This book is an in-depth examination of the much needed process of 'self'-study known as self observation. Know thyself is the most ancient of teachings for awakening. Self observation is the means.

We live in an age where the "attention function" in the brain has been badly damaged by TV and computers - up to 90 percent of the public under age 35 suffers from attention-deficit disorder!

This book offers the most direct, non-pharmaceutical means of healing attention dysfunction. The methods presented here are capable of restoring attention to a fully functional and powerful tool for success in life and relationships.

This is also an age when humanity has lost its connection with conscience. When humanity has poisoned the Earth's atmosphere, water, air and soil, when cancer is in epidemic proportions and is mainly an environmental illness, the author asks: What is the root cause? And he boldly answers: failure to develop conscience! Self-observation, he asserts, is the most ancient, scientific, and proven means to develop this crucial inner guide to awakening and a moral life.

This book is for the lay-reader, both the beginner and the advanced student of self observation. No other book on the market examines this practice in such detail. There are hundreds of books on self-help and meditation, but almost none on self-study via self observation, and none with the depth of analysis, wealth of explication, and richness of experience which this book offers. This book details how to recognize and dealt with the habits of a lifetime, whether in personal, spiritual or work life.

For Yogi Ramsuratkumar: Source

For Mister Lee: Inspiration, Outlaw Saint, True Friend

For Andre Enard: Information about the crucial function of sensation in self observation; Teacher of Dancing

For Maxie: Feeling and feedback

For Rain Drop & Little Wind: Reasons to begin

For Iain, Jett & Jayce: Reasons to continue

For Regina Sara Ryan: Great help in editing

The Teaching

It is as old as the stones.
It came with Humans to the Earth
and it offers them a way out
of the web of sorrows
but at a price:
we must observe ourselves,
our behavior, our
inner and outer responses,
objectively. This means
without taking a personal interest
or doing anything about
the horror
which self observation uncovers:
like a bad boy with a stick
overturning a stone
and finding a mass of crawling things
beneath, but
he refrains
from stomping on them.

(Red Hawk. The Way of Power, 67)

Red Hawk was the Hodder Fellow at Princeton University and currently teaches at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. His other books are:

• Journey of the Medicine Man (August House);
• The Sioux Dog Dance (Cleveland State University);
• The Way of Power (Hohm Press, 1996);
• The Art of Dying (Hohm Press, 1999); and
• Wreckage With a Beating Heart (Hohm Press, 2005).

He has published in such magazines as The Atlantic, Poetry, and Kenyon Review, and has given readings with Allen Ginsberg (1994), Rita Dove (1995), Miller Williams (1996), Tess Gallagher (1996), and Coleman Barks (2005), and more than seventy solo-readings in the United States. Red Hawk is available for readings, lectures, and workshops.

He may be contacted at 824 N. Hyatt, Monticello, AR, 71655; or via e-mail at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hohm Press
P.O. Box 2501
Prescott, AZ 86302
800-381-2700
Visit our website at www.hohmpress.com

© 2009, Robert Moore

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of quotes used in critical articles and reviews.

Cover design: www.AdiZuccarello.com
Interior design and layout: Kubera Book Design, Prescott, Arizona

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Red Hawk.
Self observation : the awakening of conscience : an owner’s manual / Red Hawk.
     p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-890772-92-5 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Observation (Psychology) 2. Introspection.
BF76.6.O27R44 2009
158.1–dc22
2008056157

HOHM PRESS
P.O. Box 2501
Prescott, AZ 86302
800-381-2700 
www.hohmpress.com