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Home > Tasting the Moon: Adventures in the Meaning of Life
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Tasting the Moon: Adventures in the Meaning of Life
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By Meg Fortune McDonnell
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 (11 Reviews)
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Our Price: $28.95 Free Shipping! Details
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Publisher:
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Dandelion Broadcasting
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Date:
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December 31, 1969 |
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Binding:
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Paperback
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Pages:
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738
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Unknown Binding
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December 31, 1969
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This is the story of a "no holds barred? pathway through life?from the author?s eccentric childhood, through the tumult of the 1960?s, to the ashram of Adi Da Samraj, the spiritual teacher she encountered in the 70?s. With disarming and raw candor, Meg Fortune McDonnell recounts the ego-deaths and transformations she went through as she followed her unorthodox teacher around the globe?and to uncharted spiritual dimensions not located on the map. To connect her riveting confessions to current events, McDonnell draws on references from ?Vanity Fair? to ?The Buddhist Bible? and Alanis Morisette to Ramana Maharshi, deftly tracing the recent epoch of our collective spiritual quest along with her personal adventures. The three decades McDonnell spent under the tutelage of her enigmatic teacher were filled with sometimes hair-raising, sometimes hilarious, ultimately uplifting explorations of everything, including: what vampires tell us about the taboo against the spirit and what it really means to be ?sexually liberated,? healing debilitating Oedipal wounds and thawing the icy character that freezes out love, uncovering new gender roles and empowering female strengths, dancing as tribal prayer for world peace, recurring and mysterious synchronicities, what true beauty is?in art, friends, & avatars, and blessing meant for everyone. A fascinating life, masterfully told.
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Customers' Reviews:
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 an authentic pioneer, June 11, 2011
By Cork B
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Long before spirituality was gaining the popularity that it seems to be now, this author threw her life into the scrutiny and discomfort of a spiritual path with a living teacher. I was inspired by reading her story of being an intelligent, thinking, caring, worldly woman living on the fringe. Reading her tale gave me more room for my own life and answered many questions about why one even chooses to devote oneself to a guru in this modern age. Way beyond "Eat, Pray, Love," this book conveys a lifelong journey and not simply a self-help sabbatical.
15 of 16 people found this review helpful
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Catholic parents and their daughter's radical Guru...a surprising healing!, July 25, 2011
By Hermes
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This book excels on many levels. Having been a lifelong, voracious reader of books (especially spiritual journeys), I have had my appetite fulfilled on many levels by "Tasting the Moon"...literally!!!
The author brings you into the room with her teacher, a 20th century holy man and crazy-wisdom adept. More astonishing to me, she writes her amazing story with her father as her editor and includes a moving chapter "Finding the Lost Treasure" about a deep healing with her mother.
Meg demonstrates a candid understanding of her flaws and expresses her lessons with Irish humor. She describes spiritual experiences that, to me, are astounding in any age but particularly in the 21st century. This book is a credit to her and honors the spiritual giant that she has devoted her life to.
This book is an extraordinary feat of storytelling and oedipal healing for a child raised in an Irish Catholic family of eight children. Read this book and be instructed, helped and supported in your own healing and spiritual exploration.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
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Sweet,salty, tart, and fresh, Tasting the Moon, August 2, 2011
By Dallas Allen (Kukuihaele, Hawai'i)
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Any one that wants to be a to "know thyself", to love well and truely, to risk and learn will be nurtured by Ms. McDonnell's autobiographical account of her life's adventures. This book could be just a cathartic telling of time spent at the feet of a great spiritual teacher but the insights into 20th century life, culture, art, politics, upheavals, and opportunities makes Tasting the Moon an enlightening and entertaining eye witness account of our recent history. I was touched by her candid confessions of her failures and fears as well as her ability in learning to transend them. Growing up with her through the sexual revolution shed light for me on our common experience. Ms. McDonnell's elegant wordsmithing took me on a trip down memory lane but also to places I did not know were there or that I, too would like to go.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful
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Absolutely gripping reading, August 19, 2011
By Ian D. Griffin
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This book is a sophisticated analysis of the process of guru devotion as a path to realization for contemporary men and women. And therein, for most readers, lies the challenge. This is a controversial topic wrapped in a compelling narrative that describes the rewards experienced by an accomplished and intelligent women who dedicated her life to spiritual practice.
Tasting the Moon Tasting the Moon is 723 pages of observations on the meaning of life, death, transcendence and everything in between. The author, Meg Fortune McDonnell, dedicated herself to learning from an unusual spiritual teacher she met in the mid-70s and she's stuck with ever since. She tackles the rewards and challenges of spiritual life head-on.
She reviews the relevance of traditional Eastern and Western religious teaching on the value of a direct relationship with a spiritual master. While she draws on extensive knowledge of the literature, this is no dry scholarly analysis. Her story is enlivened by her first-hand reports of out-of-the-body experiences; dreams; boundary-less awareness and the experience of witnessing at close quarters a being who was able to "compress infinite awareness, the eternal state of being...into a human body" (p. 628)
As a first-hand report on what one expert called "the most penetrating social & spiritual experiment on the planet" (p. 199) her story deserves to be widely read.
The things I liked about this book include:
- She tells a story that is hers alone, with the constant reminder that "your mileage might vary" as well as a gentle admonition "not to try this at home". The most compelling thing about the book is Meg's voice. She writes in wonderfully clear prose that speaks directly to the reader and throughout the book she uses "Excellent Phrasing" (a playful name her teacher gives her, pgs. 85-86).
- Her honesty. I can only guess at the discriminative choices she made as she trod the fine line between being totally honest with herself and yet sensitive to the privacy of her friends. The use of her own name is a courageous "coming out" (p. 221) in a society where having a guru is so controversial.
- Her scholarship and learning, which she wears in a refreshingly light manner. I got a huge kick out of her early references -- having read many of same books she had before she encountered her teacher (Castaneda; Kerouac; Orwell; Bettleheim) -- and then enjoyed hearing about the many books I've not read from the list of traditional spiritual texts her teacher introduced her to, and the way she weaves anecdotes from multiple traditions into the story.
- Most of all, her obvious love for the guru and the many wonderful descriptions of her spiritual experiences in his company, occasions in which the power of his blessing fills the room and transports her to remarkable states of awareness.
Topics covered include:
- The evolution of gender roles and sexual politics as they affect empowered women
- The challenges and benefits of monogamy, celibacy and alternative lifestyles for intimate relationships
- Program management in non-profit organizations
- Understanding the ways photography undermines a singular "point of view" to represent both Art and blessing
- Public relations and crisis management in times of negative press coverage
- Early childhood through late adolescent educational programs
- The role of exercise, diet and yoga for optimal health
- The importance for public speakers to first relate to people in an audience before presenting ideas: "Love comes first, information second." (p. 274)
- The ways by which true prayer can ameliorate global conflict and individual suffering
- A dismissal the Oxfordian theorists claims that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays (really!)
- Irrefutable evidence that the Shroud of Turin is not authentic
- Zen and the art of unicycle maintenance (again, really!)
Her major accomplishment is to have shared what it was like to fully heart-participate with her teacher during his life on this Earth, to "taste the Moon" and tell the tale for the rest of us to enjoy.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful
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Wonderfully threaded, July 23, 2011
By Alan S.
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Fascinating threading together of the author's life and the time we live in. Her telling of her story surprised me by both being uplifting and leading me to greater self-reflection and learning. Bravo
6 of 6 people found this review helpful
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A delightful read...., September 25, 2011
By MisterBob
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This is an extremely well written and enjoyable work on several levels: biographical, historical and spiritual. It covers a unique era in our country's history, the 60's+, and the author serves up numerous historical delicacies which most readers would find interesting; especially those who lived through this period and were on a quest for Understanding. More importantly, Ms. McDonnell offers a unique perspective with many valuable, thought provoking insights into the extraordinary community surrounding, and the teaching of, one of the Divine's more singular and sublime expressions.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
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This book is a masterpiece!, March 9, 2012
By Judy Wendling
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Meg McDonnell is an excellent writer who describes in detail the journey of her unusual and challenging life as a devotee of the spiritual master Adi Da Samraj. She draws out the meaning and lessons in all her experiences as she grows in her spiritual practice and relationship with her guru. Meg also fleshes out her book with quotes from movies, books and song lyrics that affected any of us who have lived through the same time period, as well as stories from ancient Eastern religious texts which add perspective to Adi Da's teaching. The book is long, but I enjoyed reading every word.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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excellent, November 25, 2011
By wolf
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Tasting the moon is an completely fascinating story. i really enjoyed reading it.it gave me a taste of what a serious spiritual practice with a charismatic teacher can look like.a truly extraordinary book!
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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 Worthless and self-serving, March 12, 2012
By xXTruth-LoverXx
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Don't waste your time with this myopic diatribe by a woman who thinks her life is so amazing but really its totally boring.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful
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 fake guru, December 23, 2011
By got me
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I should have looked up who this FAKE was,,When you read the stuff he had some of his followers do, you know there's a problem,,I read himalayan masters and rama talks about what he learned and what were signs of a in my words Fake,,the book itself was not badly written, I just regret purchasing it becaus I did not do my home work and the fact that some would stay as long as they did, ( here, you carry my umdrella while I check out the babes,then mabe you could go get me a beer )and i bought this prop,,,at any rate, anyone looking for a X-Mas gift !!
0 of 7 people found this review helpful
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Serious spiritual life and lot's of humor., May 12, 2012
By Trea Mekel
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I absolutely loved Meg's book. Being a devotee of Adi Da myself I also loved it because she gave me a lot of insight in the way He worked with devotees before i became one. On top of that she is very bright and erudite. Placing the work of a great adept in the perspective of the spiritual tradition and of intelectual research is a great acomplishment. I can really recommend it to everybody who wants to have a better understanding of spiritual life for real.
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