Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Religion & beliefs

WAKING UP TO THE DARK

Clark Strand

Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age

In the vein of Barbara Brown Taylor's recent Learning to Walk in the Dark and works by Marianne Williamson and Caroline Myss, a short, beautifully written and designed "gospel" for contemporary life: an investigation into our modern discomfort with being in darkness, an inquiry into the roots of the contemporary phenomenon of insomnia, and the role the Divine Feminine plays in both these areas.

Clark Strand, a former Zen Buddhist monk and senior editor at Tricycle magazine, diagnoses the problems at the heart of modern life and offers inspiring insight into what sleeplessness is and why it is such a contemporary cultural phenomenon. But this is not just a book about sleeplessness; it is a "gospel" that will help readers in the contemporary world find their way back to being comfortable within darkness (and the Divine Feminine) and to find a deeper connection with their souls.

Clark Strand is a former senior editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and former Zen Buddhist monk. He has been studying the world's spiritual traditions for over 20 years. He is the author of the forthcoming Waking the Buddha (Middleway Press); The Wooden Bowl: Simple Meditation for Everyday Life (Hyperion); How to Believe in God: Whether You Believe in Religion or Not (Harmony), and Seeds from a Birch Tree (Hyperion). He has founded and led spiritual study groups, taught workshops and retreats, and has lectured at colleges and universities throughout the States. His extensive collection of essays and video teachings can be found on the Tricycle web site, as well as a library of "green meditation" videos on YouTube. He has been a regular writer and columnist for the Washington Post/Newsweek "On Faith" blog and is also the founder of "Way of the Rose," a growing nonsectarian rosary fellowship open to people of any spiritual background with members around the world. He lives in Woodstock, New York.

Available products
Book Published 2015-04-21 by Spiegel & Grau
Book Published 2015-04-21 by Spiegel & Grau

Comments

This graceful, penetrating sortie into the ancient glades of human sensibility reveals a way of being in the world that is a wonderfully reassuring antidote to the punishing electronic churn of the digital mega-machine. A brave, lyrical, and singular challenge to the techno-narcissism that rules the day.

The best books open our eyes to new vistas which may be joyous or challenging, uplifting or provocative, but which always make us think and journey beyond the familiar, discovering parts of ourselves that had been out of sight and out of mind. Clark Strand has written just such a powerful book, an insightful testament that reminds us of what it means to be human and enables us to revision and reclaim the dark as an ally in our need to rediscover wholeness for our world and for ourselves.

There is knowing about, and there is knowing from experience. The latter informs the teachings and writings of all the great mystics and gnostics in the world's spiritual traditions. Clark Strand is of that company. The path he describes through the forests of the night leads to what Ibn Arabi calls "alam al mithal", the imaginal realm where it is possible to encounter archetypal beings manifest in physical form.

Clark Strand has become the speaker, poet, and maybe even prophet for those of us who wake up in the middle of the night. From Homer until modern times, people understood the concept of "first" and "second" sleep, with up to several hours in between. For some, this interval might have involved making love, or study by candlelight. Clark takes us in another direction, the beauty and spiritual richness of darkness. A wonderful book.

A visionary work that starts from one of the most common and least appreciated human experiences -- the experience of darkness -- and sets out from there on a night journey well worth following. There's a world hidden from us by our fetish for artificial illumination, in more than one sense of that last term. Waking Up to the Dark brings that world, and quite possibly our future as well, near enough that the reader can feel it hovering close in the night.

This is an exhilaratingly original work. In encouraging us to wake up to darkness, Clark Strand shows us that the key to enlightenment lies where we don’t want to look. It is hidden in plain sight, but we have to turn the lights off to find it. Thanks to him for pointing the way.

In a modern world flooded with artificial light, Clark Strand reminds us what we have left behind in the dark. This beautiful, haunting meditation is filled with surprises and lost knowledge. Read it by candlelight – you will never forget it.

Korean: Saihoipyoungnon

This wondrous book is a sharp reverie on the dark, the lacquered dark that renders all things as one. It reminds us of a forgotten place, a place obliterated by our screens and shining surfaces that catch the glancing light and hide the depths from us. We, in the modern world, Strand observes, seek artificial illumination, and not the revelations arising from the dark. Strand proposes a "Dark Revolt." Join him as you read this revolutionary book!