Being born during the apartheid era in South Africa motivated me to study law and pursue justice, so I completed a 6-year university degree (BA LLB). However, when I finally arrived in the law courts, I realized this was just not me. I foresaw a life of mind, having to be smart and clever, when in fact I wanted a life of hands and heart. I then trained in therapeutic massage, and in my early 30’s, I began exploring sex – relaxing, being more present, trusting my body. This innocent curiosity totally turned my life around – I’ve written 8 books and thousands of couples have participated in my Making Love Retreats.
I love this book because of the way sensuality is encouraged.
Wonderful to feel the sweet teachings of presence, embodiment, and love that have been so helpful in my life for creating a delicious relationship. There is a gentle shining presence to this book, full of passion, energy, and practical exercises. Reading it was a relaxing and satisfying experience.
Hollenbery’s suggested 7 medicines are markers on a journey to connection, delight, and joy. I appreciate the depth and breadth of spirituality, careful attention to detail, and welcoming warmth. I found it beautifully written, engaging, and good fun.
I value how each word invited me into a deeper connection with myself and my body, and as a by-product, a healthier and more intimate connection with others.
A step-by-step journey into sensuality to rediscover the delight that lies just below the surface of everyday experience
* Shares seven easily accessible spiritual "medicines"--slowing down, embodying, deepening, relating, pleasure, power, and potency--so you can discover more sensual pleasure and delight in your body, relationships, and way of being as well as inner confidence, instinctual power, and aliveness
* Presents reflections, practical somatic and breathing exercises, prompting questions, meditations, and energetic transmissions for each medicine
* Explores body awareness, managing emotions stored in the body, the five realms of relationship, the different kinds of love, sexuality, passionate intimacy, and pleasure…
I'm an American author of thirteen books (so far). Some are on vegan living (Main Street Vegan, The Love-Powered Diet); others (Creating a Charmed Life, Shelter for the Spirit, Younger by the Day) are about wellbeing and crafting an inner life. My passions are spirituality -- yoga primarily, but all the ways people find meaning; compassionate living: extending loving-kindness to ourselves and all beings; and creating vibrant health through yoga, Ayurveda, plant-based eating, and a grateful outlook. (Here's a little preview: I'm in the early stages of a book about aging like a yogi.)
Yoga, like any discipline designed to integrate us humans with ourselves, works for those who work it. Some, however, have a more challenging path, and this includes survivors of trauma. In this beautifully written work -- part memoir, part self-help -- the author details how finding yoga, and practicing it as if her life and sanity depended on it, brought her out of intense grief and PTSD. She shows us how it can work for us, too, if our life saga includes great sorrow, or if we'd simply like to deal better with the generic ups-and-down.
Orphaned in her early teens and shuttled between abusive foster homes, Tatiana Forero Puerta found herself in her early twenties in New York City, haunted by the memories of her tumultuous youth and suicidal. Following emergency hospitalization, she was advised by her doctor to take up yoga. Over days, weeks, months, and then years, she embraced yoga’s honesty and discipline―delving more deeply into its wisdom, literature, and, vitally, its practice. In so doing, yoga healed her scars, opened her soul to forgiveness, and allowed her to reconcile herself with a past that had threatened to snuff out her life. Yoga…
NLP at Work has led me to many different countries and experiences and, most of all, an ability to choose how I live my life. NLP; Neuro Linguistic Programming is a way of studying how we do what we do, especially when we do things that are outstanding. The difference that makes the difference is the strapline, and that difference is invariably some unconscious, intuitive act – often rooted in how we think and what we believe. I have sought to present both the tools to study in this kind of way and some of the results of that – the techniques that can be discovered with NLP.
The opening paragraph contains these words, "Do you feel you have made the best of your genetic endowment?" Most people, in my experience, say ‘no’ to that. What a waste and what a price to pay as you age if you are not taking care of yourself in a way that lets you move and live in a state of freedom. I have studied Feldenkrais for many years and the awareness I have gained allows me to recognise what I am doing to myself both good and bad. The answers to this freedom are simple yet elusive as the title suggests. As Moshe Feldenkrais says, "If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want." This book is a powerful foundation for the practice of Feldenkrais and learning how to overcome difficulties, pain, and anxiety to move and live with grace and freedom in the way you…
Scientist, martial artist, and founder of the method that bears his name, Moshe Feldenkrais wrote several influential books on the relationship between movement, learning, and health. In The Elusive Obvious he presents ideas that are more relevant today than when the book was first published, as current research strongly supports many of the insights on which the Feldenkrais Method is based. This beautiful new edition is ready to be treasured by an emerging generation of somatic practitioners, movement teachers, performing artists, and anyone interested in self-improvement and healing. The two main strands of the Feldenkrais Method—Awareness Through Movement and Functional…
We are Witches. Real Witches, doing real magic, casting spells, and weaving webs. We are Amy Torok and Risa Dickens–the co-creators of the Missing Witches project, researching what it means to be a Witch. Together, we have put out almost 300 podcast episodes and published two books and an oracle deck of cards: Missing Witches: Recovering True Histories Of Feminist Magic, New Moon Magic: 13 Anti-capitalist Tools for Resistance and Re-enchantment, and The Missing Witches Deck of Oracles: Feminist Ancestor Magic for Meditations, Divination and Spellwork. Our first book appeared on VICE Magazine’s list: The Best Books for Starting an Occult Library.
We believe that words are spells and that writing down our thoughts, feelings, and ideas is a form of doing Magic. So we were thrilled to discover this book, co-edited by Tamiko Beyer, Destiny Hemphill, and Lisbeth White, a book that validates and reifies the magic of poetry.
This book opens a portal to discuss the ritual of writing, the radical imagination required for social justice, the alchemy of collaboration, and a slow revolution. We’re enamored with the collaborative nature of the book and how it illustrates that writing and poetry are not just kept for times of solitude but can be ritualized into a community-building praxis to change the world.
Poems, essays, and prompts to sing a new world into being--Queer & BIPOC perspectives on poetry as an insurgent ritual for manifesting liberation and reclaiming power.
Written for poets, spellcasters, and social justice witches, Poetry as Spellcasting reveals the ways poetry and ritual can, together, move us toward justice and transformation. It asks: If ritualized violence upholds white supremacy, what ritualized acts of liberation can be activated to subvert and reclaim power?
In essays from a diverse group of contributing poets, organizers, and ritual artists, Poetry as Spellcasting helps readers explore, play, and deepen their creativity and intuition as integral…
I have, unfortunately, been invited into a club I never signed up for–the Griever’s Club. It’s not that my losses are exceptional, but I have been desperate to find meaning and hope in them in order to survive them. I lost my best friend of over 25 years to cancer and lost my dad on the same day–two years later–from an unexpected heart attack. I have known grief in other ways, too: unexpected job loss, disease, my children’s health struggles. As a pastor and a follower of Christ, it has been important to me to wrestle honestly for my own faith, and on behalf of other hurting readers.
I love Natasha’s voice and kindness when it comes to grief. She has been through so much loss herself, and so she knows what grief and unexpected loss try to steal from a person.
She invites the reader to simply be kind to themselves and teaches others how to come around grieving people with presence and without trying to “fix.” She offers a meaningful perspective on losses of all kinds.
It takes time and space to grieve well, but often our culture doesn't afford us these things. Drawing from her own experience with grief, Natasha Smith invites us into a reflection on what it means to grieve and how to cling to hope even in our darkest moments. Instead of providing quick-fix solutions, this book creates space for us to take time to just sit and grieve, learn, and heal in healthy ways.
In Can You Just Sit with Me? Smith provides personal stories, biblical reflections, relevant research, practical tools, and prayers that…
I am a writer and advocate for survivors of sexual abuse. Since 1998, I have encouraged them to find their voice and use it through my organization, Time To Tell. Being isolated is foundational to our experience, and our culture perpetuates the isolation by often refusing to address it, acknowledge it, or expose it, as well as not listening to–nor believing–survivors. This forces us to remain silent. I am certain that telling is healing. I lead writing circles for survivors to experience community and get support and encouragement. I recommend all these books not only for the wisdom offered but also the direct experience of not being alone in the reading.
It wasn't until I believed healing was possible that I started to heal. It's a huge step, and this little book was perfect for helping me to start believing. It's very short but packed full of wonderful ideas, exercises, and tips. I love their list of things to do to express your anger.
Reading it gave me the first glimpse that I had a right to my anger—what a gift! The second part has stories from other survivors and how they got to healing, which are very inspiring.
There's nothing as wonderful as starting to heal, waking up in the morning and knowing that nobody can hurt you if you don't let them.
Beginning to Heal offers hope and guidance for all survivors starting the healing journey. No matter how great your pain today, you can not only heal but thrive. Based on the authors' bestseller The Courage to Heal, this Revised Edition of Beginning to Heal takes you through the key stages of the healing process, from crisis times to breaking the silence, grief, and anger, to resolution and moving on. It includes inspirational highlights, clear explanations,…
It all began at a very young age when I aspired to be Jane Goodall and save the lives of animals. Since then, her wisdom, courage, and activism have guided me throughout my life. Through my childhood, I nursed fledglings with eyedroppers, adopted turtles left on the curbside, and became an advocate for “Save our Seals”. In college, I immersed myself in the study of animal behavior. I explored the behavior of Red Kangaroos, "Megalia Rufas" in captivity, exploring ways in which zoos could improve their facilities to respect the needs of the animals. These experiences set the landscape for my work as a holistic psychotherapist with the healing power of dogs.
She is remarkable at breaking down easy ways to train your dogs with such ease and compassion. If you follow these steps you will have a very healthy, happy, well-trained dog. Volumes 1 and 2 are two of the best books to learn how to communicate and teach your dog everything they will ever need to know.
I’ve known since I was 5 years old that my passion in life was helping people be all they came to this planet to be. I have been working with individuals, couples, businesses, and groups, and teaching courses for 54 years. Having had many years of my own psychotherapy, and 17 years into practicing traditional psychotherapy, I was not happy with the results, so I prayed for a teacher or a process that would really work. 38 years ago, I met Dr. Erika Chopich and we co-created the powerful Inner Bonding process, brought to us by our higher guidance, that rapidly heals on a very deep level, far beyond traditional psychotherapy.
Anita is a brilliant teacher of inclusion and diversity, and a fellow member of the Transformational Leadership Council. I couldn’t put her book down as she took me on her journey to claiming her personal power. The world needs this book now! Anita’s understanding of these four gifts and how important they currently are to our planet will deeply inspire you.
Heal your past, discover your true purpose, and become a powerful source of inspiration and leadership with The Four Sacred Gifts, a collection of Aztec and global indigenous wisdom for modern life.
Given the ongoing changes in our economic, social, political, and physical environment, we are often left gulping for air as we ride the powerful waves of change. Modern life overloads us with information yet lacks the true wisdom we seek. In this book, a group of global indigenous elders pass down their four most essential, agreed upon tools to help you fulfill your truest desire for meaning, wisdom,…
I've been fascinated by psychedelics since I was a teenager, and along with my book I’ve written a number of academic papers and book chapters on the subject. It intrigues me how subtle changes in the brain’s chemistry leads to such profound changes in perception, cognition, and feeling, including religious feeling. I want to know what those experiences mean, and what they can tell us about the world. For if all they are is some derangement of the senses, why is it that so many writers, thinkers, philosophers and artists return to the experience, again and again? There is a riddle here, a mystery, and I love that I’m able to devote my research time to trying to answer it.
I suspect that many of us now know someone who’s been to the Amazon to take the psychedelic beverage, ayahuasca, returning with wide eyes and tales of profound healing. Here, anthropologist Stephan Beyer cuts through the romanticisation to present an accurate and engaging picture of ayahuasca shamanism in the Upper Amazon. He asks difficult questions, such as how well shamans actually cure sickness and why so many shamans engage in sorcery, but his inquiry is never less than sympathetic. That he peppers the book with his own psychedelic, ayahuasca visions, makes this one of the most accessible and engaging books on the subject.
In the Upper Amazon, mestizos are the Spanish-speaking descendants of Hispanic colonizers and the indigenous peoples of the jungle. Some mestizos have migrated to Amazon towns and cities, such as Iquitos and Pucallpa; most remain in small villages. They have retained features of a folk Catholicism and traditional Hispanic medicine, and have incorporated much of the religious tradition of the Amazon, especially its healing, sorcery, shamanism, and the use of potent plant hallucinogens, including ayahuasca. The result is a uniquely eclectic shamanist culture that continues to fascinate outsiders with its brilliant visionary art. Ayahuasca shamanism is now part of global…
I’m a program host with The Shift Network and have interviewed hundreds of experts on the topics of ancestral healing, mediumship, and the “veil between the worlds.” I was drawn to these topics because of my discoveries of ancestral trauma in my family tree, including an ancient curse and a fiery mine disaster. Eventually, I realized we ALL have generational trauma. Just watch the news—we’re all acting out from inherited trauma, and we need to heal our own stuff in order to heal the global condition. I feel like it’s my life’s work to heal my family’s trauma-based dysfunctions and spread the word to others doing the same work.
Daniel Foor is one of my favorite teachers/authors on this topic. He really knows what he’s talking about, and, in addition, he’s a deeply thoughtful and compassionate man.
Working with Daniel, I’ve been able to dive backward into my lineage and pull forward helpful information and healing energies. I’ve felt empowered to actually do something about the ripple effects of the trauma that my ancestors experienced.
If you have a chance to take a class with Daniel, especially one based on this book, I highly recommend it!
Offering a practical guide to understanding and navigating relationships with the spirits of those who have passed, Daniel Foor, PhD, details how to relate safely and effectively with your ancestors for personal, family, and cultural healing. He provides exercises and rituals, grounded in ancient wisdom traditions, to help you initiate contact with your ancestors, find supportive ancestral guides, cultivate forgiveness and gratitude, harmonize your bloodlines, and assist the dead who are not yet at peace. He explains how to safely engage in lineage repair work by connecting with your more ancient ancestors before relating with the recently deceased. He shows…
