October 2009 Books/DVDs
From Here to Serenity; Health is Simple, Disease is Complicated; Therapeutic Massage of Thailand; Unveiling the Gifts
From Here to Serenity
A Spiritual Guide to
Transform Your Life
If you're human, you have issues. When Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people,” he was looking at a secular reality, one in which people push your buttons and bring up your issues. When Gail Manishor says, “God is living as you and through you,” she is taking a bigger picture of life, encouraging us to look beyond our issues to the gift hidden within even the worst of situations so that we can see ourselves in the mirror of divine perfection.
From Here to Serenity is a gentle book, a compassionate book filled with stories about real people who found the way to serenity in spite of – or thanks to – their real life issues. Gail is a licensed practitioner from Seaside Center for Spiritual Living (formerly Seaside Church). Family health traumas and two failed marriages pushed her to find the strength to surrender, laying the foundation for stepping into a fulfilling relationship and ultimately resolving her alienation from her first husband. Her own compelling story, which comprises three chapters, was all she intended to write. Then other stories came along, stories of people she met along the way; these make up the bulk of the book.
As you read these stories, it's hard not to identify. If it wasn't you who lived through some of these episodes, you're bound to know someone who has. Illness, guilt, grief, sexual harassment, firings, jealousy, unwanted pregnancy, paying karmic debts—it's all here. Each chapter concludes with an affirmation, a meditative guide, and action steps to finding a new and healthier perspective on life's challenges.
And with all that comes the wisdom of learning how to stay centered in the God that is all love and all good, to walk through your fears and emerge triumphant, and ultimately to earn the capacity be the light in a room filled with troubled souls.
From Here to Serenity will lead you through your own issues to your destination of serenity. I highly recommend it; I am indebted to Paul Lloyd Warner, who redesigned the typesetting for the book, for bringing it to my attention. This is a book I believe just about anyone will find reward in reading.
—Chiwah
Health is Simple, Disease is Complicated
A Systems Approach to Vibrant Health
The whole enchilada. Capitalize all three words, and you have the title of Chapter One. Leave them as they are, and you have the whole book in a nutshell. Who ever thought you could fit a whole enchilada in a nutshell? And one heck of a big enchilada, too.
Health is Simple, Disease is Complicated is a vitally optimistic and informative approach to healthy living “that goes far beyond the absence of symptoms, disease, or pain.”
As its subtitle says, it's a systems approach—meaning that in its pages you discover how all the systems function and how to keep those systems working according to the body's natural genius “and how you can work along with it, not only to alleviate your symptoms but also to correct the underlying causes that create the experience of symptoms and disease in the first place.”
Dr. Forleo sees the body, mind, heart and spirit as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts and health as the natural human condition (as opposed to disease, which is “totally abnormal.” If you're sick, you may have forgotten that. He's here to remind you, and to help you understand the steps you can take to help bring your ailing body back to its normal state of vibrant health.
This is an extremely well organized, comprehensive and practical view of healthy living, written in everyday language with simple drawings and photographs to explain what words might not convey. It's chock-full of valuable information about everything from how to improve your posture, combine foods in your diet and improve your elimination to the mechanisms of dis-ease to how to build “spiritual substance” to support your vitality on every level.
Whew! And there's a detailed index to help you find whatever you're looking for.
Health is Simple, Disease is Complicated is a book we all need now and can use to great advantage for the rest of our long and vigorous lives. I highly recommend it.
—Chiwah
Therapeutic Massage of Thailand
Oooooh, wouldn't a great Thai massage be just what the doctor ordered! Right now. I could call Betse. But wait—she's made a DVD! Let's open it up. This is great. Her specialty is low back and sciatic work—just what I need.
On this informative DVD, Betse demonstrates and explains her own version of Thai massage, beginning with the guided meditation she uses to help clients relax and tune in to their bodies and taking you all the way through each step of the massage, explaining each step and why it's done the way it is.
She begins the massage with the feet, moving up the legs to the groin, massaging, pressing and stretching, energizing the body through the three “Sen” lines – energy lines similar to the meridians in Chinese medicine – on the feet and legs. Then we move to leg stretches, for relief with the hamstring muscles, lower back and sciatica. Moving up the body, she guides you through massaging the chest and abdomen to help with digestion and lung issues. Now you move to massaging and stretching the arms, hands, neck and head.
Next, Betse shows how to massage a person lying on their side can be effective for sore shoulders and back, how to use a back position with stretches to relieve sciatic pain, and stretches to be done in a sitting position. Finally, she gives instruction for massaging muscles around the knees, using a Tui Na technique for tennis elbow that can offer total relief in just five minutes.
Betse's Thai massage is not like any other you've ever experienced. A practitioner since 1993, she taught Thai massage at Natural Healing Institute in Encinitas for five years. Although she uses the techniques of Tui Na, she applies them in ways she has found most successful for relieving aches and pains and getting the energy moving to stimulate the body to take better care of itself. Betse's explanations are clear, the sound quality is high, and the visuals leave no doubt as to how to do what she's telling you to do.
I recommend this DVD to anyone who enjoys giving a good massage, including massage therapists who would like to integrate another modality and even Thai practitioners open to benefiting from Betse's knowledge and wisdom.
—Chiwah
Unveiling the Gifts
Worlds of Good Fortune
Late last year, I wrote a review of a line of products from Sedona Skies that included altar cards, giclee prints, fabric scrolls, greeting cards, a book with two CDs, and more, all featuring the sumptuous art of Trea Christopher Grey. I mentioned the CDs, but focused more on the other items. This summer I had occasion to visit Trea and his partner, Kimall Christensen, at their gracious home in the hills of Sedona, where I was treated to a feast of music, art, and open-hearted joy far beyond anything I can convey in words.
I was… speechless in Sedona. Now that I've rediscovered my tongue, I hope to do some semblance of justice to two of their products I shortchanged last winter: their two-CD set with accompanying hardcover book and their incredibly beautiful line of Blessing Silks. Read on; you'll see soon enough why I have chosen to present the silks and the CD/book set together.
Let's start with the gorgeous, vibrant sensuous silks. Opulent in color and texture, elegant in flow, these immense scarves promise to transport you to octaves heretofore unknown to man or woman. Truly, I have no words to match those of Trea: “God, for me, represents the undeniable and unexplainable magic that nurtures and inspires evolution in our growing perspective of love. This magic resides in everyone and everything…” and the evidence of its ubiquitous presence is “in all ways no less than miraculous.” And the exquisite magic of the Blessing Silks is nothing if not miraculous. Kimall draped one ‘round my neck and my heart took to the air. The scarves come in six unique designs; the one they chose for me was alive with Scorpio reds and aqua blues and greens, of course.
As for the two CDs and the 65-page gallery book filled with art and poetry — get comfy. Settle back and breathe; you're in for a multi-media treat. The instrumental CD overflows with the musical genius of John Dumas on flute, didgeridoo, keyboard, percussion and guitar, an inspired “symphony of consciousness” angels couldn't improve upon.
Let the muse take you away… but not so far that you can't turn the pages. Each of the fourteen musical masterpieces expresses itself in color in the book: music unfolding before your eyes, color singing into your soul. The second CD offers up Gabrielle Young's expressive, breathy reading of the fourteen free-flowing poems featured in sumptuous elegance against a black backdrop on right-hand pages that open up like French doors to reveal inspiring questions. The fresh and soul-enlivening poetry on the left-hand pages is beautifully complemented by the munificent play of colors radiating from Trea's fourteen mood-inducing Heartland paintings in a living, passionate celebration of visual ecstasy.
Now, to my reason for presenting the silks side-by-side with the music and poetry: for a limited time, you can take advantage of introductory pricing online and walk away with it all. Purchase any Silk for $120 and receive a FREE copy of the Gallery Book and 2 Audio CD Set - (regularly $22.00) This is a combined value of $162.00 for this special price.
I suggest you go to the website and view the art for yourself. Listen to some of the music and see if you can keep your wings from spreading. Take advantage of their introductory pricing. Purchase any Silk for $120 and receive a FREE copy of the gallery book and two-CD Set (regularly $22.00). You receive a combined value of $162.00 for this special price.
The combination of silks with the poetry and music makes this a gorgeous gift for the royalty in your life. Remember, the holidays are coming.
—Chiwah
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