of hands made
by spraying pigment through a straw while a hand was held flat against the wall.
These hands paused not from building walls, but from creating marvelous images
of the large animals that sustained their lives--horses, deer, and bison. Working
by torchlight, deep underground, why did these hands pause to leave images of
themselves, some 30,000 years ago? Although we can only guess, perhaps those
handprints are saying quietly, "I was here; I lived."
The handprints in this book are made with words, rather than mud or pigment.
Before I move on, I want to leave behind some bits of what I have learned, and
to preserve the words of others that have moved me and sustained me on my journey--in
the hope that those who come after might find some of them useful. Buckminster
Fuller said it well:
"What do I know about what I am, what each of us is? And I went back very quickly
to the realization of humanity being born naked, helpless, ignorant--being hungry
and thirsty and curious, to drive us to learn by trial and error. We have to
make an enormous number of mistakes to get anywhere. We haven't any idea how
long it took to get words, so that we could help each other with information
that we had been learning from our mistakes. It was only about 8,000 years ago
that writing was invented so that those who were dead could tell the living
what they had found out."
I chose the title for this book over twenty years ago, and I have been collecting
favorite stories, quotes, and poems for at least twice that span. One of the
nicest compliments I've received was when a friend of mine said, "I think of
you as my bloodhound; the things you sniff out have usually been things I want
to know about." When I have not found others' words to speak for me, I have
done my best to set down my own thoughts. The words in this book are those that
have touched me, opened me to beauty, or reminded me of truths forgotten. As
Barry Lopez writes, in Crow and Weasel:
"The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come
to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes
a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these
stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves. One
day you will be good storytellers. Never forget these obligations."
