Local author and photographer Colin Mallard will be reading and discussing his new book at Sweet Surprises (Cliffe and 5th) on Friday May 15 at 6 p.m.
He will also be at Kitty Coleman Woodland Gardens Art and Bloom Festival during the long weekend from 16-18, in his usual place at the Artists’ Glade.
The new book, Ten Days That Changed The World, is a sequel to Stillpoint, which was just named a finalist in “The Montaigne Medal,” for books that are “thought provoking. Books that illuminate, progress or redirect thought.”
Mallard took an active part in the civil rights and anti-war movements (Vietnam) while at University in Boston. His passion for equality and justice for all people has been an important part of his life. He says of the 1960s “we dreamed of possibilities and saw opportunity everywhere we looked. Civil rights was a given and we knew we would end the Vietnam war. We learned anything was possible, but first we had to conceive of it. Whether Goethe was the author or not, the sentence attributed to him was our holy grail; what we lived by. ‘Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.’ It reminded me of Lao Tzu’s description of the Tao as a well of infinite possibilities.”
Mallard spent many years in India studying Eastern philosophy and has two other Award winning books: Something To Ponder, Reflections from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, a beautiful contemporary version of Lao Tzu’s ancient wisdom. Understanding The Simplicity of Life, a simple and logical approach to the wisdom of Zen, Taoism and Advaita Vedanta.
Mallard has been teaching the wisdom found in these philosophies, at Elder College.
Several characters in Ten Days That Changed The World, bring a profound understanding of Eastern philosophy to current world issues; violence, war, justice and injustice.
Violence doesn’t seem to solve many world problems, so what other ways might we consider? What happens when truth takes precedence over beliefs, when softness overcomes the hard and gentleness the inflexible.
Mallard hopes those who read “Ten Days That Changed The World,” will be drawn into it deeply enough to understand the blinding power of belief to hide and distort reality.
How do we understand someone else’s reality? It is difficult unless we walk in their shoes. Stories have always been good for this. They involve us in other people’s lives and in the process we come to a deeper understanding of them and their world.
The events described in Ten Days That Changed The World are a combination of fact and fiction. Of dreams and ugly realities, of hope and hopelessness, of beauty and ugliness, bondage and freedom: all of it reflections of us, our nature as human beings, our capacity for war and peace.