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Images for Wholeness: Strategies, Poems, and Stories to Transcend Cultural Illusions

by Carol Mays

133 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0852; ISBN 1-55395-138-7; US$17.50, C$20.00, EUR14.50, £10.00

"With essays that redefine reality and poetry that transports, Images for Wholeness is a must read for the world weary."
-Janice Booher, Performing Artist

"It's not just about liberating ourselves from the pressures of modern life. It's about becoming real."
-Fritz Williams, Leader, Baltimore Ethical Society

Read more!

about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book For a reader seeking a bit of hope and beauty in life, Images for Wholeness is a rich lode. The ten concisely written essays engage the mind in reflection on long-standing cultural ideologies which continue to initiate and foster stress. There are also forty-two carefully and beautifully written poems and two entertaining and meaningful stories. The overall effect is thought-provoking, energizing and expansive.

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About the Author Carol Mays is a deeply thoughtful and sensitive person who at the age of 31, lost her career, marriage, livelihood, home, friends, and faith over a six-month period of time. At 38, she had a unique spiritual experience which gave her a basis for rebuilding her life. Images for Wholeness comes from this primary encounter with an alternative worldview and from the insights which have emerged from it. A former United Methodist minister, Carol has worked in the secular arena for the past 16 years. She now has a greeting card business in which she designs and sells greeting cards that have small matching booklets of poetry attached. For more information, please visit www.carolsliterarygreetingcards.com.

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Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

Introduction

The increasingly large body of literature in recent years on relaxation techniques and personal well-being is indicative of the fact that many persons are in need of such measures to counteract the stressful nature of modern living. This book concisely addresses some of the prevailing cultural ideas and practices which have initiated and fostered so much stress. It also offers positive strategies and images for possible use in one's quest for an integrated and fulfilling life.

Although I am familiar with many schools of psychological and spiritual study, my intent is not to be a proponent of any particular school of thought for its own sake, but to draw upon a variety of resources in an effort to be of assistance to you on a personal level.

The poems and stories were not written specifically to illustrate chapters they accompany. However, they have been placed together because they share many of the same themes.

I should explain what I mean by "society," as I use the word frequently. I am a Caucasian person who has lived for extended periods of time in New England, the Midwest, and the Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. By "society," I am referring to the mainstream, dominant value system and social networks that I have become intimately familiar with. There are societies around the world and subcultures within the United States that are outside of this frame of reference. Nevertheless, many of the points and images still apply.

Best wishes to you in your quest.

I
Claiming One's Birthright

Inherent value, almost by definition, cannot be earned through externally-proffered rewards. Many institutions do not seem to operate according to this idea, however, and instead seem adept at fostering feelings of personal insecurity and at encouraging persons to become dependent upon outside approval.

It starts early in life. School systems for years have unwittingly trained students to believe that their worth, or lack of it, is displayed on their report cards. If you went to a typical school, and you can remember as far back as the elementary grades, you may recall feelings you had when tests, assignments, or report cards were handed back to you. Young children are not ordinarily mature enough to look at their grades in a rational, detached manner, as though these were merely helpful indicators of weak and strong subject areas. What we are more likely to have seen in those stars, letters, frowns, numbers, or smiley faces were estimates of our personal value.

Being so dependent upon outside approval led to a very slanted way of experiencing our existence for twelve years. A disproportional amount of our attention had to be given to our own ability to impress, rather than to those aspects of life and of learning that have nothing to do with measures of success....

A Woodland Walk

The pensiveness of the sky
Is broken by the cry of a crow,
By trees distilling intimacy
And moist, vibrant expectancy.
Violets, ferns, and birches
Share life-giving vapors.
The chalk-bleak horizon
And pungent, poignant odors
Whisper sonorous secrets.
The visitor is enveloped
In this pithy, soulful world,
All cells saturated
With a suggestive sustenance.

Small Talk

Refracted images
Deflected my way,
Smiles and anecdotes,
Vestiges of the day,
Florescent glances
That we maintain,
A few hours darker,
Echo in vain.
Now body and soul
Cry out in unison
For nothing less
Than a primal transfusion.
Of sweet banter,
My heart will tire.
Show me your pilot
Your native fire!

In the Beginning...

A light has always been glowing
Close to the heart of the universe.
Over the course of time and evolution,
We as mortals have lived in fragile
transience.
Yet flickering in the soul
Is the sublime, primordial sparkle.
In this essence born of the primal fire,
The transient contains the immortal
And the infinite caresses the finite.
Through the morass of earthly chaos,
The crystal beacon shines, and
Its power has not been extinguished.

The Carnival

A miracle happened one hot summer weekend, in a remote town in Oregon, about fifteen years ago. I heard something similar has been happening elsewhere, so if you ever get to the point where you feel people are just too much to take, you might keep an eye out for the sort of violet mist that Sarah Johnston saw.

As a ten-year-old girl, Sarah was rather independent. Her favorite pastime had always been to ramble alone for hours, in the woods behind her house. One of the reasons for this propensity was that, at least in her opinion, the people in her life made poor companions. When her father came home from work, for example, he would usually escape via the television all evening and would let it be known by an occasional remark that he did not want to be disturbed. Her mother was more amiable, but was almost always preoccupied, working days as a science teacher, and then running errands or doing household chores.

Sarah had a younger brother, but he just wanted to be with his friends. As for her peers, they usually irritated Sarah by being too silly, noisy, or bossy. So when Sarah wasn't doing chores herself, she would turn to the forest for solace and would think of the trees and woodland creatures as her true confidants. This was a relatively safe community, so her parents and other adults in the neighborhood were not overly concerned about her tendency to wander off. She was always home before dark.

Sarah's mother, on a trip with the children into Portland that Friday, had pointed out to them the World's Smallest Park, a park that had been created in 1948 as a colony for leprechauns and a site for snail races. So Sarah had elves on her mind, as she was out wandering in the woods. It wasn't elves that she would encounter, though; it was full-sized people--highly unusual people, as far as Sarah could tell.

The sun was beginning to break through, Friday evening, just as it was setting. It had rained intermittently for several days, resulting in an unusual number of mushrooms. Sarah noticed a white one at her feet, almost glowing in the twilight. It was a particularly charming variety, because it was sprinkled on the top with pink and yellow dots. As she knelt to admire it more closely, she spied another one a couple of feet away. Rising to look at that one, also, she saw another one, and another. They seemed to have sprouted up in some sort of line.

Sarah kept following them, until they led her some distance from home. Realizing that she had never been in this part of the forest before, she was beginning to worry that she might have gotten lost. Then she saw a clearing in the distance.

Relieved, she ran to the opening, only to see something even more intriguing than the mushrooms. There, set up on a hill, was a carnival....

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Catalogue Information

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