Two Books & One Deck ~

My most recently-acquired book is "10 Secrets For Success And Inner Peace" by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I bought it here in Knoxville at Carpe Librum, the independently-owned bookstore, where it is always fun to browse. If you are on a consciously-chosen life path (or would like to be), I think you will love and benefit from this book. This author is very sincere, wise, and committed to the principles of spiritual peace, strength, and transformation.

Also from Dr. Dyer, and purchased at the same time and place, is the deck I mention, entitled "The Power of Intention". It consists of 50 double-sided (very high quality) cards, each a tool to tap into the energy (I should type that with an upper-case "E" ... Energy) of which each of us is a part – particularly in terms of creating that which we want in life. I love these cards and it’s so easy to pick one up, read it, and reaffirm intent.

The other book I speak of is called "The Emperor Wears No Clothes"; it’s authored by Jack Herer. I came across this single copy of it huddled in a scrunchy corner of a shelf at Border’s about a year ago. It’s an 8 ½ x 11" book – a thoughtful book – full of documentation, photographs, and timetables tracing centuries of use of the cannabis plant and the process by which it was politically exploited, given a new name, demonized and criminalized in the US during relatively recent years, beginning in the late 1930s. The book is in its 11th edition. Mr. Herer’s website address is www.jackherer.com.

The History Channel, during 2007, aired a documentary on cannabis and the documentary’s content matches what is chronicled in the book.

Memory of a long-ago time comes to mind: When I was a child of about 7 or 8, my father and I were walking to the neighborhood store one day (our town was small at that time, with plenty of "wild" and open land). As we often did, we took a well-used shortcut that started at the end of the pavement of a dead-end street. It coursed down some hilly turf that wound through what’s called "red rock" in Connecticut, along with mixed types of soils that resembled smallish dunes, so formed by erosion. My father pointed to what must have been an acre or more of large, billowy plants (to me they looked like trees) along the sides of the dunes ... they were holding the way-faring dunes in place. He explained to me that all that greenery was cannabis. No one bothered it – it grew there every year, until developers’ bulldozers plowed up the land, to build houses and a connecting through-street.