Instructions of the Spirit: Poems & Intimations

by D. Patrick Miller

A collection of 36 poems and "intimations" describing the gifts and challenges of the spiritual path This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0965680967
• ISBN13: 9780965680967
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Fearless Books
• Length: 57 Pages
• Weight: 0.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A thin, thoughtful book

"Instructions of the Spirit: Poems and Intimations" is a collection of poems by author D. Patrick Miller, founder of Fearless Books (which is the publisher of the much talked about "Disappearance of the Universe"). Some of the enclosed poems are somewhat recent creations, while others have been works-in-progress for a few decades. Each poem is accompanied by a small "intimation" at the bottom of the page explaining the poem's history and/or the motivations behind its writing. I particularly enjoyed this aspect of the book. I wish more poets would include such intimations in their anthologies. Mr. Miller has had an interesting life, spanning from the conservative South to the "liberal" San Francisco area, all of which is talked about in the intimations. The only aspect of the book that I found a bit problematic was an intimation that described suicide as being the ultimate in self-absorption. (This takes place in a poem and intimation where Mr. Miller compares and contrasts ego-death, a spiritual principle, to suicide, saying that ego-death is a relinquishment of the ego while suicide is a succumbing to the ego.) I know that there are certainly situations where suicide can be a form of self-absorption, and I know that there are people who attempt suicide merely for the attention it gets them. (I had a friend in high school who would go on and on about her attempts, even bringing her copy of "Final Exit" to school to show me.) But as someone who at one point was suicidal, I know that there are situations where attempts at or wishes for suicide are not a result of self-absorption but in reality a cry for the pain to end. That aside, I found "Instructions of the Spirit" on a whole to be very beautiful and thoughtful, and I commend Mr. Miller for being willing to discuss some very painful and personal topics, such as his mother's struggle with bipolar disorder and his own struggle with a life threatening illness in his 30s. And I also appreciate Mr. Miller's discussion of growing up in a conservative area (he says he was asked several times during his youth if he had yet accepted Jesus Christ), as I am currently living in a similarly conservative area. I sometimes feel like Oregon is a transplant of the deep South. Aside from Portland and Eugene, most of Oregon feels about 10 or 20 years behind California, New York, etc. Andrew Michael Parodi