An immersive discussion with an appealing message to explore one’s own personal path to spiritual enlightenment.
Skye, an adult industry actor, aerial acrobat, and yoga teacher, shares his path to higher consciousness in this memoir.
“Traveling from life to life, breathing the air / Vibrating like so, of music and light,” concludes this book’s initial and eponymous poem, one of many that Skye has included in this volume, which he describes as “the teachings of my current life and an essay about spirituality in application in all spheres of life on earth under the seven skies.” Chapters kick off with translated Sanskrit mantras and touch down on a variety of spiritual topics while also unfolding Skye’s autobiography. Skye reports experiencing psychic abilities and affinities from the time he was a child in Canada, but it took fuller awakening, aided by a coach, for him to transition from a visual merchandising career to his role as a “spiritual acrobat porn daddy” by his 30s. Topics include the interconnectedness of all things, astral traveling, and past lives, with “my body of light taking the shape of each of my incarnations: forty-two fully achieved lives and 111 total.” Skye also details the mechanics and philosophy of “sacred sexuality,” asserting that, “until we see sex for the true divine experience that it is, there cannot be a shift of consciousness, period.” Clocking in at 700 pages, the text is initially rather daunting. Yet Skye’s accessible, conversational tone soon draws the reader into this intriguing and wide-ranging narrative. His descriptions of performing yoga and acrobatics and “the wonderful thrill of beautiful lovemaking” effectively illustrate the joy and power of the mind-body connection. Readers should be warned, as Skye himself acknowledges, that some of the sexual content included is “really graphic.” The biggest takeaway of this book is the exhortation to keep an open heart and mind, with Skye noting, “Let the universe guide you into what is best for you without judgment.”
An immersive discussion with an appealing message to explore one’s own personal path to spiritual enlightenment.Pub Date: May 25, 2023
ISBN: 979-8765241950
Page Count: 700
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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