Maybe it was the full moon in Gemini, I got carried away a bit, bear with me…
Maybe it was hiding from yet another masterpiece of Richard Tarnas, books with over 500 pages full of prose worthy of medieval knights without laptops and no enemies to fight.
Books?

A few books keep coming back to me, have to read them again and again and still… barely grasp what they are all about.
Those things that lay flat on your desk, align nicely on a … bookshelf, made from paper with glue, which used to be a tree, which grew by means of sunlight mainly. Living things. My loyal companions over the years, always ready to leave the house, go on a train or a bus, a plane, hiding in a dust jacket, a specifically made protective cover of the finest yet sturdy fabric, a backpack or a pocket until a hand grabs it and opens it. Never imposing itself, patient like no priest or angel will ever be. Books, an item to inform you without the need of electricity or WIFI, no personal data that can be harvested and sold off to the highest bidder, no 3 letter agency that will ever know how many times you opened it or how much it has influenced your thoughts. When bought in a second hand physical shop or a flee market none will ever know that you own it. The ultimate privacy guaranteed by its very structure and design.
What are we talking about? The Bible? No, barely ever read anything in, apart from a few months when attending a study group with a priest, which was quite revealing. Too much confusion, room for interpretation, too much “this is how you should explain what it says” by people who claim to know better, whilst the language is sometimes pretty plain and simple. Too many translations and cultural interpretations of what no doubt was the description of a revolutionary life to bring about a more just society. Too many agendas being pushed, people who lived pretty secluded lives advising on subjects they had no direct experience with. The Bhagavad Gita? Read it once front to end in less than a week; no need in this life, studied it extensively in many past lives.
Literature? Not for me, probably a lack of education on my side, James Joyce is picking up dust on a shelf, Plato could inspire me for less than 5 pages, too cerebral. Geeky Greek? Stream of consciousness writing? 3 pages every morning, to make the unconscious conscious but never ever meant to be published. Just clearing out the chit… Yes, with a C not an S, although it practically boils down to the same thing. Faust? German is a beautiful language, Goethe inspired Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the best school system we have in today’s world and yet… Not this time.
Ken Wilber did the trick for a decade, quite funny in his description of the Boomer Generation and profoundly culturally biassed despite his best efforts to write universal truths. Something was missing, nagging in the back of my head.
Mister God.

Until “Mister God, this is Anna” appeared. The one book that I can’t begin to imagine to understand, a children’s book basically. It touches something so deep, so elusive, it stirs the soul out of its lethargy, time and again. When the wonder and colourful rainbow of life fades it calls me back home, back to the childlike innocence of saints and sages, playing all day with a few crayons, imagining the worlds hiding behind a veil of mystery triggered by the smell of Jasmine or the breaking of sunlight in a piece of glass on the side of the road. A few small mirrors placed around a candle, endlessly opening op new points of view, for those with eyes to see. An image of God as a playful, benevolent actor, a longing going back aeons in time. Explaining the construction of the Big Pyramid as “just another day at work”, as a work of art, but not too special, opening up doors to far greater achievements, Lemuria and Atlantis before the Fall, the sparkling colours and lights often only seen after consuming devastating amounts of drugs, so I have been told.
And yet, even Anna has failed to keep me engaged for more than a week time and time again.
“The Alchemist” was my book to check where I was in the self-development process, read it at least 20 times, despite the remarks of a much appreciated University teacher that “that is not literature” and thus not worthy of any of my time.