I recently interviewed William Arntz, creator, and Deirdre Hade, author of The (not so) Little Book of Surprises. In the interview, William and Deirdre talk about how surprises can be an opportunity or gateway for spiritual and mystical experiences. Deirdre told me about a surprise she experienced in her life after a divorce that involved an experience of a light appearing above her after she went to bed. This light was so big and bright that it caused her to start shaking and levitate off the bed into a transcendent state where she wasn’t aware of her body, but she was aware of being about 2 feet off her body and she was nothing but light. After 3 weeks of not sleeping and having this experience at night, she went to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist gave her sleeping pills. She took the sleeping pills for a week to help her sleep at night, but remained wide awake and the light still came. She then went to a mystical rabbi of the Kabbala to seek guidance and understanding, who explained to her that she was having this experience as a result of being in the middle of a spiritual awakening. During the rest of the interview Deirdre talks about how she integrated this spiritual experience into her daily life and made sense of it. Part of that process involved finding joy in the midst of struggle.
At that point in the interview, I experienced a surprise in the interview. I told her that a lot of people are struggling right now and asked her how people can find joy in the midst of their struggling. To my surprise, she did not give me a text book answer. Instead, she actually stopped the normal interview and took me through a guided meditation to help me experience joy in the midst of some circumstances that I am currently struggling with it. I came away feeling much more clear, calm, and energized…I was also a bit flustered and lost my concentration a bit during that part of the interview.
Fortunately, this guided meditation is actually available for you to watch. It’s about 18 minutes into the interview and lasts about 5 minutes. If you are struggling with something right now in your life, you can watch this part of the interview and Deirdre will actually guide you through this meditation so that you can experience joy in the midst of your struggles.
William Arntz, who is also the director of the film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, also talks about how we can integrate surprises into our daily life throughout our interview. He shares that he experiences surprises by sometimes taking a different route to work in the morning and through traveling. By getting out of our routines and patterns, then we can become more aware and awake to new possibilities and spiritual experiences. He also talks about how poetry and the images, quotes, and prose in The (not so) Little Book of Surprises can help people have a spiritual or mystical experience by connecting themselves with an inner feeling, presence, or experience inside themself that is undescribable and ineffable, but more real than the world outside of us.
The (not so) Little Book of Surprises is a verbal and graphic trip to the unexpected, whimsical, and wise worlds of writer and poet Deirdre Hade and her husband and graphic visionary William Arntz with images provided by award winning photographer Endre Balogh. These images will inspire you, make you laugh and make you think. The prose and poetry will raise your awareness to the level that great art does when truly enjoyed. You will constantly be surprised and perhaps conclude that this is not such a little book after all. An ideal gift for those on your list who have everything or nothing at all. For more information about the book, you can visit their web site at http://bookofsurprises.com/ or purchase it on Amazon.