Tears of Change

Poems, Reflections, and Quotes for a Meanigful Life

Review

Tears of Change

Poems, Reflections & Quotes For a Meaningful Life

By Debbie A. Monteggia

2020

Christian Faith Publishing Inc.

Meadville, PA 16335

64 pages paperback

ISBN 978-1-0980-1176-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-1178-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-0980-1177-2 (digital)

This is a book of poetry, and it is divided into 16 inspirational pieces of a spiritual and emotional journey the author Debbie A. Monteggia take us, the reader, on.

As the author opens in her introduction, she states that poetry is an expressive and creative form of awareness within oneself. Poetry is also a very healing venture. For those who need to write it and a true experience for those who deepen their souls by reading it. Here the author MS Monteggia truly traces a spiritual journey by channeling her feelings, even those of the unhappy times, as she charges forward with honesty, self-awareness, and heartfelt awakening.

Each poem is preceded by an inspiration that brought forth the stanzas of tears, hope and laughter. This enables the reader to further understand more about the chosen poetic steps through life that the author is enduring. Scattered among these are also simplistic quotes by notable people to further enhance her transitions.

Being venerable makes emotional pieces resonate with a reader and we feel this many times,

for example from the poem on page 15 Honor Your Tears…

…”with each new teardrop shed

A small door within, opens ever so slightly

Emotions connect your soul.”

And with the continued guidance of her faith, MS Monteggia was brought to a happy new place, she called, “rebirth” and has published this gift of her true heart with each of us.

I am hoping that MS Monteggia will continue to write poetry and deepen still her discoveries of life’s different stages, and I am hoping that she’ll continue to share them all with us.

4.5 Stars.

Thank you to @Books_That_Make_You

@Blackchateau @Bookstagrammers @BreeSwider and

Christan Faith Publishing for supplying me with this book complementary for review purposes.

The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write By Gregory Orr

The Last love Poem I Will Ever Write

By Gregory Orr

126 pages

W.W. Norton & Company

Independent Publishers since 1923

2019

ISBN 978-1-324-00235-2

Hardcover

This poetry book contains eleven poems and five prose poems. Gregory Orr takes us on a true journey through some of his very painful life experiences. He took them and turned the incidents into lyrical poetry and into his depth and renewal during this introspective search.

He demonstrates there are truly dark times and that poetry can save us. He sets free a torment and poetry is like a life raft, there to help save us safely from falling further into dark depths.

But Orr goes on as he oft mentions other worldly types of things like angels, God, stars and memories to continue to bring us closer to ourselves.

Orr has written twelve other poetry collections, a memoir, several books that contain essay and criticism.

Now retired, Gregory Orr was an established professor for forty years at the University of Virginia. He established the MFA program there.

He has lists of awards. He has won the esteemed Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters. He has had Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts.

This book was thrilling in that one could feel the feelings of this author as you read glimpses into the truths that make for the reason a soul has to write. I give this book 5 ***** stars out of 5. This book was a quick read, but this book also made me go back and read several of the poems over again; they were that good.

*This book was a public library book, that I borrowed on my personal library card. This review is for the sheer pleasure of my readers. This is a real and true review.

The Pomegranate, a memoir By Izi Stoll

The Pomegranate

a memoir

By Izi Stoll

VivaObscura Press

Denver USA

2018

ISBN 978-0-578-47159-451695

365 pages paperback

Genre: Memoir

This memoir is about existence. This is the author Dr. Izi Stoll Ph.D. debut novel. Here she explores her existence or the lack thereof.

Dr. Ms. Stoll takes us on a journey of her life’s most poignant times, some of them unsettling at best. Her story delves into the fragility of relationships and the layers of them. Like the title and the cover of the book, The Pomegranate, is an exotic yet common fruit that bears seeds with notes of sweet and sour. Her life story too is filled with happy and sad moments.

Ms. Stoll begins with snippets of her childhood and brings us through her educational and career experiences. Ms. Stoll’s curiosity and conscious feelings of the unknown grew into a true love of biology and the sciences. While her struggles were many, she sought a degree first in psychology and she continued to forge ahead leading to a Ph.D. in neuroscience.

I, as a reader, learned some things about science and brain tumors and how testing is done, but surprisingly I also learned how the process of grants, monies distributed, and the treatment of individuals and females within these programs were/are. Once, Dr. Stoll became divorced from her scientist husband, (who was in the same testing research program and became the lead by happenstance) was able to wield “control” over her testing continuation, progress and even whether she could stay in a country when her Visa expired.

Dr. Stoll made significant discoveries for her research and won awards for it; yet even that was not enough.

While Dr. Stoll was searching for closure and trying to regain her footing on her own, she once again revisited her childhood. She faced the odd abuse situations she endured with her own mother and the relationship between her mother and father and to them with her. The fragile relationship with her mom was physical, as well as passive-aggressive. Her soul searching resulted in confronting her parents, finally, she spoke out loud. Dr. Stoll needed to fully be truthful of her situation in order to go on.

This book was written as part of this cathartic journey. For the author who only aspired to reach her dreams, this memoir became part of her enduring truth. Dr. Stoll realizes that this memoir can help other women and those who were marginalized in a field such as hers, to help ease the pain and help them to realize that it is more than okay to feel. That everyone has their truth and that it is their own. She hopes that one can move on, overcome hurt, end shame and come to realize your own personal peace in the end.

Dr. Stoll no longer whispers into the void of the unknown. She has found her inner strength out on the balcony for which she wrote this novel.

*This novel does contain some technical chapters on the research she has done.

5 *****

This book was given to me for a real and true review for the author Izi Stoll

Proof of Heaven A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander M.D.

Proof of  Heaven

A Neurosurgeon’s Journey

Into the Afterlife

By Eben Alexander, M.D.

Simon & Schuster Paperbacks

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

New York, NY 10020

2012

ISBN 978-1-4516-9519-9 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4516-9518-2

ISBN 978-1-4516-9520-5 (ebook)

173 pages

Bonus pages: Acknowledgements, Reading List, Appendix A & B, and Index total of 189 pages.

This book is part of my personal reading collection given to me by a family member as they know I enjoy reading about true experiences. This is a story of the personal near-death experiences and reflections by a prominent neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander M.D.

Mr. Alexander is a highly trained scientist and academic neurosurgeon who becomes a patient in not only the hospital in which he is employed but his case befuddles his colleagues as they try to help Dr. Alexander with the mysterious ailment that is causing so much illness.

This book takes the reader on a very scary journey where Dr. Alexander undergoes a violent transformation into what ultimately becomes meningitis. Dr. Alexander goes radically into deterioration and then into a serious coma.

This book takes the staff of doctors as well as Dr. Alexander himself into the processes of the brain. It looks at our systems of belief, and how medical illnesses of the brain are treated. It looks at the possibility of the unknown. It is a mystery how Dr. Alexander contracted the disease, it looks at all the analytical views, the fully functional science as well as the possibility of other dimensions and realms.

Still, after Dr. Alexander’s conscious and unconscious experience, we are still left with so many questions. What is a human beings soul, is there an afterlife, reincarnation? Are there answers that our incredible minds have that are locked into another capable place.

Dr. Alexander comes to many possible conclusions as he has studied and devoted his life to science, he must open up to the fact that there are things he felt and “witnessed” within his illness that leave no explanation at least scientifically.

Dr. Eben  Alexander goes on to inexplicably fully recover from his coma and beyond and is considered a modern medical miracle. His recovery is astonishing. He knows that what he experienced is NOT a fantasy, he can show his actual records as proof. Using medical data and monitoring he can site that he emerged from some type of super-physical existence.

He is passionate about his work and continues on with care and research. It has helped him view the world in a different way than the way he did as only a doctor could see it. He has gained an entirely new existence.  He created a mission to advance research, to educate, and apply programs called Eterna. One can visit the web site to further your own spiritual or transformative experience at www.eterna.org

Imperfect Courage By Jessica Honegger

Imperfect Courage
By Jessica Honegger
Waterbrook, imprint of Crown Publishing Group
A division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
New York 2018
Hardcover ISBN 978-0-7352-9129-4
E-book ISBN 978-0-7352-9130-0
240 pages
Personal Growth/Motivational Genre

The author, Jessica Honegger is the founder of the Noonday Collection. The Noonday Collection is a fair trade fashion brand that was founded in 2010. It has become one of the most successful in the world. In the span of only 5 years, INC Magazine would name it as the 45th fastest growing businesses in the United States. Ms. Honegger has also accepted the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Currently the business has a net worth of $17 Million.

This book tells the story of the very humble beginnings of the Noonday Collection, and somewhat autobiographical with the spiritual story of Joe & Jessica Honegger and the international adoption of their son.

Ms. Honegger’s journey is one that proves being frightened can teach courage where there is none. It is an empowering journey that inspires and brings forth vulnerabilities that all of us face at one time or another. The Honegger’s were pulled by a calling and signs of their spirituality to this adoption and they chose courage in the face of all the stops presented to them in this Ugandan adoption.

Feeling desperate and with no money, Ms. Honegger finds herself in a pawn shop in Austin Texas handing over her grandmother’s and her mother’s gold jewelry to help raise money for this adoption.

From the beginning, when Jessica and her husband Joe were working for the Food for the Hungry Organization, they both realized that helping the most impoverished in countries where people lived with the most of severe injustices was a true call to their hearts. Soon they were married and still had the desire to own their own business. They entertained a short-lived house flipping business in Austin. But the pair became immersed in finding solutions that involved sustainability to help relieve those who were impoverished. As Jessica was in Uganda she held a child and realized the couple both also had a calling to become adoptive parents.

Introduced to local artisans Jalia & Daniel, they saw such beauty in their works of art; Jessica became interested in selling their goods in what she called “trunk shows” out of her home, a rummage sale of sorts that highlighted the artisans work. She faced her fears that no one would even show up. She began having more trunk shows and it started booming, but it became much more than a sale of a few things made by Ugandan artisans, it became support.
Her journey helps us to recall our own worthiness as she faced her own. She embraced her own fears and found

“It is ok to be enough to know we can/should embrace our individuality.”
Ms. Honegger celebrates beauty imperfections and diversity. She asks us as readers to “widen our definition of beauty”. In her Noonday Collection business she continues to cultivate family noting that

“Her success does not diminish mine. She is not a threat. She is a sister.” She creates opportunities for the artisans while building compassionate belonging. She then reached out and began hosting “trunk shows” in other homes thus she created empowered and compassionate ambassadors in what she had dubbed “the sisterhood effect”.

Ms. Honegger feels those that are living in poverty and with injustice want the same things anyone would want or need, to be accepted, to be known, and to be loved.

By providing the exchange of artisan goods for a paycheck it empowers and supports these people to be able to feed their family, own a home, have access to healthcare, and educate their children.

At this writing, the Honegger’s have promoted sustainable livelihoods and positive impact for some 4.500 artisans in over 31 countries, and created over 2,000 Noonday Ambassadors here in the United States, some who have even gone on travels with Ms. Honegger to meet the artisans themselves, thus bringing their journey’s full circle.

I recommend this book; it will inspire and empower the reader.

Please find her book available at:
bit.ly/imperfectcourage

and at

*I happily received this book as an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for a fair and true review, and it is now part of my personal library.