Book Review- Be Love Now

Be Love Now is the third book in a series that started with "Be Here Now" and was followed by "Still Here", Ram Dass's applauded work on aging, changing, and dying. In "Be Love Now", Ram Dass shares what he has learned in his forty year spiritual journey. Through teaching stories, humorous personal anecdotes and stirring insights, Ram Dass tracks the stages of his own awakening in a very down-to-earth style. 


In his book "Be Love Now" he shares powerful lessons on love, including:


~ Love is a state of being, not a trip from here to there... The truth of this path of the heart is that there is no path. 
~There is only the heart and the love.
~ Surrender to love...In the West surrender implies giving up power. But surrendering to a guru or the Beloved doesn’t mean giving up power to another human being—it’s letting go of the stuff that keeps you separate.
~ Value your beloved above yourself ...Your favorite food is on the table, and your main concern is that your lover should have enough of it. You are fulfilled when your lover eats.

The book is mostly a tribute to his own guru, Maharaj-ji, along with other amusing tales about his travels and experiences in India at ashrams with various teachers and other gurus. It reads like a well written journal of personal experiences all having to do with searching for enlightenment. 


Starting with his days as Harvard psychologist and psychedelic inventurer, continuing through his wonderful encounters with his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, and moving beyond the reawakening brought on by his near-fatal stroke, Ram Dass shares his life experiences in "Be Love Now," his teachings on love and the path of the heart.


This is a wonderful, eye opening book and although I was far too young to recall very much from the early seventies, it was an excellent adventure into the mind and heart of Ram Dass.

Mooning Over The Moon

Tomorrow will be a full moon and I did a little searching on full moon names and found out that there are just as many names for the full moon as there are peoples that have named them. The following is a bit explaining just how they were named and where the name came from....

Full Moon names date back to Native Americans, of what is now the northern and eastern United States. The tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full Moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. There was some variation in the Moon names  but in general, the same ones were current throughout the Algonquin tribes from New England to Lake Superior. European settlers followed that custom and created some of their own names. Since the lunar month is only 29 days long on the average, the full Moon dates shift from year to year.

~ Colonial American- Trapper's Moon 

~ American Indian (Choctaw)- Little Famine Moon

~ Chinese- Budding Moon                           

~ Celtic- Moon of Ice

~ American Indian (Dakotah Sioux)-  Moon of the Raccoon, Moon When Trees Pop          

~ English Medieval- Storm Moon

~ American Indian (Cherokee)- Bony Moon     

 ~ Neo Pagan-   Snow Moon

                      

This is a time when the Moon is at its most powerful, and the magic most potent. Performing any positive spell at this time will achieve good results. Since the full moon only truly occurs for one night out of the entire lunar cycle, it can be hard to fit it into your schedule. You can harness the energy of the full moon for about 2 days before or after the night the moon is truly full.

Spells: Artistic projects, love, romance, fertility, psychic abilities or making decisions. Also healing, guidance, and completion spells.