Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America [Paperback]

Natalie's book, WRITING DOWN THE BONES, is a gift, New Age navel-gazing be damned, no matter what you say. And you've got to hand it to any one who's willing to then show you her flaws, as she does in this book, and how she got to such a place as to write BONES. Like some of those punk guys say, brilliant guitar playing never did anyone any good. It's inspiring to see that we're just as human as a well-edited artist who's been quietly refining herself for years. In this book she shows us years of work and conversations and thoughts it took to write her famous writing books.

You can say she's self-absorbed. Okay, fine. We all are. It's better than women going around feeling guilty and trying to read minds, or men drinking beer and talking about bombing Bin Laden. But this book is a gift that she's showing you all the work that it took to get where she is. Writing/art is a process and don't expect human beings to bang out WAR and PEACE every weekend! You only hurt and separate yourself from the art by making it intimidating and expecting too much. You give up.

I only give the book four stars because it's a sweet read, and I'd say an important part of her collection. It's raw and honest, sometimes like a journal or having lunch. Everything doesn't have to have a blasting five stars or whatever. I lost my mentor and found this book by accident. Because of her own relationship with her mentor, it spoke to me like a casual friend and it's sweet.

I'd have to reserve the five stars for her writing books. And don't put down teaching, either, whoever did that. I'm a writer and I'm too self-centered to actually teach. It's exhausting and generous to help others get over their hang ups. Those with patience are blessings.

All Natalie's ever talked about is a little compassion. Try a little tenderness... especially with yourselves.

Often it's hard for spiritual books to adequately convey the real life path of muddle, muddle, diversion, muddle, muddle, diversion - breakthrough! muddle muddle...quality of the spiritual path. Natalie's teacher was so vivid, so alive to me by reading this book.

I just finished '"Crooked Cucumber " this weekend while visiting Tassajara Hot Springs (a Zen center in California), which also goes on my top 10 list. It's the biography of Katagiri Roshi's dharma brother, Suzuki-Roshi, who started the SF Zen communities which Katagiri Roshi was intimately connected with.

Both books involved me emotionally and were a very easy readable way in to Big Concepts I might never have grasped had not these personal stories been so compelling.

At the end of each, I cried and cried, feeling as if I had known each of these men. I'd say this is about as good as it gets, for a reader.

Highly recommended! Don't miss out!

Like these monks, Natalie Goldberg has a marathon of her own to keep her senses sharpened. She writes, and does so very often. Her writing allows her to understand her own life experience in a concrete way. This book is like a chronicle if Goldberg's life, a fascinating tale of peace work and Zen practice. We all have something to learn in another's experience, especially when there is a very human quality to it. Very personal. Because that's our own life, and like Natalie uses her experience to help others we likewise can do the same. Goldberg has written a myriad of books on writing as a spiritual process, and this is possibly her very best one. Enjoy!