Trauma Stewardship – Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk
A great read for anyone working in the field of social work who has ever felt burnt out, cynical, tired, or has just lacked inspiration. You realize that you truly must care for yourself before you can adequately care and advocate for others.
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom – Christiane Northrup
I originally bought this book to refer to from time-to-time, but upon picking it up, I found it too fascinating not to read from cover-to-cover. I have kept it by my bedside for the last 2 years and was actually sad to finish it. Northrup takes a very holistic approach to women’s health and has made me love and appreciate my body for the wisdom it gives me, should I choose to listen, rather than wanting my body to look differently and being scared it will somehow rebel against me. This is another must for any woman and I have given out many copies to friends and family.
Hildegard of Bingen – Matthew Fox
This incredible nun from the 12th century, largely unknown, wrote the first opera of the West 300 years before any other, composed music anticipating Mozart 600 years before his birth, taught methods of healing and medicine that are still used today, and called out kings and religious leaders for hypocrisy, which got her interdicted at the age of 80. She was a painter, a poet, a musician, a prophetess, a reformer, a mystic, and a healer. She called for a reverence of nature and our Earth, called science a gift from God, and interwove the feminine into her worship of the Divine. She is recognized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and was recently named a Doctor of the Church in 2012, but, as the author points out, the Catholic Church doesn’t quite know what to do with her teachings that were way ahead of her time, and quite relevant to ours!
Illumination of a Skyrider – Eric Kreutter
I am now officially married to an author. My husband finished writing a book this year, and has even made significant progress in turning it into a trilogy! I was honored to be the first to set eyes on the very first draft! He has managed to use a chicken and a turtle as his main characters in this story to teach us deep life lessons. It is an outpouring of my husband’s depth and an expression of his truest self, but it’s still a light read and fun to follow along with the journey of Fenix, a chicken trying to find his way in life!