Inner Journeys: Meditations and Visualizations
by: Gloria Chadwick

ISBN 0-7387-0898-4
Price $12.95

I’m not knocking Ms. Chadwick;  her liner notes indicate she’s got over thirty years experience and has helped thousands of people learn how to meditate, and that can only be a good thing.  Maybe our backgrounds, methods and traditions are just really, really different.  She devotes a couple pages to listing different types of meditation – active, breathing, chanting, musing, reveries, etc. – and a few more pages to “principles and purposes”, “rhythm of relaxing”, and “learning the language of your mind”.   Then she gets into the meditations, to my mind more guided imageries, which she divides into metaphysical, magical, and mystical, although I can’t seem to tell the difference. 

Example:  Splendor of the Sunset meditation:  “Experience the majesty of a sunset; see the vibrant colors and hues reflected on the clouds and mirrored within your mind, illuminating the essence of your soul.” 

Maybe I’m just too cynical, too left-brained or too northeast urban to appreciate all of this magical free spirit, oh-so-wonderful, all my own individual knowingness and beingness sort of stuff, but to me it just sounds like what Yanni would say if he could speak (yeah, I know he can speak – don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean here.) 

If this is what you’re looking for, Inner Journeys has got it in spades. Grab a cup of valerian tea, crank up the New Age soundtrack, sit in the spring sunshine and enjoy.  For me, though, too many moonbeams. 

Two (three if I really need comfort food) pentacles out of five.

Review by Karen Albeck