I took this picture (the sunrise, yes, RISE), while driving south to school, about 8:20 a.m. I find it hard getting up in the dark and always have, but there are some things to be grateful for (a lot, actually), and seeing the magnificent prairie sunrise is one of these. Every morning (well, almost every morning...this morning was cloudy) I am treated to skies so spectacular that sometimes it's a little hard to keep my eyes on the road. Fortunately it's a decent road and there's no traffic. On this occasion, though, I stopped to savour God's own painting.

We are gradually settling in to acreage life. As with any new home, there are glitches to be worked out; the previous owners left us with several repair jobs to do. More accurately, Bernie does most of the repairs, and some are simply going to have to wait for renovations. Bern is pleased with the fresh brown eggs he gathers each day from our eight chickens. With my parents having returned to their home in Whitelaw, AB, after a stay of five weeks, we have a few more eggs than we need, at that rate, so are able to send a dozen or so towards Jerry and the kids, or friends in the city. Some of the chickens have ended up in stew, however...

And summer is a memory. I would have liked to put my dill-weed bouquet picture here, rather than above, but one of the things I don't like about Blogger is that it does not allow you to distribute your pictures throughout (or maybe it does and I don't know how. Proposed solutions could certainly be emailed to me...)

Anyway, the days are shortening but the nights are lengthening. We are approaching Bernie's 50th birthday (he's allowing me to throw him a party, which is lovely from a man who doesn't like birthdays) and also approaching is our 25th wedding anniversary, at the solstice in December. I married him mostly because he made me laugh...and he still does. I think if you asked him why he married me, he'd say something about...well, actually, let's not go there. (Just kidding. I think he'd say he thought I was smart. Maybe sometimes, but I'm glad the kids got his math genes.) BTW, I took a picture of my shadow the other day (it's the only way these days to get a skinny picture!) Cool, hey?

And about reading...I continue to enjoy my afternoon and evening reading sessions. Last week I read from my new book at a launch at McNally-Robinson booksellers in Saskatoon and while I was there, picked up two books, both of which I am greatly enjoying. They are not 'easy reading' but they are taking me out of my own small world here and reminding me of other interests: philosophy, and changing the world. Check them out: Moral Clarity: A Guide For Grown-Up Idealists, by Susan Neiman, and Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by the wife-and-husband team of Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas D. Kristof. The former is fascinating, and the latter hardhitting and not for the weak of stomach.

By the way, I am often asked how to get a hold of my book (ie 'where can I buy it?'), and really, there are a number of booksellers which have it in addition to the above-named McNally's. Try online with Amazon, for example; here in Canada, that would be Amazon.ca

Of course, my book can be purchased through its publishers and other Baha'i booksellers. I want to say something about this. It's a comment that I made when I was speaking at the launch last week. Some people have asked me why I publish through Baha'i Publishing. Well, for one thing, they publish me. I have not wanted to self-publish, at least not usually (current blog excepted) because having someone ELSE accept your book for publication gives it, in my mind, not only legitimacy but a better infrastructure. Baha'i Publishing is pretty good at marketing their works, IMO. I have also been published through the U.K. at George Ronald; A Warm Place in My Heart, which comprised stories by youth world-wide, is not as eclectically marketed so is a little harder to get a hold of.

However, I am really proud of this book (A Warm Place), because I think it was a good idea: gathering other people's stories fascinates me still, but these youth, well, they are, as my dad would say, 'humdingers'. Apparently I am not alone in thinking so: I recently received an intensely heartwarming email from a reader in an oppressed-country-not-to-be-named and this reader was in the midst of translating the stories and sending them out to others by e-mail to 'encourage' and 'hearten' them, as the individual put it. Wow. Bravo for the translator.

Anyway, I digress. What I really wanted to say is that nobody ever faults Deepak Chopra for writing from his tradition, integrating Hindu practice with Quantum Healing or The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire or How To Know God. Actually, since I seem to be in a very chatty mood this afternoon, let me tell you a wee story about how I came to own the latter volume. One of the basic points of Baha'i belief is that God is "Unknowable". It's a long story....but anyway, there I was, in Value Village in Kelowna, BC, (I get a lot of my books at what my husband calls the "VV Boutique"). As I was browsing books I saw Deepak's How To Know God, which I had not yet read. As I stood there, I realized I was having a conversation with Deepak. Out loud. In front of the book display. Regardless of any curious bystanders. And let us just say that as a former drama student, I do not have weak projection. So here is Me: Deepak, you can't know God. He's the unknowable. More so, if you can't know Him, how the hell can you write a whole book about Him which has a title that suggests that you can? Mutter mutter mutter. Deepak: (No, just kidding, I don't think he really answered me!)

In fact, I bought the book, read it, found it brilliant, and have since bought a few other copies to give to family and friends. But really, no one does fault Deepak (I know narrative of people should use their last name but I feel like I know Deepak....not unlike God lol) for writing from his beliefs; in fact, his beliefs add infinitely (pun intended) to whatever subject he's writing about. Furthermore, does anyone fault Rabbi Jonathan Sacks for writing as a Jew? Duh? Or Rabbi Harold Kushner (whose bestseller, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, is deservedly and frequently read), for writing as a Rabbi? Or Dr. M. Scott Peck, the ubiquitous, writing from his Christian practice? Or Karen Armstrong, who has made a career, after her renunciation of the cloister, of speaking about a variety of subjects, often religious and clearly scholarly, and has successfully broken into the mass market of book buyers? People don't NOT buy their books because they are religious, do they? Do they? Any more than I don't refrain from buying books by people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and their ilk (and that's maybe even a plug), who've made writing careers, possibly writing history, out of slamming God, just because they're atheists (although admittedly that's kind of like knowing the opposing viewpoint in a debate).

Without the spirit animating our words, we believers in this world being more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts, we wouldn't have as much to say, nor, presumably, as much good sense about what we are saying. So yes, my books, including this most recent one on education, unabashedly speak of spiritual life in education as if it were a meaningful enterprise. So, yes, it's a "Baha'i" book but it's not ONLY a Baha'i book (and even if it were....) There is Baha'i content in my non-fiction books but the subjects (marriage, youth, education) are universal. Right?

Well, I seem to have started from a prairie sunrise and then gone on an authorial rant. Mea culpa. I think I'll dedicate this post to E.W.S. in New York, a former student, now a graduate of Wellesley College, I believe...who says she turns to my blog occasionally for book recommendations. Allow me, Elizabeth, to recommend my own books, today! And for good measure, let me suggest to you the writings of Chopra, Sacks, Kushner, Peck, and Armstrong, all of whom you will find on the shelf at your nearest bookstore (Dawkins and what's-his-name don't need any help from me!). I wish Oprah would read mine too, and then I could join these famous people on the mainstream shelves in literary land!!! (Be careful what you wish for, especially publicly.)

Seriously, I really like Susan Neiman's Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, and will therefore now order her Evil in Modern Thought. And I'm learning a lot about Immanuel Kant. Very cool.

And it's very cool on the prairie, but not yet stone forty-below cold. In fact, there's not even snow yet (touch wood) and the drives continue to enliven the morning. I'm glad working makes me get up for the sun.