Books to Close out Your Summer

Summer is winding down, and we are heading into the shedding, introspective, and germinating energy of Fall and Winter. I haven’t done a book post in awhile, and have read many interesting books this summer. Here’s a few you may be interested in reading as part of this transition – including my own, which you can now pre-order, finally due out in December!! As always, I have included a mixture of self-published and wider release books.

 

Chakra Empowerment for Women: Self-Guided Techniques for Healing Trauma, Owning Your Power & Finding Overall Wellness, by Lisa Erickson (me!) (this link is to Amazon, you can also pre-order at Barnes and Noble and Llewellyn.) I’m very excited for this book to come out December 8th. It presents 12 chakra empowerments to help you activate particular energies within a specific moment in your day, or for use as part of a longer term personal transformation effort. The activation process for each includes visualization, affirmation, memory, and energetic transmission, and the book includes color inserts to help you with the visuals (I’m grateful to my publisher Llewellyn for agreeing to these inserts, as they are rare these days.) It is of course focused on women’s energy anatomy and specific issues women often face to owning their power. I have included sections in each chapter on how these chakra empowerments can be utilized as part of a sexual trauma healing process. This book is inspired by and adapted from the work I have done with many of you in private sessions and workshops, and I’m very grateful for your sharings with me. However, this is the first time I have presented these empowerments in this sequential, structured way that you can reference at any time. A book website including a chakra diagnostic quiz will be available later this Fall, and I will be doing a 12 week video seminar tied to the book starting in January – more info forthcoming on that too. And if you’re a podcaster or blogger looking for interviewees, please reach out, I’d love to discuss the book with you as part of my online book tour.

 

From Here to Nowhere: A Spiritual Journey into the Unknown, by Mu. I have included Mu’s prior books in lists here before, as they all offer direct, clear, wise and compassionate teachings on the spiritual awakening process. This book in particular cuts through the clutter spiritual traditions can themselves create for us as we progress. Mu shows us how we must let go of layer after layer of conditioning – including spiritual conditioning – in order to truly enter into our naturally awake and liberated self. It transmits the power to break through constraints of every type on every level.

 

Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, by Mirabai Starr. I have been a fan of Mirabai Starr’s writing on Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross, but had never read her more personal work. This is part memoir and part spiritual call to action, for women in particular. She shares her challenges and heartbreak (including the tragic death of her daughter at 14), as well as the stories of many women mystics and how they have inspired her. Fierce and tender women’s wisdom for sure.

 

SHOUT, by Laurie Halse Anderson. Laurie Halsie Anderson is the author of Speak, a moving first person novel of a high school girl’s sexual trauma and healing process. It became a bestseller as well as a finalist for the National Book Award and Ms. Anderson has visited high schools around the country speaking to students about sexual assault, consent, and related issues. Shout is her own story, and really an account of how Speak came to be. Equally moving and wise, it grapples with many issues related to sexual abuse, assault, and healing. Sexual trauma survivors should proceed with caution as she does describe her assault.

 

Politics of Love: A Handbook of a New American Revolution, by Marianne Williamson. Ms. Willimason is of course running for President and has several politically minded books out, in addition to her bestselling spiritual books. Whether you agree with her policy proposals or not, this book is worth a read as it highlights how our political discourse has changed over the years, how this rhetoric reflects our spiritual state of being, and lays out a vision for how democracy could reflect the foundational spiritual value of love. It just might redefine some things for you.

 

Five Wisdom Energies: A Buddhist Way of Understanding Personalities, Emotions and Relationships, by Irini Rockwell. This is another presentation of the 5 ‘Buddha families’ or ‘dakini families’ from Tibetan Buddhism, and how this model can be utilized to work with ourselves for personal and spiritual transformation. While I still prefer Lama Tsultrim’s Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Empowered Feminine, this book offers a more psychological and sociological perspective that may be a good follow-up read for you if you liked Lama Tsultrim’s book and/or have been working with the dakini energies.

 

Yoga Wisdom: Warrior Tales Inspiring You On and Off Your Mat, Stephanie Spence. This is part memoir and part mini-interviews with dozens of yoga teachers from many different traditions. Ms. Spence shares her story of finding herself through yoga after a difficult divorce, and embarks upon a yoga road trip as part of her healing journey (also the foundation for her popular blog). Each teacher shares tidbits of how they relate to their practice and how it is the foundation for their own life. Some are more physically based, and some are more emotional/psychological. This is a dip-in-and-out book, and if you’re a yoga practitioner, it may offer your some new insights.

 

Radiantly Free: Recreating Life and Health from the Radiance of You, Rev Dr. Rachel Wetzteon. I was recently interviewed by Rachel, and so enjoyed our conversation (you’ll find that interview on her podcast page here.) Her background in personal training and a doctorate in physiology give her a unique perspective on spirituality and the importance of the mind-body link. She has combined this with energy healing training and offers her own personal take in this little gem.

 

Warrior Won, by Meryl Davids Landau. This is spiritual ‘chick lit’ – I mentioned Ms. Landau’s prior book Downward Dog, Upward Fog in a prior post. As you can probably tell from these titles, the protagonist of both books, Lorna, is a dedicated yoga practitioner. She is also representative of many ‘spiritual but not religious’ individuals today, who build their spiritual path from many different sources, including law of attraction teachings, Buddhist teachings, energy healing traditions and more. in this latest novel, Lorna faces a major life challenge, entering her into a ‘dark night’ of sorts, and has to draw upon her various sources for new strength and inspiration.

 

The Gifted School, by Bruce Holsinger. Not a spiritual or energy healing book! But a novel that’s really about modern parenting (at least American parenting), the pressure to have ‘exceptional’ kids, and the lengths we will go to to make that happen – whether in sports, academics, music, or anything else (I’ve even seen this drive in spiritual parents, who are certain their child is a reincarnation of some great teacher or other.) It’s part biological and part psychological. So if you are just looking for a good read with a few parenting moments in which you may recognize yourself (or others you know), this might be a good fit for you.

 

Wishing you a wonderful transition from summer to fall (or the opposite if you’re down under!) and will return soon with more energy resources. Much light to you-