Books

In Earth Medicines, Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz (Tewa/Xicana) weaves together stories of her own indigenous wisdom with the power of the four elements to achieve inner and outer harmony. Including recipes and rituals that highlight the power of Water, Air, Earth, and Fire, this book is a reminder that the natural elements are the origins of everything - and can heal our body, mind, and spirit.

In chapters organized by each element, readers will first find recipes and advice for:

• Promoting inner harmony through Hydrotherapy for Headache Relief, Mayan Tea to Calm the Mind, or Ginger Fire Honey Chews
• Nurturing beauty inside and out with Tepezcohuite Honey Mask, Salt of the Earth Deodorant, or Sweetwater Herbal Mouth Rinse
• Taking care of the spirit by creating an ancestral altar, making loose incense, or performing a Mayan Bajo Steaming Ritual

Felicia thinks of earth medicine as a way of engaging with Mother Earth every day, having a deepened relationship with the four elements and incorporating them into our daily lives. This modern guide to working with earth medicines is designed to support you on your path of wellness with lifestyle practices collected by Felicia in her twenty-five years of working with complimentary modalities.

Astrology for Yourself is designed to introduce you to the language, art, and science of astrology through a series of self-directed, program-learning exercises that will literally enable you to write your own chart interpretation. Aside from providing you a wealth of knowledge about your birth chart, Astrology for Yourself promises to promote personal growth and change your life.

Soul Orientation connects you to your soul essence, your true nature of being. The book plants the seeds for a lifetime journey to awaken energetic sensory development so that readers can come into reflective relationships with their true selves, others, and the Universe. Our technology and lifestyle have walled us into an abyss, separating ourselves from the inner mechanisms of our human DNA's energetic evolution. This abyss causes many of us to lose connection and, with our purpose eluding us, we are left feeling empty, mentally and emotionally restless, wandering.

Soul Orientation and Embodied Practice provide the internal guidance system, through the whisper of our sensing nature of being, and begin to gently guide us through the abyss. Once we sense what is, we no longer lose our way, our soul, or our soul essence. Then, we are in a reflective relationship, dancing through and with the Universe.

Start your journey to unlock your soul essence and begin an amazing pure experience.

The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of HistoryCited by the L.A. Weekly as "the culture's foremost spokesman for the psychedelic experience," Terrence McKenna is an underground legend as a brilliant raconteur, adventurer, and expert on the experiential use of mind-altering plants.In these essays, interviews, and narrative adventures, McKenna takes us on a mesmerizing journey deep into the Amazon as well as into the hidden recesses of the human psyche and the outer limits of our culture, giving us startling visions of the past and future.

This fascinating book by psychologist and medical anthropologist Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., explains the practices for healing outside of ordinary time and space. It shows how to enter the timeless "now" to heal events that occurred in the past, and to correct the course of destiny. Dr. Villoldo discusses ways in which you can heal yourself and your loved ones by employing intention through practices used by shamans of the Americas--which, until now, have been inaccessible to most of the world. The shamans of old called this "journeying."

In this book, you'll discover that you have a four-chambered heart in the same way you have a four-chambered soul. In the first chamber, you store away the memory of a wound that derailed your destiny. In the second, you keep the limiting beliefs and soul contracts that you entered into at the time of your loss. In the third, you recover the grace and trust that will make you whole again; and in the fourth, you remember the calling and mission that you choose to unfold in this lifetime. "While everyone has a future," Villoldo says, "only certain people have a destiny." This book shows you how to find and manifest yours.

A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience.

 

Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival.

Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos.

Thich Nhat Hanh brings his gifts of clarity and poetry to an explication of the basic teachings of Buddhism--the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. These teachings are the time-tested means to transform our suffering into mindfulness and joy. Original and very accessible, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching is a profound introduction to the practice and insights of Buddhism. For longtime practitioners or those newly interested in the way of understanding and love, as presented by one of today's most beloved teachers.

From two of mindbodygreen's top editors comes an essential companion for anyone seeking a deeper spiritual life.

 

Taking time to nourish yourself and connect to the rhythms of the Earth can feel like a tall order when your days are packed to the brim but this beautifully illustrated handbook can make it a whole lot easier. The Spirt Almanac provides readers with potent, accessible rituals they will want to call on again and again throughout the year to feel more grounded, aligned with their purpose, and in touch with their own innate sense of knowing.

 

Readers will be invited to practice and personalize dozens of routines incorporating science-backed techniques like breathwork, meditation, and aromatherapy, as well as more esoteric offerings like astrology, crystals, and tarot. Along the way, they will learn the fascinating history of ritual and trace these ancient spiritual practices through the ages to modern day applications from several true masters--from reiki healers to psychologists to sound therapists--who live and breathe this work. Divided by the four seasons, this book features dozens of ideas for spirit and soul enriching rituals including:

 

- Honor the quiet of winter and the start of the year by setting new intentions with a seed planting ritual
- Come spring, try a breathwork ritual to release blocks and move forward
- Celebrate summer with a forest bathing ritual to clear your mind or a crystal ritual for an open, receptive heart
- Wind down in fall with a self-soothing full moon ceremony to reflect on the year

 

The Spirit Almanac will infuse your life with more joy, gratitude, and a deeper connection to yourself and our Mother Earth.

Native shamanic traditions tell us that there are cords, strands, threads, and filaments of energy that flow to and through us, connecting us to everyone and everything in the Universe. Some energy strands make us feel vibrant and alive. Others deplete and weaken us. Most of us are unaware of these energy strands, but they are extremely powerful forces that surround us every day.In her latest book, Energy Strands, Denise Linn shows you how to release the cords that bind you and strengthen the ones that heal you. She shares methods she’s personally practiced over the years to help you achieve peace and balance in your life, including how to:

• discover attachments to family, friends, lovers, past-lives, and pets
• cut energy strands with toxic people and unhealthy relationships
• activate specific techniques to protect and shield your energy field
• use space clearing methods to create harmony in your home

Energy Strands explores the connection between the chakras, breath, meditation, visualization, sound healing, and more. Using a variety of tools, including dowsing, smudging, singing bowls, crystals, and much, much more, you’ll begin to renew your energy, replenish your inner sources, and magnify the cords that empower you.

What is a beastie? Beastie [bee-stee]: The overarching spirit of any species of insect, reptile, bird, mammal, or mythical creature that exists or has ever existed; also known as an animal totem or spirit animal.

As more and more people seek help with the challenges of modern life, many of us are looking to the wisdom of nature for guidance--especially when it comes in the form of spirit animals. In a quirky and delightful style, Sarah Seidelmann's The Book of Beasties introduces us to the power of animal totems, or "beasties," inviting us to explore why certain animals show up in our lives and what teachings they may be trying to share. Whether you're a long-time shamanic practitioner or simply curious about what secret messages your favorite animal might have for you, The Book of Beasties is an ideal resource for discovering the wild and wonderful world of spirit animals.

Packed with information, illustrations, and traditional and modern insights into the unique qualities of different beasties, The Book of Beasties teaches you about:

- Guest Beasties: how certain beasties enter your life to give you messages or assistance you need just when you need them
- Core Beasties: meet the guiding beasties who are your lifelong companions, friends, and helpers
- Beastie Relationships: tips and techniques for deepening your relationship with beasties and becoming more receptive to their support
- Beasties A-Z: an expansive compendium of individual beasties and their unique qualities--including bats, wolves, elephants, salmon . . . even unicorns and dragons

Jon Turk has kayaked around Cape Horn, traversed the Northwest Passage and paddled across the Pacific Rim. But, the strangest trip he ever took was the journey he made as a man of science into the realm of the spiritual.

In 2000, in the remote Siberian village of Vyvenka, Jon Turk met an elderly woman named Moolynaut, a Koryak shaman, and learned about her voyages to the spirit world. A year later, Moolynaut entreated the spirit of a great, black raven to help mend his pelvis, which had been previously fractured in a mountaineering accident. When the healing was complete, Turk was able to walk without pain. Turk, a scientist, could find no rational explanation for the healing and the experience changed his life, irrevocably altering his view of the connectivity between the natural and spiritual worlds. Searching for the spirit raven, he traversed the frozen tundra where Moolynaut was born, camping with bands of reindeer herders, and recording stories of their lives and spirituality.

Framed by high adventure across the vast and forbidding Siberian landscape, The Raven's Gift is a life-altering vision of the ties between the natural and spiritual realms, informed by one man’s awakening and guided by the ancient spirit bird with wide black wings and the power to heal.

This user’s guide to Buddhist basics takes the most commonly asked questions—beginning with “What is the essence of the Buddha’s teachings?”—and provides simple answers in plain English. Thubten Chodron’s responses to the questions that always seem to arise among people approaching Buddhism make this an exceptionally complete and accessible introduction—as well as a manual for living a more peaceful, mindful, and satisfying Life. Buddhism for Beginners is an ideal first book on the subject for anyone, but it’s also a wonderful resource for seasoned students, since the question-and-answer format makes it easy to find just the topic you’re looking for.

Drawn from the author's more than four decades of working with ancient shamanic wisdom, spiritual practice, cutting-edge psychology, energy healing and quantum discoveries, this volume presents groundbreaking techniques for resolving trauma, embedded pain, enigmatic illness, inherited dysfunction and more. It offers readers tools to help free both themselves and others from myriad ailments, allowing underlying resilient wholeness to emerge again. The book teaches the interested reader to use each of the healing modalities presented, which provide non-invasive, drug-free methods to address and resolve core issues from which illness arises. Included are practical, step-by-step guidelines for practitioners and individuals to address physical, psychological, emotional, mental, and spiritual concerns; the volume embraces a holistic approach to restoring robust, vibrant good health. It includes an appendix listing all of the processes for quick and easy reference.

Enriched with numerous case studies and processes, this comprehensive guide takes the reader on a journey that encompasses procedures for the setting and opening of sacred space, cleansing the auric field, stone extractions, shamanic hypnosis journeys, cord removal, and the clearing of ghosts/spirits. You will learn alternative and complementary healing methods that also foster lasting personal transformation and insights.

This "how-to" book on energy healing with spirit guides and the quantum field allows one to access, understand and resolve illness and deeply buried material, including:

• Discovering Root Causes of Illness & Dysfunction
• Healing Inherited, Past-Life or Childhood Trauma
• Locating and Healing Hidden Inner Wounds
• Working with Spirit Guides and Higher Beings
• Removing Troublesome Thought Forms & Entities
• Harmonizing with Celestial/Healing Light
• Reintegrating Archived Emotions
• Releasing Energetic Baggage
• Healing Addictive/Toxic Behaviors
• Retrieving Dissociated Soul Fragments
• Extracting Harmful Energies
• Ancestral Healing

Paperback, 226 pages

A practical, hands-on guide to Mexican-American folk magic or brujeria.

The essential book of Mexican-American saints, folk-magic, and healing and a go-to for anyone interested in shamanism and Indigenous peoples' magic. American Brujeria is about the fascinating blend of American and Mexican folk magic currently used by those living in the US but whose roots are steeped in Mexican culture. This type of Mexican-American folk magic, which the author calls "American Brujeria," features its own unique saints and spirits as well as familiar ones, such as the notorious Santa Muerte.

American Brujeria includes stories from Mexico (folk saints, the story of Guadalupe), the influence of Catholicism, the art of limpias (spiritual cleansings), spell casting, oil crafting, praying the rosary (in English and Spanish), making an altar to Guadalupe, using novena candle magic, crafting protective charms from saints' medals, and more.

Wild Mercy is essential reading for anyone ready to awaken the feminine mystic within and birth her loving, creative, and untamed power into the world.

Mystical brilliance at its best. --Caroline Myss

 No one can take us into the fiery and tender depths of the sacred feminine with more skill, humor, clarity, and vibrant naked honesty than Mirabai Starr. --Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope and The Return of the Mother

 

We live in a world that has suffered the abuses of an unbalanced masculine rule for thousands of years--but the feminine is rising. Seeds of feminine wisdom that have been quietly germinating underground are now breaking through the surface, writes Mirabai Starr. Women everywhere are rising to the collective call to step up and repair our broken Earth. And we are activating a paradigm shift such as the world has never seen.

 

With Wild Mercy, Mirabai shares the subversive wisdom and fierce compassion of the feminine mystic across cultural boundaries and throughout history. From saints and sages, to goddesses and archetypal energies, to contemporary teachers and seekers--you'll meet women who blazed a path that will illuminate your own.

 

Each chapter explores a different facet of feminine mysticism through a tapestry of teachings, reflections, and stories, along with a practice for integrating the chapter's themes into your own life. As you journey through these pages, you'll explore:
Taking refuge in contemplative practice with St. Teresa of Avila and the Shekinah
- Longing, embodiment, and union as the heart of feminine spiritual practice with the Hindu poet Mirabai and Mary Magdalene
- Your relationship with the Earth, motherhood in all its forms, and a loving call to action alongside Gaia and Ix Chel
- Community and the web of life with Indra, the Beguines, and female prophets throughout history
- Wild, playful, and compassionate mercy with Tara and Kuan Yin
- Finding joy in creativity and the arts with Saraswati and Chiyo-ni
- More inspiration from archetypal goddesses and amazing women past and present--Julian of Norwich, the Sufi saint Rabia, Pachamama, Sophia, Old Spider Woman, Hildegard of Bingen, Demeter, Kali, and more

 

Wild Mercy provides a much-needed alternative to the models of religion and spirituality that have dominated history. Here, Mirabai invites you to welcome the wisdom of women back into the collective field where it may transform the human family, heal the ravaged Earth, and awaken the divine love in our hearts.

Now, even if you can't get out into the wilderness or undertake a long apprenticeship, you can learn to practice the art of shamanism. Uniquely suited for use in today's world, Hawaiian shamanism follows the way of the adventurer, which produces change through love and cooperation - in contrast to the widely known way of the warrior, which emphasizes solitary quests and conquest by power. Here, in the first practical guide to applying this ancient healing art to our modern lives, you'll learn how to:

Interpret and change your dreams
Heal yourself, your relationships, and the environment
Cast the shaman stones to foretell the future
Design and perform powerful rituals
Shapechange
Make vision quests to other realities