A Light From the Shadows (Maui Vision: Book Review)
Maui author Eric Micha’el Leventhal’s collection of 108 original poems, essays, and aphorisms urges the reader to explore the nature of love, identity, and reality itself. Named from a passage in J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE FELLOWSHP OF THE RING, the book raises questions and explores personal topics such as fear, relationships, transformation, and wholeness. Reminiscent of the work of Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, or even the great masters such as Rumi or Buddha, readers will find familiar, but thoughtful musings on life, love, and the nature of the universe.
The author states that A LIGHT FROM THE SHADOWS was formatted to correspond to and mirror the flow of the seven major chakras, reworked as Creation, Flow, Struggle, Love, Identity, Vision and Oneness. Each of the seven sections offers poetic and self-reflective insights or questions intended to guide the reader on a journey of personal revelation. From the first chakra, or Creation section, Mr Leventhal suggests:
Our task and challenge as human beings
is to appreciate, in the same instant,
both the infinite significance
and absolute insignificance of life.
Perhaps best approached as a book of short inspirational pieces or tools to trigger introspective spiritual questioning, readers familiar with the chakra system may want to focus on individual sections as they correlate with issues in their lives. Mr. Leventhal delves deeply into such topics as Love:
“If you want to know,
what real love looks like,
first imagine a master and a servant
then imagine being unable to distinguish between them.”
Identity
“Craving sustenance,
the sage knows: I am this food.
Are you still hungry?
And Oneness
“If you find yourself wondering
why the One would choose to appear as the Many
try playing a game of chess by yourself.”
A LIGHT FROM THE SHADOWS resonated with many of my personal beliefs about the nature of life and the universe itself. A quick read, with many insightful moments, A LIGHT FROM THE SHADOWS provides intriguing brain fodder that many readers may find it to be the perfect vehicle to inspire short philosophic dialogue or personal introspection.