Review of "Married to Bhutan" by Linda Leaming

Have you ever heard of Bhutan? I had never heard of Bhutan until I was given the book to read and review by Hay House Publishing. I was expecting a travel journal but instead read a book about the author's personal growth as a result of living in Bhutan.

This book offers a glimpse into the country of Bhutan, a land locked country at the eastern end of the Himalayas bordering on China and India, but on many levels, it really is only a glimpse. The book is primarily about the personal interior journey of an American woman living in Bhutan leaving behind the traditional comforts of the United States. Her initial struggles to survive in a country that, for the most part, does not have electricity or modern transportation but instead has a government committed to "Gross National Happiness."

There are comparisons between the two countries: "An American friend who visited Bhutan from the U.S. commented on the frenetic level of physical energy everyone seems to have in the U.S. There's all this multitasking, and we have to schedule our days and carefully plan so we get everything done. We talk more in the U.S. The opposite is true here. Multitasking is not in evidence yet, and the pace is much slower. But the mental energy here, the level of awareness that comes from paying attention, from having less stuff around and having less on our calendars, is formidable." p. 80

The moments of reading in which the author really grabs my attention is with statements of her own personal learning: "Learn to be water. In dreams, rivers are symbols of change or transition. The river we live next to, the one I sit beside, is called the Thimphu Tsang Chu, or Clean River. If the water weren't so cold, newly melted from the glacier, I'd wade in and lie down in it, have a baptism. Instead I take a handful and shock my face." p. 141. This sentence took me deeper into my own personal learning and I appreciate that in a book.

The book lacks the depth of descriptive writing to allow a reader to picture and feel the country. However, there is depth of writing in the author's struggle to live in this country and her eventual fall into love with a man and the country.

For more depth about Bhutan go to the back of the book to "More about Bhutan" in which the culture and geography of Bhutan is explained in more depth. My recommendation would be to read that first and then go to the beginning of the book. There is also a glossary at the back of the book with Bhutanese words that are used throughout the book.

This is a good read with an eye toward reading about a personal journey rather than the country. For those of you, who like me, have never heard of this country, you will find your horizons expanded.

Ravenous by Dayna Macy

How does love become an obsession and how do you gain freedom from that obsession? That is the journey that Dayna Macy embarks on in Ravenous. Hay House Publishing gave me this book to read and review and I found it to be a quick read. Dayna tells her story of her slow weight gain from childhood to present in a way that is touching, amusing, and informative. Each chapter takes the reader through her obsession with one food, her childhood memories of that food and then a visit to a local spot that centers on that food. The chapters end with a recipe. We delve into chocolate, squash, beef, fresh vegetables, and a broth for fasting while we, as readers, learn that “food is just food.”

The last chapters were my favorites: “The Yoga of Food” and “The Practice of Food.” In those chapters Dayna Macy seems to get at the heart of her food struggle. She wonders what happens if her spirit would tell salami and she is told by her friend that her spirit wouldn’t; that there is a difference between the voice of spirit and the voice of addiction. Dayna is told that there would be a certain dissonance. I found resonance with that idea.

Through all her travels to visit her food obsessions she brings the taste of those addictions into our mouths to taste and she does it in a way that has us standing beside her indulging ourselves both in her memories and in our own. This book took me to Sunday dinners of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and Christmas stockings filled with Dutch shoe chocolates. It is good read wherever you are in your food journey.

The Angel Therapy Handbook by Doreen Virtue

Recently I was given the book The Angel Therapy Handbook by Doreen Virtue published by Hay House to read and review. I have not read any books by this author but chose this title because I have been working at developing my intuition and this book seemed to call to me.

I was reading this book at the same time I was reading another book that focused on a crisis I was experiencing in my life. It amazed me how the two books dovetailed one another. When I would hit a deeply emotional point in my crisis book, The Angel Therapy Handbook would provide a technique to handle it. I am a newbie when it comes to communication with angels so this kind of response was a complete surprise.

For a beginner at intuition work, this book provided an amazing amount of information in a very accessible manner. The book starts out simply with the names of angels, their hierarchy and their roles. Part Two gives therapy methods detailing how to communicate, how to understand a personal methods of communication, and how to clear the paths of communications. The third section is for lightworkers who wish to start or expand a spiritual based business. For me, this book was a page-turner, particularly the first two sections. This will be on my “read-it-again” list and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing their intuition or communicating with their guardian angels.