BOOK REVIEWS
A new book by Pathways contributor Patricia Ullman Entering the Mainstream: Cultivating Mindfulness in Everyday Life (A Manual for Practitioners, Teachers, and the Simply Curious) Alyce Ortuzar is a freelance medical and social science research - er, writer, and editor living in Montgomery County, Maryland. She runs the Well Mind Association of Greater Washington, a holistic medicine information clearinghouse that focuses on environmental and nutritional influences on our mental and physical well-being. For five years, she edited the U.S. Surgeon General’s smoking and health reports. She can be reached at (301) 774-6617 and by email at alyceortuzar@gmail.com. purchased.” Yet these residents can only get loans for trailers but not for houses on land they already own. “These disgraceful conditions often become intergenerational.” The kids attend “ramshackle schools with coal-fired furnaces that cause respiratory illnesses”, which then keep the kids out of school and falling behind. The author describes these deficits as “a failure of government to address the needs of the rural poor, another chapter in a long history of the marginalization of poor minorities and rural residents.” Other inequities and forms of harassment are reflected in the case involving Reverend James Orange, who was thrown in jail in 1965 “for contrib - uting to the delinquency of minors” who were helping him to register voters. Similar conditions resulting from the absence of sanitation and re- lated services can be seen in Allensworth, California, where most of the 471 residents live in dilapidated trailers amidst the typical deep green patches that “show where raw sewage is pooling, this time in wealthy California.” However, except for the reporting by journalists at the Fresno Bee newspaper, “few outside of these poor communi- ties that exist without clean water would know about their struggles.” Other regions in the United States where similar waste water issues persist include Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico.
REVIEWS BY ALYCE ORTUZAR
Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret By Catherine Coleman Flowers 2020; The New Press 256 pp (HB); $15.00 ISBN-10: 1620976080
This book is an exceptionally well written and powerful narrative that tells a remarkable story. The quality of life inequities among poor people throughout the United States that this book reveals, especially the absence of basic sanitation among the rural poor, should be viewed as a major national embarrassment. This particular drama takes place in Alabama where “a failure to maintain a permitted septic tank is a criminal misdemeanor” that can put a resident living in poverty in jail. One noted example was a 90- year old man about to be evicted from a house that he owns, because he could not afford a septic tank. “It will cost the county more to take care of him after his eviction than it would cost to put in a septic tank for him, so he could stay in his house.” Individuals and families live without sewers or septic tanks, often in trailers “with waste running off into an open ditch.” The trailers “start losing value the day they are
Divided into three sections; The Bell, The Book, and The Candle, this book presents an allegorical quest for the Philosophers’ Stone and a path for attaining enlightenment.
An in-depth guide to attaining the enlightenment of the Philosophers’ Stone $24.99 • Paperback • 192 pages Full-color throughout ISBN 978-1-64411-782-8 The Alchemical Search for the Unified Field Pythagorean, Hermetic, and Shamanic Journeys into Invisible and Ethereal Realms R. E. Kretz
Lauded by critics as “brave,” “authoritative,” and “highly readable,” Entering the Mainstream features stories and guided meditations that are as stimulating to the seasoned practitioner as they are accessible to the novice. It is equally valuable for mindfulness teachers, offering guidance and a range of tools to help lead individuals and groups in urban settings. This new book and Patricia’s first book, Eight Steps to an Authentic Life: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times , are available on amazon.com.
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76—PATHWAYS—Fall 23
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