Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words | 
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in. except the one to which you belong.
My reading continued to be sluggish in April and I didn't read much. On the upside, I thoroughly enjoyed everything I did read, so my pickiness is paying off.
I loved them all, but Consolations is that rare text I will be reading and rereading for years. I found Whyte's meditations on the meaning of ideas and concepts such as anger, joy, friendship, and work to be incredibly humane, generous and. . . consoling.
A reread of Emily, also consoling.
Much to be said for the consolation of books and snuggly kitties!
This book is a gift. Full of breathtakingly beautiful, soul-nourishing wisdom. Whyte illuminates the spiritual path contained within concepts such as friendship, beauty, and denial. I could quote something from each page.
Weekend reads between Zoom chats.
“The first step in spending time alone is to admit how afraid of it we are.”
I‘ve just read the first page and already in love with this book and the evocative poetic language of Mr. Whyte
Image is stock photo from the internet
I had occasion to go to The Burgh yesterday (most people call it Oxford: I have a history of trauma with the place). I got a couple of 2nd-hand books for Miss K in Blackwells but didn't cheer up until we took refuge in Waterstones. In the evening Mr K and I went to hear David Whyte. He's an excellent speaker, whom I heartily recommend.
Extraordinary day: demons faced, books bought, pies eaten, miles walked, defences breached (in a good way).
This is my July book haul with 2 journals and a Funko, I need it for my Beauty & the Beast collection☺️I'll continue doing challenges to reduce by tbr.This August there is one called Read A Thin.The purpose is to reduce your existed tbr.You have to complete 6 challenges this month.There are 18 to choose.One book can have more than one challenge.I have 18 challenges in 7 books🤗Will I complete it 🤷🏻♀️I'm a slow reader but I know you can do it 👍
so-soI'm saying this without a hint of snark: I would love to see what a larger publishing house could do with this book. It was in desperate need of a good edit: some passages were redundant, some passages were overwritten to the point of incomprehensibility, and the whole thing really needed a copy editor. But it had enough moments of profundity that I kept reading and that I'll keep it in my bookshelf.
Presence is only fully understood and realized through fully understanding our reluctance to show up.
"Solace is what we must look for... when longing does not come to fruition in a form we can recognize, when people we know and love disappear, when hope must take a different form than the one we have shaped for it.
Solace is the spacious, imaginative home we make where disappointment is welcomed and rehabilitated. When life does not in any way add up, we must turn to the part of us that has never wanted a life of calculation."
