Book Reviews for Conscious Readers

Read any good books lately?

For years, I’ve read, collected and shared books on conscious evolution. Barbara Marx Hubbard defines conscious evolution as “the evolution of evolution, from unconscious to conscious choice…part of the trajectory of human evolution, the canvas of choice before us now as we recognize that we have come to possess the powers that we used to attribute to the gods.” The Co-Intelligence Institute posits: “Evolution has given us a special kind of consciousness, one that creates — and is thoroughly conditioned by — our languages, cultures, stories, and built environments. This consciousness and its companion social systems and technologies have awesome power to shape the world. We are just beginning to grow into a mature way of manifesting it in the world. Part of that maturing process is learning the dynamics through which evolution does its transformational work. Understanding those dynamics, we can apply them — intentionally and wisely — to transform ourselves and our social systems.”

Thus, for me, conscious evolution has everything to do with INTENTIONALITY and CHOICE. The nature of our current social environment allows, indeed encourages us toward a certain kind of mindlessness and learned helplessness. We think we have no power in the world and that, even when we recognize the need for change — whether personally, socially, societally, etc. — we find ourselves feeling increasingly overwhelmed, leading to inaction. As it too often occurs, we don’t choose…we allow others to choose for us, whether by our silence, our inaction or simply because we don’t even know that there are options.

Conscious evolution is about waking up and understanding that not only do we have choices, we — all of us — have a responsibility to be all that we have been created to be, to use all the gifts, talents, knowledge, skills and abilities that we’ve been gifted with to make sure that every other body on the planet knows and understands that they TOO have been thusly gifted and we all need to be about changing the world so that its better for ALL of us. Marianne Williamson says it so beautifully: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Okay, that was a bit of a rant. But no matter…back to the books. I’d like to share some of them with you. Please check out the “Books for Conscious Evolution Bookstore”! I’ve categorized them into three sections: books for Community Evolution, books for Organizational Evolution and books for Spiritual Evolution. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve not read all of the books in the store, though I’ve read many of them. Those I haven’t read, I plan to. (By the way, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with Tom Wolff, author of the book whose cover you see here. He is the one of the foremost expert on collaborative, evolutionary community building and he practices what he preaches!)

But here’s an invitation: If you’ve read any of the books in the store, I’d love for you to share a review for publication! Send it to me at transformativeconcepts@gmail.com and I’ll post it on this page. Or, if any of the books listed sound interesting, pick it up and let us know if you feel it’s worth a read. Finally, if you know of books that you’d like to share that fit within our intentions, let me know the titles, and I will try to get them in the store to share with others.

BE SURE TO VISIT THE BOOKSTORE, and check back regularly for updates! If you haven’t subscribed to our blog to get updated postings, scroll down to the bottom of the right sidebar and make yourself a regular!