ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605280001
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KRISTEN KAMMERER STAFF WRITER
Outside the maternity ward where Robert Griffith Turner was born, a sign on the wall read: "No Children Allowed." Ever since that day, Turner jokes, he's been searching for his inner child.
Today, however, his search is no laughing matter. An adjunct professor of sociology at both Virginia Tech and Radford University, Turner's ideas about self-discovery have earned him some serious attention. In January, HarperCollins, a major New York firm, published his first book, "The Fire and the Rose: Human Core Needs and Personal Transformation."
According to Turner, his book is the result of "a long and ongoing struggle to make sense of my experience and that of [others]."
Using insights drawn from personal experience and Celtic tradition, Hopi culture, Chinese philosophy, Judaism and Plato's teachings, the book is "a practical and revolutionary approach to ... attaining self-awareness and true happiness."
The contents of this self-help book boil down to a simple phrase: We are what we want.
The problem is, Turner says, that sometimes what we want is not what we need and what we need is not what we want.
The author believes that much of the trouble stems from our having two ways of knowing the world, the heart and the mind. The heart, or the "fire," assesses our experiences through feelings and intuition. The mind, or the "rose," is linear and rational.
Turner says that different cultures tend to favor one way of thinking over the other. "In today's society, rational thought is so favored that we've lost touch with our gut instincts." Until this condition is corrected, he says, we cannot see reality clearly.
If we cannot see reality, we cannot attain what Turner calls "the four fundamental core needs" necessary for happiness. They are: The need to give and receive love; the need to nurture and protect the body; the need for identity and approval; and the need for cosmic grounding.
Turner's solution to our dilemma is an expandable chart he calls the Brenden Matrix. Using this matrix along with his theory of core needs, he illustrates how people can balance the ways of the heart with those of the mind to consciously create fulfilling lives.
Initial reviews of "The Fire and the Rose" have been positive and HarperCollins is planning a publicity push for the book in June. Turner is doing book signings and radio interviews. He is scheduled to lecture this summer for The Learning Annex, a well-known seminar series held in both New York City and Washington, D.C.
Being in the spotlight is a new experience for Turner. His seeming "overnight success," he says, is an illusion. He has written for years, completing two unpublished novels, a screenplay and four locally produced plays. For this Blacksburg resident, and father of six, the road to becoming a published author has been paved with much personal and professional struggle.
As a young boy, he was always on the move. His father was an Army officer and their family was constantly being relocated. Born in Hawaii, Turner spent time in Washington, Georgia, Texas and even Bogota, Colombia. By the time he was in his mid-20s, he had had 24 permanent residencies.
"I think that my early travels are what sparked my interest in people and the differences between cultures," he says.
Upon returning to the United States, Turner joined the Army. After active duty, he enrolled at Virginia Tech and earned his bachelor's in business administration.
He eventually married and settled in the New River Valley. While teaching seventh-grade science, he and his wife raised their four daughters.
Turner's fascination with the human experience, however, drew him back to academia. He earned his master's in sociology at Tech and proceeded to get a job at Radford University. He taught there for five years until he was denied tenure in 1973.
Intent on continuing his studies, Turner entered the doctoral program at Tech. During this time, he was divorced and remarried.
The next decade saw the future author struggling as a small businessman. To make ends meet, he worked as a free-lance writer, a print media designer, an artist-illustrator and a regional magazine publisher.
At the end of this "stint of self-employment," Turner returned to Tech in 1987 as an adjunct professor. In between giving lectures and grading papers, he began to concentrate seriously on his writing. He also developed more fully the ideas that would become the backbone of "The Fire and the Rose."
Then everything grew dark. Turner and his second wife separated and the publisher that had agreed to buy his novel went out of business. "It was a very stressful time," he recalls. "I was living alone, not knowing what I was going to do. I just kept writing, though. The process of writing allows things to come through you ... it's a way of growing."
Shortly thereafter, he got the call that changed his life. In November 1994, on the basis of four chapters he had submitted, HarperCollins offered Turner $75,000 for the right to publish "The Fire and the Rose."
The speed at which his life turned around still amazes the author. "I could not believe it!" he recalls. "I had never been offered that kind of money before. I kept wondering, who am I now? What does this mean? Where do I go from here?"
As Turner prepares for his new role, he continues to keep a full teaching schedule and has begun working on the sequel to "The Fire and the Rose." Meanwhile, his agent is showing one of his novels to several publishers.
With the market for self-help guides growing larger than ever, Turner's book may be poised for success. "This is the type of thing that could either really explode or just fizzle out," he says. Ideally, he would like to be able to make enough money as a writer to begin a center for spirituality studies.
For now, however, the future is unclear. "I don't have any idea what's going to happen," he says. "But I believe our world, and every individual in it, is in a period of great change, of transformation, really. And for me, just being a small part of that change is awesome."
LENGTH: Long : 104 linesby CNB