NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Self Love” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Self Love: Evolution Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder In my more troubled youth, I was often told that to truly love anyone, I needed first to love myself. This advice, though well-intentioned, set up an unhelpful dynamic. To “love myself” seemed as akin to real love as…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Risk: Rewards”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Risk” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Risk: Rewards Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder When they first arrive at my office, most of the people I see are in a state of comfortable uncomfortableness. Although people come to psychotherapy wanting change, most of us do so only when the risks of changing as lower than…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Resilience: Modalities”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Resilience” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Resilience: Modalities Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder Along with perseverance and a sense of purpose, an essential capacity for successfully traversing the Hero’s Journey that describes our lives is resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back. In a physical object, it is elasticity: the property a material has…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Purpose: Arcs”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Purpose” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Purpose: Arcs Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder More than things, more than work, more, even, than love, having a sense of purpose can not only help us withstand the turbulence in our lives, it can also guide us through fortune’s sometimes outrageous slings and arrows. The necessity of…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Presence: Now, be, here”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Presence” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Presence: Now, be, here Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder I was 20 when I first encountered Baba Ram Dass’s square, purple-covered Be Here Now, the book that launched many of my generation on an Eastern-inspired journey. I was walking though the student center of the University at Buffalo…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Possibility: More powerful than a locomotive”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Possibility” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Possibility: More powerful than a locomotive Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder Much of my childhood took place in the realm of possibility: machine intelligences, aliens, mutants, future worlds, alternate pasts. Infinite possibilities. My first science fiction book was Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot. I was 10 when I found…
Print-on-demand Flower Mandalas site
Dear Readers, Just FYI, I have created a print-on-demand site on FineArtAmerica.com where people can buy prints, framed prints, and prints on metal, canvas, and other materials. Here’s a link to a Flower Mandalas poster on the site: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/48-flower-mandalas-david-j-bookbinder.html and here are links to two versions of the site itself: http://david-bookbinder.artistwebsites.com/ or http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/david-bookbinder.html Thanks, David
Perseverance: Fellow travelers
This line from a Jackson Browne song often goes through my head: “And when the morning light comes streaming in, I’ll get up and do it again. Amen.” Getting up and doing it again is the hallmark of the hero. In the folklore of a hundred cultures across time and space, it is what distinguishes heroes who succeed from those who fail. Three examples from the ancients: Odysseus spent 10 years fighting in…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Perfection: Uncrossing the line”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Perfection” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Perfection: Uncrossing the line Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder My father was a storekeeper and the son of working-class immigrants. He wanted his children to do better than he had, and he believed the gateway to a successful life was education. Consequently, he held me, his firstborn, to…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Perception: Dispelling”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Perception” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Perception: Dispelling Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder In the 1999 film The Matrix, the protagonist, Neo, is offered two pills by a guide who has awakened him from a global hallucination. “This is your last chance,” Morpheus says. “After this, there is no turning back. You take the…
Magazine publication?
A couple of people have suggested I publish the essays I’ve been writing for the Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas book in a magazine. I’m interested in doing so but have not been able to think of venues to approach with the idea. Any suggestions? Thanks, David
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Patience: Practice”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Patience” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Patience: Practice Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder Motorcycle maintenance has always been an important part of riding for me. Knowing the basics gives me confidence that I can get the bike going if it breaks down on the highway, and it also helps me feel more connected to…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Path: With heart”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Path” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Path: With heart Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder Twenty years ago, I visited my brother Mark and his family near the capital of the tiny country of Luxembourg. One evening, I borrowed Mark’s car and went into the town center to meet an American friend of his for…
100 Flower Mandalas website – comments welcome!
100 Flower Mandalas website – comments welcome! To prepare for launching a Flower Mandalas marketing campaign, I built a new website of 100 Flower Mandalas, each in four variations (color on black background, color on white background, b&w on black background, b&w on white background). I’d really appreciate you kind people checking it out and helping me iron out the glitches before it goes “official” in a few days. The new site is here: http://www.flowermandalas.org/ …
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Opportunity: Arriving and becoming”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Opportunity” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Opportunity: Arriving and becoming Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder The writer Stephen Levine, who has devoted much of his career to working with dying people, asks, “How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die?” Seeing life as a series of opportunities, even…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Needs: Demons, allies, shadows”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Needs” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Needs: Demons, allies, shadows Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder Sometimes the things that plague us seem like demons. We watch helplessly as they make us do things we know are not good for us. We yield to drugs or alcohol when we see how they are destroying our…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Mistakes: Alchemy”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Mistakes” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Mistakes: Alchemy Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder Many of my older clients are disturbed by what they see as lost opportunities, wrong choices, wasted years. Even my younger clients, some only in their mid-twenties, often compare themselves to their peers and find their own lives wanting – they’ve…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Miracles: Yellow brick roads”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Miracles” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Miracles: Yellow brick roads Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder I am a miracle worker by trade. Or more precisely, a facilitator of miracles. I make this claim sans grandiosity. My miracle-making abilities are as ordinary as those of the Wizard of Oz, an old man behind a curtain…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Love: Essentials” (first draft)
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Love” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Love: Essentials Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder When I was 25, living in Manhattan and trying to jump start a career in writing and photography, I visited my parents and brothers in Buffalo two or three times a year. On those trips, I also saw my maternal grandmother,…
Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas: “Longing: Inclinations”
NOTE: This is the first draft of the “Longing” essay in my forthcoming book, Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas. Responses and comments welcome, no matter how brief. Longing: Inclinations Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder A writer I knew some years ago collected her poems into a book she planned to call The Color of Longing. My longings have come in many colors and many shades. Much of my life has been spent in a condition…
