Positively Wyrd
Gothic Image (Glastonbury, England), 1995; ISBN 0-906362-27-X
Probably still in print - it's impossible to tell with Gothic Image. It's apparently still on display in their bookshop and listed in their current catalogue, but it's never made it to Amazon or to most regular distributors. I have copies for sale at Aus$15 + p&p, or wholesale by arrangement -
contact me direct for details.New: an EBook edition
http://www.web-orama.com for details.This is the first part of the three-part 'Wyrd' series. It tackles personal-development issues using the Nordic concept of 'wyrd' as its base model. It's proved popular: the feedback we've had from readers indicates that it's certainly worked for them! (To find out for yourself, see the sample chapters via the Contents page.)
The book's cover-copy states:
This is a personal development book with a difference - quite literally a weird one. Starting with a new way of looking at an old word, it merges chaos theory with transpersonal psychology to create something that's highly practical and that gives new power and direction to the everyday confusions of life.
In Nordic tradition, the word 'wyrd' - or 'weird' - meant much the same as 'fate'. Like fate, it describes the fabric of our lives: yet we always have the choice, there's always a twist which changes each one into something we don't expect. It's those twists that give our wyrd its weirdness; yet the real weirdness is that these 'messages from the wyrd' are always there to help us. We can ignore them, and wait passively - fatalistically - for life to change: which it probably never will. We can fight against them, try to wrest control of our life from the Fates: only to discover that control itself is nothing more than a myth. Or we can learn to work with life's weirdness - and use their help to weave the fabric of fate into a new form of our own choosing. That's our choice: yet there's always that twist...
It might seem a weird way of working with the world, but unlike so many others it's one that does work. With commonsense and clarity, with humour and humanity, and with a strong emphasis on practice and personal experience, this book shows how to develop an affinity for the natural weirdness of life - and to make life positively wyrd.
There is also a German translation available (Wyrd Positiv, Neue Erde, Saarbrücken; ISBN 3-89060-414-5): it may still be in print, but Gothic Image have never bothered to tell me.