Waking UP – The Book

In this book, we explore life’s ultimate journey—the path of consciously evolving and waking up, personally and in the larger world.

Waking Up invites you to explore more deeply what is possible in your own life. And to engage more fully in this challenged world we live in together.

The book explores the marriage of the inner life or spirituality, with activism in the outer world.  Many people focus on one or the other—spirituality or activism.  Our world’s many problems now require us all to embody both of these dimensions in our lives more fully.

In joining inner and outer—we become whole, we live deeper and more fulfilling lives, we work together to preserve our children’s future.  

Waking Up explores this journey and known process—deeply and personally.

You can buy Waking UP in paperback on Amazon (eBook soon).

From the Introduction to Waking UP:

Welcome.

It’s a privilege to be your companion in these pages as we explore life’s ultimate journey—the path of consciously evolving and waking up. And, most important, as we look at how this journey is unfolding for you.

Look around—how wild and sweet this shining world; how precious, this human life we share. Each new day, life offers a vast spectrum of dazzling possibilities and wonders—such beauty and opportunity, such love and joy. And of course, real challenges and suffering at times.

While many of us live comfortable and privileged lives, our children’s future and our beautiful planet stand threatened by escalating social and environmental problems, especially climate change. The good news is that together, we are up to the challenge—and you are part of the solution.

Humanity’s great hope lies in waking up, and accelerating the evolution of consciousness and culture—intentionally. Together, we can (and must) evolve enough, and make the large-scale transitions required to preserve a healthy future and planet.

Waking UP explores this evolutionary enterprise, individually and collectively. Part journey guide and map, part interactive adventure, part wake-up call, it offers a clear and practical path to walk—bridging both inner and outer worlds. These pages invite you more deeply into your own process of consciously evolving, embodying greater fullness, depth, and joy in your life, and working to help solve the immense challenges of our time.

This book takes you on a journey of inquiry, self-discovery, and waking up—in two parts.

 – read the rest of the introduction

For a map of this Journey of Waking UP,

read the Table of Contents

What is Waking Up?

Some people believe that awakening is some mysterious lightning bolt of spiritual grace that strikes only a rare few—a dramatic experience of dying to the conditioned ego-self, followed by permanent enlightenment and bliss.

Here’s the good news—waking up is something far more accessible and attainable—in ordinary life, for ordinary people.   Awakening is not one single experience, realization, or event.  More realistically, people usually wake up progressively, through an unfolding process of conscious personal and spiritual growth over time. 

Some use the term “waking up” in just a spiritual sense, but the term has great meaning in many areas of our evolving lives.  As we actively engage our own process of inquiry and growth, we wake up from the sleep and smallness of our early conditioning, from the misconceptions and limits of our old assumptions and beliefs.  We wake up as we become more conscious, aware, and present—moment by moment. We wake up as we resolve whatever issues we have been avoiding, hiding, denying, or lying about.  We wake up as we become more healthy and whole, and as we come into full integrity.  We wake up as we deepen our understanding of life, ourselves, and the world.  We wake up from the dream state of our fearful, conditioned self.  We wake up from the sleepwalking spell of the social trance.  We wake up from our unsustainable ways of living on the planet.

In all this, we awaken to a new life—to a progressively expanding reality of greater freedom, understanding, and peace.  We enter a larger world of limitless possibility and promise.  Our consciousness and perspectives expand.  Our energy and senses are heightened.  We experience more, and more deeply.  Our whole being opens, our worldview expands, our humanity deepens.  We know and see more; we love and give more.  We awaken to our aware essential self, to our innate higher nature.  We are able to hold and manage greater complexity.  We awaken to the possibility of a sustainable future on a healthy planet, and actively help create this reality.  We awaken to the expansive vision of a planetary perspective and consciousness.  We awaken to our authentic connection and kinship with all of life and existence. (From book Introduction)

This provides a glimpse of the process and possibility of waking up—some of what we explore in the book Waking Up, and in our weekend workshop Journey of Waking Up.  

Free download: “Solving the Climate Crisis Together.”

Excerpt from Waking UP – 3 chapters on the climate crisis, real solutions, and bold action.

Our Planetary Emergency: Waking Up to the Serious State of the World-Particularly Climate Change
Our Doable Solution: Igniting a Global Clean Energy Revolution
Our Grassroots People’s Movement: Solving the Climate Crisis Together

Click here to get the free PDF excerpt and subscribe to my newsletter

(This excerpt will be available soon as a $2.99 eBook)

Praise for Waking UP

Bill McKibben

A fascinating account of how our biggest global crisis may relate to some of our smallest internal battles. Provocative!
—Bill McKibben, founder 350.org, author The End of Nature

Drew Dellinger

This book sounds a wake-up call to a culture in crisis. Taylor Hawke weaves together psychology and spirituality, cosmology and climate change, to evoke the deep meaning of our lives at this moment on Earth. Offering wise counsel and relevant questions for our personal and collective journey, Waking Up inspires the individual and social transformations needed for the flourishing of future generations.
—Drew Dellinger, author, Love Letter to the Milky Way

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We welcome your comments or questions. Contact Taylor