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 The Dancing Healers: A Doctor's Journey of Healing With Native Americans
ASIN: 0062503952
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: Don't Give a Person Who Can't Dance a Stethoscope
Comments: "All stories speak to each of us. Understanding this connection is crucial if we're to be able to live together and to live with ourselves. We must learn to feel how other people connect to one another and to the universe." (Preface)
After completing his internship, Hammerschlag joined the Indian Health Service and began a personal and professional journey in the Southwest. Although he thought he was bringing his healing skills to impoverished people who would be grateful for his gifts, he had no conscious clue that he had chosen a place for his own healing.
Weaving together stories of the brutal destruction of Native American culture by the "White Man" with vignettes and reflections, Hammerschlag suggests a paradigm that goes beyond Western medicine, pronouncing that true healing is impossible without a connection to community, to spirit, and to the land. He compares the work of his mentors, Milton Erickson and Eric Fromm, with Native American healing and spiritual traditions. His journey led him to discover that the keys to healing are to be found, not in some magical external repository, but within the patient her/himself:
"Patients are the principal agents in their lives, and as much as they want to be well, they want peace and understanding." (p. 137)
"All of us have the keys to our own enlightenment. The therapist uses whatever symbols mean something to that patient. Patients already have the answers to their questions. As the therapist listens to the problem, the patient will also tell the solution." (p. 140)
An excellent book, full of powerful stories and brilliant reflections. A must read for anybody interested in personal growth, in helping others, or in the healing process. Details about the abuse of Native Americans may prompt even the most detached narcissists into caring action.
(If you'd like to discuss this book or review in more detail, please click on the "about me" link above and drop me an email. Thanks!)
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 The Toltec Path of Recapitulation: Healing Your Past to Free Your Soul
ASIN: 1879181606
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: Toltec Path of Recapitulation
Comments: Victor Sanchez's The Toltec Path of Recapitulation is a powerful addition to Castaneda's Journey to Ixtan and other works and his own The Teachings of Don Carlos. In fact, he has broadened the most compelling parts of Don Carlos, the recapitulation, with 10 years of experience in both the Old and New World.
Readers will not find the prose in the first half of The Toltec Path of Recapitulation as smooth as Sanchez's earlier work, The Teachings of Don Carlos, translated with Robert Nelson. But the second half of the book, the true meat, leaves an easy trail.
Castaneda wrote that man's greatest endeavor is to polish his spirit. Recapitulation is a tool that Sanchez has taken, redesigned and tested for a somewhat coarser but basic task. It is for the man that realizes that he may need a technique that can chip away at the encrustations, bridge over the gaps, strengthen the cords, and close the holes of an etheric spiritual vessel.
This book is not for the man that wants to read. It is not for the man that wants to describe. It is for the man that wants to do.
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 The Theft of the Spirit: A Journey to Spiritual Healing
ASIN: 0671885537
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: Well worth the price of admission...
Comments: It the spirit of his other book, "Dancing Healers," Dr. Hammerschlag puts together a collection of stories of healing. His insightful approach to using ritual along with "Western Medicine," helps us explore ourselves, our lives and our place in the world. This book should be on every bookshelf in every home. The renewed sense of spirituality and hope the reader obtains through reading this cannot be measured. Truly inspirational reading. Dr. H is a master storyteller.
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 Plant Spirit Medicine: The Healing Power of Plants
ASIN: 1893183114
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: This author offers a unique look at ordinary plants.
Comments: Plants...domestic and not domestic. As the native american person looks at life he sees family members. Spirits occupy all that has life. The eagle has a spirit. Horses have nations...spiritual colonies. Trees have a spiritual family structure. California White Sage...there is a spirit who represents that plant. Eliot Cowan patiently waited and meditated and communed with particular plant spirits. It is not uncommon. It is uncommon for someone outside the native american society to even want to do what Eliot did. It isnt something that one can do on a four day vision quest. Just the knowledge of the fact that spirits do exist in plants, should make us more aware of the giant redwood trees. And the whales and sharks...as all of life has spirit. Even you.
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 The American Indian: Secrets of Crystal Healing
ASIN: 0572022638
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: An important work, it shares a sacred tradition.
Comments: The author clearly states the importance of self clarity in one's work with crystals. He quides and encourages the reader in personal and mystical paths. Luc Bourgault shares his knowledge and love of all living elements, programming the book as carefully as he guides readers in the programming of crystal work. Well done.
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 Meditations with the Cherokee: Prayers, Songs, and Stories of Healing and Harmony
ASIN: 1879181592
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: Harmony and Balance from a Cherokee Perspective
Comments: This is a wonderful and concise book which reveals the old wisdoms and teachings of the Cherokee. For most readers it will be a slightly different approach in learning to be in harmony with our modern world. The book teaches this harmony both with meditative exercises and with stories which carry the message - the teachings for our current and future generations. As mentioned in the introduction, "This book will take you on a journey of discovery about relationships." It is an excellent book and very much worth reading. It is the 3rd in a series of books by Dr. J. T. Garrett that teach us how to live in harmony and balance in this world. [His other books are Medicine of the Cherokee - The Way of Right Relationship and Walking on the Wind: Cherokee Teachings for Healing Through Harmony and Balance (written by his son, Professor Michael Garrett).]
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 Walking on the Wind: Cherokee Teachings for Healing Through Harmony and Balance
ASIN: 1879181495
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: Highly recommended
Comments: very helpful tool for life. Very inspiring and spiritual, but also funny. This book is a must.
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 The Teachings of Don Carlos: Practical Applications of the Works of Carlos Castaneda
ASIN: 1879181231
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: The Best Aprroach to Castaneda's Topics
Comments: I love this book because it helped me to use the ideas from the books of Castaneda in a way that really helped me to make the warrior's path a reallity in my life. I have been fan of Carlos Castaneda for more than twenty years, but I was confused about the "non-ordinary-reality" events described in his books. Only after reading Sanchez I could find a more down to the earth approach which was very refreshing. The best part happens when you practice the excercises and this book has a lots of them">
I also recommend Toltecs of the New Millennium from the same author. That book is very useful if you want to know about the actual experiences with indigenous people that provided Sanchez' background to approach Castaneda. I give five stars to The Teachings of Don Carlos because is the more grounded and honest approach to the books of Castaneda!
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 Woman Who Glows in the Dark: A Curandera Reveals Traditional Aztec Secrets of Physical and Spiritual Health
ASIN: 1585420220
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderfully alive and full of wisdom--just like Elana herself!
Comments: Elena's book is wonderfully alive, and full of spirit and wisdom--just like Elana herself. The people who had the good sense and great fortune to be treated by her were very lucky people, and so are we as we take the opportunity to read about her life and work. WOMAN WHO GLOWS IN THE DARK not only takes us into the primary world of healing through curanderismo (expressed for the first time by one who is actually practicing it, rather than someone outside looking in), but also has the capacity to inform our own life and spirit. Joy has helped Elena do a wonderful job of telling this fascinating story. Beginning with Elena's own experience and on into the healing stories of others, this book will keep you deeply interested. OPEN YOUR MIND AND HEART AS YOU OPEN THIS BOOK - THERE IS MUCH TO GAIN.
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 Mad Bear: Spirit, Healing, and the Sacred in the Life of a Native American Medicine Man
ASIN: 0671759450
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Comments: Doug Boyd again, as in "Rolling Thunder", has shown us the everyday life of a remarkable man. Thank you Doug for reminding us how it is possible to live the sacred path with gusto. Since we are not all able to sit at Mad Bear's knee to learn his great wisdom, Doug shows us that the traditions still exist and are practiced. This is a book that should be read by everyone.
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 The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge: History and Contemporary Practice
(Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians)
ASIN: 0803261659
Customer's Rating: 5
Summary: Good work!
Comments: Not only the most throughout chronicle of the sweat lodge ritual, but also one of the best books on contemporary Lakhota religion. Good work!
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 The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends
ASIN: 089594636X
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 The Lakota Sweat Lodge Cards Spiritual Teachings of the Sioux
ASIN: 0880797290
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Also See:
Ayurveda
Meditation
Yoga
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