Table of Contents
What People Are Saying aboutThe Red Book
GORGEOUS! The Red Book is a deep, smart, and authentic guide to being more indelibly and powerfully yourself.
SARK, author/artist, Succulent Wild Woman
Beaks vision is a modern, femme fatale spirituality. The book lives up to its unorthodox subtitle, advocating that young women search for the spiritual in all things.
Publishers Weekly
Every so often there comes our way a glorious chunk of life so utterly unique that even the jaded blink twice. The Red Book is just such a chunk, gloriously dropped out of the mind of Sera Beak as a special message for todays contemporary woman in the language of just such a woman, placing before us the wisdom of the ages. From gentle meditation to bouncing sexuality and much in between, the path to personal rejuvenation through the enlivening of the heart, mind, and spirit is laid out in such refreshing, sparkling, effervescent words that what results is a psychic shower for the soul. Get naked, get in, get wet. Youll never feel as clean.
Neale Donald Walsch, author, Conversations with God
The Red Book wrests spirituality from the death grip of the humorless believers and restores it to its wild natural state. If youre hungry for real magic but allergic to self-righteous jive, sit yourself down at this feast.
Rob Brezsny, syndicated columnist, Free Will Astrology
Smart, stylish, divine! I love this hip guide to exploring your creative spirituality. If youve ever hoped and prayed that theres more to life than shopping, dating, and dieting, youre going to dig this book.
Cameron Tuttle, author, The Bad Girls Guide to Getting What You Want
Dont be fooled. This book may taste like a juicy pomegranate, but whats really going on here is nothing short of a revolution. Sera Beaks radical call is for young women to start believing in themselves, to trust and use their innate spiritual authority, and to understand that authentic power can never come from anything or anyone else. Beak writes out of her years of academic study, her participation in diverse spiritual practices from the East and West, and importantly, her personal and intuitive experience. Beaks knowledge is far-reaching. Her lightness of being is worth taking seriously.
China Galland, professor, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California; author, The Bond between Women and Longing for Darkness
Particularly timely... Sera Beak has a beautiful gift of writing that turns sometimes difficult material into simplebut not simplisticanecdotes for living a more profound life. This is a wise and wonderful book that reminds young women that life is not a rehearsal but rather a magnificent spiritual journey to be lived and experienced to the fullest. Read this book but, more importantly, apply it!
Baron Baptiste, renowned yoga teacher, educator; author, Journey into Power
Sera Beaks Red Book is a woman-wise, grrl power, rosy red and unabashed, hands-on road guide to grabbing our relationship with enlightenment by the scruff and riding it hard, all the way to ecstasy.
LaSara W. FireFox, sexual r/evolutionary; author, Sexy Witch
For Grandmother and Grandfather Beak: A Catholic and a Jew who taught me that love knows no boundaries, that exploring this wondrous world is a necessity, and never to underestimate the power of a good pun
PREFACE: PRELUDE TO A KISS
Do you ever get that funny feeling, slightly surreal and disorienting, maybe late at night or early in the morning, maybe right before lunchtime or perhaps when your friends are chatting, a lover is changing, a job is droning, or a TV is flickering, a feeling that theres something more than all of this? That you are more than all of this? That perhaps life is more purposeful and magical than you give it credit for, and never mind all your unpaid parking tickets and bad work days that seem to prove otherwise?
You do? Me, too. As does your best friend, your boss, and your weird neighbor. As do Russian rocket scientists, Belgian sheep farmers, and the Dalai Lama. The feeling is, in fact, universal.
So, what is this funny feeling? Sure, you could explain it away as some Freudian childhood glitch or planetary retrograde or even some of last nights margaritas coming up for an encore. But more likely, its something a bit more profound. Chances are its a coy catcall from the universe, disguised as existential angst. Its the divine ringing your inner doorbell. Its your higher self, stealing the spotlight. Its your potential, aching to be realized, and your spirit, itching to be scratched. So then the question becomes, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to explore this feeling? Are you willing to open the door? Are you willing to refocus your lens?
If the answer is yes, heres a book that can help. True, its a book about spirituality, but its probably not like anything youve read before. Its been created with you and me in mind. Just being real. Just being our true selves. Just being. So lets get started.
INTRODUCTION: WAKE UP
When sleeping women wake, mountains move.
CHINESE PROVERB
Are you aware of the rather radical fact that, in truth, not only are you naturally spiritual but you are actually divine? Yes, you, young lady. And you need to start acting like it. Most of us have probably heard some variant of the old you are divine clich. Its a nice, catchy spiritual phrase that gets some people off a bit, a cute little bumper sticker on your souls VW. Lets keep the mystical meaning but lose the sappy cuteness. Lets undress this most flirtatious of phrases.
Like it or not, if you are alive, then you are spiritual. Let me repeat: If you exist, you cant not be spiritual. But you can be unaware of this fact, deny it, forget it, take it for granted, hide from it, limit it. Its all too easy, given the general chaos of the world, from religious dogma to political turmoil to relentless fashion trends to ruthless media messages, to feel detached from such an empowering suggestion, to ignore your true makeup, to inhibit your remarkable potential, and to keep your sight dim, your life experience at a low heat, devoid of any yummy sacred sizzle.
Well, enough of that. This book will not let you live that way anymore. The Red Book is a candid companion on your spiritual path, an inspirational tool, a winking friend whispering warnings. But more than anything else, its a fire starter. It will heat up your existence by demonstrating, through ancient wisdom and modern discovery, creative self-expression and hilarious examples, that you are innately spiritual. It also offers clear, powerful exercises so you can begin to experience the fact that you are divine, not just take this books word for it. After all, youre not merely a human whos struggling to have a spiritual experience. You are, in truth, a spirit, having a human experience. You are not trying to experience divinity so much as divinity is trying to experience you. Think about it. Let it soak in for a minute. It is, quite possibly, the most important distinction you can ever make.
At this point, you may be wondering who the hell I
