On Facebook, I posted about a restoration of my faith.
When I was a teenager I found my spiritual calling. I practiced, I was harmonious, and was eager to learn all that my path led me. Somewhere over the years, I lost my path unaware the fallen leaves were simply covering it. Time to time the toe of my boot would kick a leaf up and joy would come back in this area of my life, my curiosity and eagerness to learn would appear. Years of happily dancing about my life turned into an empty feeling where my faith once filled.
With all this year has done to myself and my family I struggled to find something to cling to help guide me along my way. I have told family and close friends I have felt lost for a long time. In the past few weeks, a new feeling came over me. It was as if the blindfold fell and everything made sense again. My faith had always been there I just simply had been blind to it for far too long. I am home again. It’s a calm that medication has never given me.
I don’t talk about my faith in depth publicly and prefer my privacy about it, but felt it important to post my experience. I have been a subscriber for a very long time that things reveal themselves when it’s time to know of them. It always blew my mind when something would not just appear but knock me right over the head like an elder with a cane to wake me up. Sometimes it seems rough, but holding on, having hope, and eventually, something will give and relief will come.Sometimes all it takes is remembering your roots, whatever you feel they are, and ‘going home’ in a metaphorical sense.
I wanted to share this all here as some of you don’t click through to my Facebook or you’re unable to see certain posts as this was posted on my wall and not my writing page which most will only be routed toward for work/business reasons with my profile usually kept for networking, friends, family and business of a behind the scenes nature. I wouldn’t normally post this here like this, but I wanted to share what I had done.
I once heard that you couldn’t be considered an intellectual or truly into modern philosophy if you hadn’t read Friedrich Nietzsche in some capacity. I had studied him a bit in college, but my focus was on ancient philosophers, the originators of the methods that would eventually be built upon, and those of the ‘old world’. I cannot remember who recommended I read him for a modern taste, but nonetheless I did and have. The edition I’m reviewing isn’t from my college years, this is a more recent purchase. I cannot review the books of my college years as I never kept any copies of textbooks or references from those years beyond writer handbooks. I have copies of other books, but not the ones that had mentioned him.
The edition of Beyond Good and Evil I have is a hard swallow. As someone who does consider themselves a professional book formatter, this book is difficult to read with much of the edition seemingly thrown together like walls of text. It’s poorly organized, with chapters often only set in bold to separate it from the wall of text. It would’ve been better with the blocks being broken up with small decorative graphics to help the eye flow easier down the page. I really don’t think this very good as is and really should be approached with better tactics. Yes, this was bought off of Amazon. I have read that the ebook/digital version is much better, but I don’t have that copy and won’t review it until I do.
Once I was able to ignore the poor format of my edition, I was able to dig into his work. This book criticizes older philosophers and some of their views. He felt they weren’t hard enough on morality, and this book contains his views on Christian theological views. He goes into what he believes are the superior qualities a philosopher should have and really digs into the personality of anyone that dare be a philosopher. He criticizes Christian views. I can see many becoming offended and shutting the books and not giving him another chance.
In basic, he’s trying to say that all of morality as we know it was led astray because the philosophers of old were led astray and thus we have been led into the wrong direction morally and ethically. He rejected the systems that preached truth and didn’t acknowledge they had been led astray along the line without trying to correct their paths. I understood this to mean that you basically can’t do horrible things then go on to preach to others they’re doing wrong when you’re doing the same things. You cannot be a moral mouthpiece when you’re lacking in just that. It’s a very good way to self-examine oneself.
His work is not the type of philosophy you can read quick. You have to let it sink in, really give it a thought. It is only then you will take away something positive from his work. You can easily toss his work to the side as another man ranting, he is offensive, and can be a hard pill to swallow.
This review is a part of my 2020 yearlong self-challenge to read and review. I have reread some books for the purpose of reviewing them on my website, whereas I have read others for the first time. Check out Book Reviews and Recommendations to find other book reviews, book recommendations, and more information about the books I’m reading, have read, or are sharing.
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Let’s have a conversation about it.
This is not a book for everyone. It’s a romance novel with erotic aspects to it (sometimes I may write like this, but don’t often read this type of story). This is not my usual book I will grab and read, but sometimes I see something that really makes me want to read it and this was the case. This is considered a paranormal romance involving vampires. I do like a good vampire story. This is book one of another set of books, I am not reviewing those books just the first of the series, which I have been doing throughout these reviews this year.
The story itself is set in modern times with glimpses into the past through dreams of another character. You meet the vampire Don Rafael Perez who rules over Texas and Oklahoma. He meets a woman named Grania and though there is a strong attraction he tries his best not to move on this feeling as he believes he may be heading toward war. Grania dreams and often sees a knight in them, who looks like Don.
I liked the dream sequences, the historical retelling of Don’s life before. It’s well-written, but at times difficult to read because of flow interruptions. Recommended for those that are into this type of genre, vampires, and love stories. There were aspects that reminded me of The SouthernVampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.
This review is a part of my 2020 yearlong self-challenge to read and review. I have reread some books for the purpose of reviewing them on my website whereas I have read others for the first time. Check out Book Reviews and Recommendations to find other book reviews, book recommendations, and more information about the books I’m reading, have read, or are sharing.
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Let’s have a conversation about it.
This is a review of the first book in a series of books by Castaneda on the teaching of Don Juan, a Yaqui shaman he met in Mexico. I am aware that the author was considered a con and his work a pieces of fiction instead of a non-fiction, but I always knew it as a non-fiction memoir. Whatever the case is I took from this some interesting teachings on wisdom.
I’m a firm believer whether a piece if fiction or non-fiction if you’re learning something from it that leads to you learning something to helps you how really bad can it be? I’m sure there will be many that disagree or come up with situations that would be difficult to answer when going at them with this mindset, but ultimately this work has some beautiful writing and some interesting lessons from a shaman that he may or may not have even met.
The powerful insights and lessons are often lost on the reader that go into this believing it’s fake or asking for more proof. I began reading it not knowing until later it was a possible ‘con’. I have heard this is an entire work of a ‘man tripping on drugs’. With all the hate the work has received here are my final thoughts and my review:
It’s a wonderful tale of a man on a journey. He finds enlightenment. It’s well written and has beautiful imagery. I don’t want to give too much away, but I recommend readers go into this book with the mindset it’s a memoir and enjoy the fantastic adventure you’re going to join the writer on.
This review is a part of my 2020 yearlong self-challenge to read and review. I have reread some books for the purpose of reviewing them on my website whereas I have read others for the first time. Check out Book Reviews and Recommendations to find other book reviews, book recommendations, and more information about the books I’m reading, have read, or are sharing.
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Let’s have a conversation about it.
I am sure upon reading the title many of you are thinking it’s a misspelling, it is not. Those that have been following me around the web awhile are probably thinking ‘she’s playing with words again’ and kind of. Melankholia is old Greek, the spelling version for melancholia.
As defined by Merriam-Webster, melancholia is –
1: severe depression characterized especially by profound sadness and despair Tense, irritable, I crashed into a fit of melancholia and found myself crying over inconsequential problems.— Susan Wood A depressed Johnson was not the father figure that Boswell, himself prey to crippling bouts of melancholia and insecurity, wanted to celebrate.— Brooke Allen
2: a sad quality or mood : MELANCHOLY There’s a touching melancholia to his voice …— Ralph NovakLike Wallace’s breakthrough novel, “Infinite Jest,” “The Pale King” is pervaded by an air of melancholia, an acute sense of loss.— Tom McCarthy
Now, along with this Merriam-Webster also adds a ‘did you know’ section and this is where the interesting path into this post begins:
Melancholia traces back to Greek melan (“black, dark”) and cholē (“bile”). Medical practitioners once adhered to the system of humors-bodily fluids that included black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. An imbalance of these humors was thought to lead to disorders of the mind and body. One suffering from an excess of black bile (believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen) could become sullen and unsociable-liable to anger, irritability, brooding, and depression. Today, doctors no longer ascribe physical and mental disorders to disruptions of the four humors, but the word melancholia is still used in psychiatry (it is identified a “subtype” of clinical depression in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and as a general term for despondency.
I have been open about suffering from chronic insomnia, anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder. This word seems to fit for the majority of the work that I do in the form of poetry.
With all of that out of the way, I circle back to the question at hand, what is Melankholia? Inspired by the above information I began working on another collection of poetry. It was announced around the time of the first, All of My Every Things, I planned on doing another set and that I didn’t know when I would be doing it. As this year has been a roller coaster, for everyone, and I have shared very little of what’s happened to me personally choosing instead to focus the turmoil creatively, as I tend to do anyways behind-the-scenes.
Haven’t numerous works left around after selecting them for All of My Every Things that I still wanted to publish out I needed a home for them. I also did a challenge for Napowrimo this year that created a large amount of work (check them out on the website), some great, some good, and some that could’ve been better, but writing happened nonetheless. I had, as you can see, a lot of material not to mention I had been writing a great deal with all I have had going on this year that inspired me along with past trauma and feelings I usually tap into for inspiration I decided it was time to begin collecting, polishing, and continue forward with another selection.
I began last year contacting people for possible leads into help with this projects, but when the pandemic hit much of the focus shifted, understandably, elsewhere. I took some time to readjust, focus more on projects coming up (like The Blasphemer Series: Ghosts and a short story prequel) and do what I do best when I am in situations I cannot fix…work.
The birth of Melankholia sounds easier than it really is. I have privately struggled with organization, formatting, and graphics this time. Now confident enough to make an official announcement I share introduce you to the second installment of my Dark Romanticism/Gothic Romanticism poetry collections.
This book will contain selected collected poems from All of My Every Things, poetry from my Napowrimo entries, and many previously unpublished works. What makes this collection most unique to date is I will include illustrations and images along with the poetry. Obviously, by the digital cut of the cover it will include an introduction for the reader by the wonderful poet Oliver Sheppard entitled: An Anatomy of Melankholia.
Excerpt from An Anatomy of Melankholia
But amidst Bachman’s poetic despair, amidst the doubt, amidst the references to ambiguous supernatural figures, to the brutality and the tragedy of life, and to horrors that may or may not be allegories of aspects of our human condition—amidst haunting Bachman poems that have titles like “The Horned Beasts,” “Into the Dying,” and “When You Lay My Body Down” —in Bachman’s poetry one also encounters startling flashes of hope. “A glimmer can be seen: A flame of hope,” Bachman writes in the poem “Darkest Hour Never Dies,” included in this book. “The more you focus upon it; the more it will grow.”
Perhaps this is a surprising sentiment from a woman whose thoughts traditionally run as dark Mrs. Bachman’s tend to run. But we, the readers of this collection of doomy and intriguing verse—we can also entertain hope ourselves: Hope that with Bachman’s second collection of poetry, finally available here in print, a collection that is evidence of a poetic talent growing by steady leaps and bounds—we can have hope that the fascinating journey we’re taken on by Bachman’s imagination—we can have hope that this is simply the beginning for a profound new voice in the genre of a fantastic, dark, modern, and melancholy verse.
Credit: An Anatomy of Melankholia by Oliver Sheppard/Melankholia by L. Bachman
This is a more recent read for me. I loved the movie, in fact it’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I have to be honest, I didn’t know it was a book until I was looking into the movie, curious to what the director had to say about it and so on. Though I loved the movie very much, I wanted to enter this book like with many other books on here struggling to compare the movie and the book, but this review will be my best attempt at separating them as they need to be for their individual pieces of work.
The story is a beautiful and well-written tale of soulmates and how when one passes the other one will suffer emotionally. At least that is what I understood of it. Despite this you see every attempt that is made for the soul mates to be together again. Matheson’s writing style is very inspiring for me, as a writer. With the story to the imagery he creates is vivid and wildly illustrated with his words.
The way Heaven is describe is truly beautiful, the concepts he used, and the way everything links together. Hell, though horrifying, is in its own way beautiful as well. A dark beauty and incredibly heartbreaking. It made me think about a phrase ‘this is hell’ or ‘this feels like hell’ he really played with how our afterlife can be what we make it, which ultimately led me to wonder if that’s where the title came from for this book, ‘What Dreams May Come’. I absolutely loved how this book made me think and wonder those are key aspects to make me really love a piece.
This is easily one of my favorite books and is my favorite movie of all time.
This review is a part of my 2020 yearlong self-challenge to read and review. I have reread some books for the purpose of reviewing them on my website whereas I have read others for the first time. Check out Book Reviews and Recommendations to find other book reviews, book recommendations, and more information about the books I’m reading, have read, or are sharing.
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Let’s have a conversation about it.
The Official Website of L. Bachman 