Book Reviews

This first review is going to be about the bestseller, The Secret. Many of you have no doubt read it, plan to read it, or have seen the movie. I thought it would be a great place to start. The writer, Rhonda Byrne, has single-handedly created a rush of interest in metaphysical theories that have been around for centuries. She has a gift for synthesizing and creating awareness of the very powerful energy currents that are all around us.

The most important piece of information in the book is the concept that “like attracts like.” This is a universal law, and many spiritual practices have been founded on it. The Theosophists and the secular Unity Church have it at their core, and as Rhonda Byrne points out, it has always shown up in some form in spiritual traditions.
The law of attraction is as real to me as anything in my life. Anything that makes the very real law of attraction available to people is a great service. From working with all of you, I get a constantly reinforced picture of the power you all have to create your lives. My work is to help with the birthing process. Adding the blueprint of the law of attraction is a great asset to anyone’s energetic well being.
So, is this going to be a love fest about this book? No, not completely. While I have firm beliefs about the abundance that is available to us, I believe that Rhonda Byrne presents the material in an overly simplistic way. One section that set my teeth on edge was the chapter devoted to health. She puts too much of the result of enjoying good health on the law of attraction and the simple removal of negativity to create health. I think that is irresponsible. What about environmental issues and their effect on health? What about genetics? Now, I happen to believe that even one’s genetics can be re-worked, but not in every instance. And, it is a very big project!  To say one becomes ill because they have an imbalance in their love and gratitude quotient is just adding one more burden to someone facing a health challenge. “Every form of healing has its place”, according to Dr. John Demartini, and I’d like to second that.
If the universal law of attraction is a new concept to you, then this is a must-read. It will resonate with most readers. Although too simple and broad brush, the author really makes the reader feel that, indeed, anything is possible, and I agree with that!

Sacred Contracts

This book, by the well known author Caroline Myss, is called Sacred Contracts. I attended her workshop in St. Louis in 2001 that introduced and explained her theories about archetypes, but the book had not been published yet, and anyone can access her methodology. Caroline Myss explains how you can identify your signature archetypes and use them as guides and gatekeepers to understanding yourself. This means more insight about why you are attracted to certain types of people or repelled by others. It also helps explain your own behavior, choice of career, and role in relationships. 

Most importantly, she talks about the positive aspects of archetypes that we are only too quick to find the negative connotation of. For instance, she claims that we all have a saboteur lurking in our archetypal mix. One immediately assumes the negative aspects of this; how and why and where it hurts us! What if the purpose of this archetype was to warn you and protect you against your tendencies to sabotage yourself? Each archetype has a positive and a negative interpretation, but the awareness of those patterns can provide a great wake up call. You can become a witness to your actions, not engulfed in them.

Another archetype we all share is the child. Now, is that the wounded, innocent, magical, or nature child? Is that the bratty spoiled child we’ve all exhibited? If we’re aware of the archetype, we can manage it, along with the necessary energy management I stress in my work.

This book allows you to see your life symbolically, thus allowing you to manage your personal power from a more neutral perspective. Emotional dramas fade away with familiarity of the archetypes at work. I hope this book challenges and engages your interest – and helps you discover your divine potential.

 Positive Energy is by a brilliant writer named Judith Orloff. She is a psychiatrist who has researched and recognized the importance of understanding the subtle energies and their relationship to mental and physical health. Her medical background is invaluable in establishing her credentials for this work.

 For energy work to be of true value, it has to HELP you deal with the stresses and strains of everyday life. We all need ways to re-group, get grounded, and most of all, recognize when we’ve become completely scattered. Shallow breathing offers a clue! This book offers tools that provide clear and effective ways to combat both the negative energy that comes your way, but also the needy energy. If you are pre-disposed to absorbing energy, a real empathy, then this is an important book for you. Many of us aren’t; the stew of negative energy all around us doesn’t faze us. For those of us who get worn down, anxious and burdened, it’s a victory to be liberated from this state of mind and move through the world in a centered, protected way.

Positive Energy focuses on ten prescriptions for optimum energetic health, covering everything from body energy types and their relationship with food, to identifying the common energy types. Check out the “energy vampire” and see how many of them you know! It’s another description of “drama queen,” and you’ll be very surprised to read Ms. Orloff’s view of what is going on.  As with everything, recognizing what you’re dealing with helps you to take steps to protect yourself. Then, take them again when the next challenge arises.

As we close this year, it is my hope for all of you that your evolution towards creating an abundant flow of positive energy continues. It is more than wishing and hoping; it can be practically developed and managed. Managing and tuning into yourself with a goal of shedding overload and being more energy aware is a great use of your time. This book offers so many new insights about the subtle energetic components of health and behavior that I keep it by my bedside. I’ll close now, and begin re-reading it in preparation for the upcoming holidays.

After Ecstasy, the Laundry

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, is by Jack Kornfield, author, meditation master, and co-founder of Spirit Rock, a meditation retreat in Marin County, California. This book is about how the modern spiritual journey unfolds. Most, if not all of you, aren’t able to spend a few years sorting things out in silence on a mountaintop. The challenges of work and family, emotional pain, and our own imperfections require most of us to stick around and make a spiritual life around “real” life. In the introduction Kornfield asks, “What happens when the Zen master returns home to spouse and children? When the Christian mystic goes shopping?”

This book, through traditional tales and individual stories, shows ways to translate the excitement of discovering your spiritual path with making peace with the necessary “laundry” of our lives. “All spiritual life is preparation for transition, from one state to another, from one circumstance to another. The ability to make wise transitions is the ability to keep a beginner’s mind. Change is not the enemy.”

Yes, the book has a Buddhist orientation, but it also draws upon Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Sufi traditions. It’s about our hearts, and how we can prepare them for a deeper experience of love and awakening. It’s about truth, and the power of truth to heal and to make sense out of some of our hardest lessons. It’s about acceptance of ourselves as we are. Yes, that!

So, I invite you to take this opportunity to read this funny and wise book and maybe even be willing to air that dirty laundry, openly and without judgment.

I’ve discovered a book that is in alignment with this season of maximum light and growth. It’s actually a book that was first published twenty years ago and the author is now a beautiful woman in her 80’s. It’s as fresh and relevant now as it was in the 1980’s, and written while the author was in her 50’s. See, it’s never too late to heal your life!

You Can Heal Your Life is by Louise Hay, one of the notable pioneers in the human potential movement. I chose her because in the course of working with all of you, her clear view of the importance of self love keeps bubbling up in all my sessions. Like developing techniques for staying grounded and centered, self love is the foundation for healing. Those two elements are building blocks upon which anything can happen. It is the basis for creating your authentic experience. All of the negative mind chatter, doubt and fear can be traced to the earliest experiences of longing for love. Love, held in the heart center, directed towards ourselves and the wonderful uniqueness of our experience can work miracles. I have had the honor of witnessing that process with clients and it is a beautiful sight.

This book offers her style of healing. She works mainly through affirmations and simple exercises. If the timing is right, they are effective additions to your work, and if the timing is wrong, they seem silly. Pay close attention to your responses as you read, and you’ll know if this is right for you. On a personal note, I saw this book twenty years ago and thought I would rather do anything else in the world than these healing exercises. Now I am fully aware of their power. See what a difference timing makes? I took the long way in embracing this work!

One aspect of healing that Louise Hay returns to over and over again is the importance of practice, practice, practice. You are removing limiting beliefs and it’s an opportunity to treat yourself as a young child learning something new. When babies are learning to walk, do you berate them for each tumble? Of course not. Give yourself the same permission to learn something new.

When Things Fall Apart

One of the reviews of this book says, “This is a book that could serve you for a lifetime.” I couldn’t agree more.

“When Things Fall Apart,” by Pema Chodron, is a short 146 page book that is stunning in its truth and simplicity. I feel the title is not a good choice because it is such a life affirming book. This book could change your relationship to the inevitable changes that occur in life.
Chodron, an American Buddhist monk, helps us understand how our thoughts can increase our pain and confusion and cause harm in ourselves and others. She proposes many fascinating ways to stay on the brink of change and not concretize. Although we can’t avoid pain, once we realize that things come together and things fall apart, then come together again and fall apart again, there is room for healing.
We can make room in our lives for grief and joy. We don’t have to hold our breath in fear of the next change. For example, as I type these words, I know I’ll never be writing this review again – that moment has passed. Can I adjust to that? Can I accept that even with the miracle of word processing, my words are impermanent? I don’t know what will happen next, but this day will be over and I have no idea what will actually happen tomorrow.

So many of our reactions are habitual. Chodron offers several ways to observe the spinning off we do as a result of the reactions to our impulses. As she says, “Nothing is what we thought. I can say that with great confidence. Emptiness is not what we thought. Neither is mindfulness or fear.” This book, written from Western sensibilities, is an effort to calmly and concisely address the need for loving kindness towards oneself and developing from that a fearlessly compassionate attitude toward our own pain and that of others.

These are priceless teachings on honesty, kindness, and bravery. This book is profoundly relevant to the ups and downs of ordinary life. Restlessness, heat and an uncomfortable desire for escape accompanies transition. In this book, change itself is given a place to be understood and looked at with a new perspective.

As a bonus, the author is very funny! She’s warm and witty and the book comes alive with her light touch. This lightness makes it a perfect summer read.

A review of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead,” doesn’t seem very spring-like at first, but this book is such a powerful lesson on living well that I was drawn to it. In all honesty, just reading the introduction by His Holiness the Dalai Lama gives a complete and profound view of the great question of whether there is life after death. It encompasses all phases of the end of life, including an inspirational view off bereavement.

 This is a Buddhist perspective and yet there are strong parallels with other schools of thought, especially regarding the existence of a “soul” as a part of being a person. For Buddhists, this notion of soul is merely another aspect of the inextricably joined elements of body and mind. However, all of the generalized terms of after life, karma, and rebirth are seriously reviewed and explained. This is not light reading; in fact, in re-reading it I am reminded that I perhaps didn’t absorb as much as I thought the first time around!

The other fascinating aspect of this book is the extremely detailed explanation of what happens before and during actual death. The stages of the end of life are laid out in such detail that it reminds one that death has been observed and chronicled for a very long time. His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that “death is the point at which both the physical and mental fields dissolve into inner radiance and where both consciousness and energy exist at their most subtle non-dual level, as in deep sleep.” I find that comforting, especially since I have lost two family members in the last two months.

I find that if I make friends with the end of life process I will be less afraid of it and hopefully a more useful companion to those who are moving through it. The experience of death can be understood and accepted (with conscious effort) and although spring is linked to new life and a fresh start, death can signal the same phase in a life.

This complete English translation is the work of many years of scholarship and includes one of most compelling descriptions of the after death state in world literature. It is a book to add to your library because becoming familiar with this phase of life can alleviate anxiety as you or those you love pass into it.

This book is profound and inspiring…and more than a little surprising. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could imagine feeling a bit more prepared for death when it appears in our lives? Even if just a little bit, since I even find writing about it here to be difficult.

One of the highlights of my summer was serving as a teaching assistant at a workshop called “The Language of Intuition,” at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. The workshop, taught by Dr. Francesca McCartney, founder of the Academy of Intuition Medicine in Sausalito CA., was a sampling of the material in her book, Body of Health. I trained with Dr. McCartney and this review showcases her book which should be a foundation for anyone building a healthy, balanced, and fulfilling life

The major building blocks of developing your ability to listen to your intuitive intelligence are described in great detail, with exercises that move from theory to integration. Since all of you have worked with me, do you remember my focus on grounding from the first moment we begin? Body of Health shows you myriad ways to de-code what it really means to be grounded and how vitally important it is. Grounding to the earth is an integral part of the practice of living in health and balance. We are constantly exchanging energy and information, and an overload of this is called stress. It’s an over used word, but the depletion is real and there are many ways to manage it. The author describes herself as an “energy technician,” and my goal for you all is to have full toolboxes of resources for the inevitable challenges to your mental, physical and spiritual health. These are complex systems that make up the human experience and there is a beauty of enhancing wisdom through experiential exercises in the areas of your life force, aura, and chakra system. For those who want to start a meditation practice, there is a very comprehensive section on just how to do that.

I have client who, when asked to set an intention for our work together said, “I want to trust myself.” How wise of her. We are working with, reading about, and identifying your subtle energies and Body of Health gives a very clear blueprint. Trust opens up when understanding opens up, and this book contributes towards understanding.