Local Northern B.C. author is Falling Awake
At this hour of Western history, it might just be a good time to fall awake. Gently nudging us into consciousness is new writer Todd Blattner. His chime is found within the new book he will be launching in Prince George on Friday.
Blattner is a counsellor and teacher based in Vanderhoof.
He has a degree in psychology followed by a life of family (he has two adult children), travel, adventure and inquisition, although some of it has been heartbreaking.
It all got collected between the covers of his first literary work, the self-reflection book Falling Awake.
“I started about six years ago,” he said.
“My wife had become very ill with cancer. I was processing a lot of things. I was wanting to put together a lot of thoughts and ideas about the world in general. It morphed a lot after my wife passed away. I spent time in a monastic setting in Thailand (his time at the monastery has added up to more than a year), and I became a Buddhist monk,” he said.
“It was a very deep experience for me. The teacher that I worked with, and Buddhism in general, emphasize much less about commitment to a way of doing something and more about a way towards truth.
“There is a very open policy about other religions or no religions. The idea is a pursuit of living peacefully.”
Through his spectrum of emo- tions and experiences in the past several years, he has kept written notes.
Even at the beginning of his wife’s illness, he knew he had the chance, if he journalled it out, to provide insights few others could express.
“I came to see there’s a very different way of seeing the world than what our culture teaches us right now,” Blattner said.
“It’s more in connection with what we now know about science, about the nature of the brain, about quantum physics, about life itself. The assumptions embedded in today’s culture are not as fact-based as they should be, and there are better ways of living artfully, living peacefully and more in harmony. So I wanted to point that out. I also wanted to make a bridge – to use language from our culture to explain this other view of the world.”
Turning his counsellor’s profession inward, the writing of the book was also a way he could affect his own healing from grief.
“It was really helpful. I look back and think wow, did I really write this? I also have to go back and take my own advice from time to time.
“It’s a work in progress to walk my own talk, but I’m doing my best with that, and it was very personally helpful to put it down on paper so I could have it for my The cover of Falling Awake by Vanderhoof author Todd Blattner is seen in this handout image. own reference. It’s been a great conversation starter and that’s a gift as well, because people bring me notions and ideas and questions that make me think and rethink.”
He has already met some of those alternate viewers of his concepts and learnings.
His first public appearance as an author was recently at the public library in Vanderhoof, then he got invited to be the empirical guest of honour at a local book club. He’s loving the feedback.
On Friday at 7 p.m. at ArtSpace (above Books & Company) he will host his first Prince George event as a professional writer.
It is free of charge to attend; copies of Falling Awake will be available for purchase.
It is available in hardcover, softcover, via iBooks, Indigo, Amazon, and at Books & Company.