Spirituality

by

Best Reads of 2025 Top Non-Fiction

Yesterday I shared my Top 9 Fiction Reads for 2025 along with the One Outstanding Read of 2025 and the runner up. So no surprise to see them here on my best non-fiction of 2025, as the first two titles mentioned here were my two outstanding reads of 2025.

In nonfiction, I like a really good memoir that shares more than just the personal experience, like a good nature writing memoir will increase knowledge of an aspect of nature and share something of a life that is also uplevelling in some way.

Top Non-Fiction

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (India)

memoir by Arundhati Roy Mother Mary Comes to Me

– This was my Outstanding Read of 2025 and a book that takes a while to process, because these strong women it features, Arundhati Roy and her mother Mary Roy, have achieved incredible feats at a high cost to their basic humanity. They have both lived through situations that required them to fight back, they have lived in close proximity to and been decimated by cruelty and lifted up by personal achievement; they have been revered by an entourage and yet rarely found peace in their relationship to each other or in other close relationships. Intimate and inspirational.

The transparency and honesty with which Arundhati writes, as she walks the reader through childhood in Kerala, early adulthood in Delhi, through a dogged determination to live according to her own values making her both friends and enemies, and through it all that magnetising effect of the mother. Toxic bond or filial loyalty, I’m not entirely sure, but she chose to publish this work, one thinks respectfully, after the ruthless matriarch of steely perseverance let go of her last breath.

“I think I had a cool seraph watching over me. Especially each time I was at a crossroads and had to make a decision. My education, the class I came from, and, above all, the fact that I spoke English protected me and gave me options that millions of others did not have. Those were gifts bestowed on me by Mrs Roy. At no point, no matter how untenable my circumstance, did I ever forget that.”

Somebody is Walking On Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys by Mariana Enriquez (Argentina) tr. Megan McDowell (Spanish)

– My runner up book for Outstanding Read of 2025 in part because I couldn’t stop telling people about the many different things I learned from reading this book. A memoir-like collection of essays, this really is like super-alternative, armchair travel, where you get to voyage briefly through 13 countries with an experienced, gothic guide to an underworld of 21 cemeteries.

Somebody is Walking On Your Grave My Cemetery Journeys Mariana Enriquez Argentina in translation

However, the focus isn’t just on the visit, you’re going to be there for a few days, so you’ll get to learn from the highly observant, well researched, perspective of an Argentinian writer (known for unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre) about various cultures, odd behaviours and aspirations of various eras, in how humans have treated those they have revered, once passed. From Genoa to Prague, to Highgate to the Paris catacombs, from Rottnest Island in Australia to Bonaventure in Savannah, from Havana, Cuba to Peru, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, she uses cemeteries to reflect on history, culture, memory, and her own personal life. Outstanding!

Reading Edgar Allen Poe – and then with the years, I learned that also cemeteries have a lot to say about life, about the history of the people. And then Argentina in the ’70s, the decade where I was born, had a dictatorship that made a lot of bodies disappear. Therefore, there’s a generation of people that were killed by the government, and they don’t have a grave.

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (UK)

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton shortlisted womens prize nonfiction winner Wainwright Prize 2025

– Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction, I became aware of this title early in the year but waited till the end having read enough reviews to be convinced it was going to be for me. Chloe Dalton hears a bark, stumbles across a leveret and wants to ignore it, but can’t and then lacking knowledge becomes something of an expert on hares and how to care for one, going deep into library archives and reading obscure, ancient texts as well as modern informative ones.

She bonds with the hare but facilitates it return to the wild and then turns her daytime political expertise sights on an outdated policy – Hares are the only game species which are not protected by a ‘close season’ in England and Wales: a period of the year during which they cannot be shot and killed – which I was pleased to read just yesterday, an article in the Guardian Saturday 20 Dec 2025 – Shooting hares in England to be banned for most of the year in sweeping changes to animal welfare law about to be announced in the UK. The new close season will ban hare hunting during the breeding months of February to October to protect mothers and the young.

I pondered the concept of ‘owning’ a living creature in any context. Interaction with animals nurtures the loving, empathetic, compassionate aspects of human nature. It taps into a primordial reverence towards the living world and a sense of the commonality and connectedness across species. It is a gateway, as I was discovering, into a state of greater respect for nature and the environment as a whole. We all too easily subordinate animals to our will, constraining or confining them to suit our purposes, needs and lifestyles.

Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (UK)

nature writing rivers naturalist perspective nonfiction poetic prose

– Another travelling memoir with nature and the environment at the forefront of his journeying, Robert Macfarlane is well known for his mapping of the Old Ways of the ancients, writing about landscapes as living, abundant, storied places and how humans interact with them. So he is very aware of how aspects of nature, such as rivers and streams are being compromised and endangered and killed by humanity, thus he sets out on these three journeys to understand his question, Is a River Alive?

He travels to a cloud-forest in Ecuador with a team of people all looking at nature from different perspectives, a fungi expert, a musician and a ‘Rights of Nature’ lawyer; then to India to find the source of its three rivers with a passionate teacher and advocate for waterways and finally to northern Canada to kayak down a river under threat from corporations wanting to dam it.

Ultimately, beyond his initial question, to which his young son gave him the answer before he even left home, he explores the idea and begins to see for himself, rivers and forests as moral and sentient beings rather than resources to be owned and exploited, shifting from a perspective of ownership to one of responsibility for their guardianship. If we begin to see rivers and the natural world as part of our shared way of living and protect them, we might live more simple and healthy lives.

Spinster, Making a Life of One’s Own by Kate Bolick (US)

Spinster Making a Life of Ones Own by Kate Bolick features columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton

– Not one I reviewed, but I came across this memoir while doing genealogical research. I discovered a female ancestor named Mary Stoyle, born in 1791 in Zeal Monachorum, Devon who had five children and on all the baptism certificates she was always the sole parent named. In the census registers, she was Head of Household.

Clearly a man contributed to the conception of her children, but equally it appears he was not part of her household. That made me curious about her Profession and initially under the heading Quality, Trade or Profession, in 1816 when her son George was born, it was listed as Spinster. When Joseph was born in 1831, her Profession had changed to Weaver, which suggested she was financially independent. Women worked at Spinning because it could be done at home, fitted around childcare, and required little capital. Weaving required greater technical skill. Mary was almost certainly a self-supporting handloom weaver, working from home, producing woollen cloth for the local / regional rural economy.

I wondered if anyone had looked into these non-married women from the early 1800’s, as I discovered it was more common than we might think, and that these matriarchs were well respected. So I read Kate Bolick’s book which was a little more modern than what I was looking for, (and focused on but equally fascinating as she explored a number of renowned women from the last century who had tried to live a life without marriage or children in order to pursue some other objective, creative or career.

She looked into the lives of American script writer and columnist Neith Boyce, Irish essayist Maeve Brennan, American social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. Some of these women did marry, but all of them sought ways to escape the traditional expectations of that contract to pursue their own personal ambitions. While it didn’t really help me with my own questions about Mary Stoyle, it was fascinating to read about these women and some of the changing statistics over time, in particular to learn that the institution of marriage was less prominent in the 18th century and reached its peak in the mid 20th century.

Special Mentions, Spiritual Well-Being Top Ups

I read a few books this year that come under the heading of spiritual well-being and two that were particularly good were Rebecca Campbell’s Your Soul Had a Dream, Your Life Is It regarding the cycle of transitions, of resonance and discernment, understanding grief, loss, separation, change. The benefit of going within, of being our own best support, to heal, grow and transmute feeling(s) into the next version of ourselves. To align more with soul purpose, tapping into our inner guidance system. Nothing really new, just good reminders to keep up the practice (s). I’ve read all her books, they’re good to dip in and out of.

spirit hacking shaman durek frequency vibration energy

The other one I read and listened to was Spirit Hacking (2019) by Shaman Durek, I particularly enjoy his Ancient Wisdom Today podcast pep talks while on a 5 km walk. He is spiritually and intellectually knowledgeable, very direct, often funny, he calls things out, and is deeply encouraging. He comes from a heart-centred background of immersion in Buddhist and Shamanic Philosophy, basically that your thoughts create your reality and the regular checking of what kind of energy you are bringing when responding to challenges and triggers, he gives great examples from personal experiences and admits to his own flaws. He comes to all this with an attitude that may be challenging to some, but I find him interesting to observe, listen to and learn from, filtering out what is useful or not.

If you’ve read any of these non-fiction titles, or have another favourite for 2025, share them with us in the comments below.

by

The Female Archangels by Claire Stone

Reclaim Your Power with the Lost Teachings of the Divine Feminine

the female archangels Claire StoneAlongside everything else I like to read and as you may have noticed on this blog, there is a section called Spiritual Well-Being, these are the books that I often have at least one of on my bedside table.

They are like a night time vitamin, or a daytime source of empowerment, most definitely in the feel good category and often offering practical solutions or alternative ways to perceive common life situations and issues.

The Young Scotsman Who Empowers Through Angels

I’ve been a fan of Kyle Gray’s writings on the subject and when this recent volume came to my attention, with its focus on 11 of the female archeia, at the dawn of the age of Aquarius, as the divine feminine aspect is rising, I jumped at the chance to read it.

We are astrologically positioned on the cusp of the Aquarian Age (a 2,160 year cycle) which makes this the perfect time to get to know the female archeia. This is a prophesised time of the feminine rising back into her power. BY healing your life and restoring your sacred feminine essence, you’ll receive a head-start in smoothly adjusting towards the new paradigm of the great shift.

I have my own personal relationship with a few of the archangels and this was like an invitation to a gathering, to get to know a few more, for my own self-healing and self-empowerment.  I wondered why I hadn’t been aware of this focus on the female archangels before, and it seems they too have been wiped out of history, like the voices and wisdom and narratives of so many women. They didn’t fit into the way our cultures have been conditioned, thus becoming invisible.

As was extensively outlined in Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade (1987) and the more recent Nurturing Our Humanity, How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future by Riane Eisler and Douglas Fry (2020), we have been living under a societal system of domination predicated on force and fear.

We rush, we push and force. While these qualities serve us well at times, it’s not natural to be int his state constantly. Knowing when to slow, to surrender and wait are qualities of the feminine. A balance of both allows us to embrace life fully while taking time to ‘smell the roses’.

Inspiration for living can come from numerous sources and there is something both nourishing and nurturing about these new feminine energies and possibilities that resonates and connects us with something within that has waiting for this, they can lead us but the real benefit comes from our own active participation in using the various tools to listen, see and follow the guidance that comes from within and in seeking to connect with and support others to create harmony. 

Eleven Female Super Energies to Cultivate In You

The eleven archangels that Claire Stone shares in her book, are just a few of the many, her personal favourites.  They each align with other systems that some may be familiar with, such as the chakra/energy system, gemstones, both of these provide clues as to the characteristics that she can assist with. It doesn’t require a belief system on the contrary, this is something that is easier to work with when belief systems and conditioning have been or are in the process of being dismantled, and an open mind cultivated.

ArcheiaTwin Flame
Lady Ariel – Root ChakraArchangel Raziel
Lady Amethyst – Third Eye ChakraArchangel Zadkiel
Lady Aurora – Solar Plexus ChakraArchangel Uriel
Lady Charity – Heart ChakraArchangel Chamuel
Lady Christine – Crown ChakraArchangel Jophiel
Lady Faith – Throat ChakraArchangel Michael
Lady Haniel – Sacral ChakraArchangel Nathaniel
Lady Hope – Sacral ChakraArchangel Gabriel
Lady Mary – Heart ChakraArchangel Raphael
Lady Shekinah – Earth Star ChakraArchangel Sandalphon
Lady Seraphina – Stellar Gateway ChakraArchangel Seraphiel
Female Archangels Claire Stone

Fotografierende @Pexels.com

On her website, she has even created a simple quiz that you can participate in to see which archangel, might be of assistance to us right now, or you can just read through the eleven and intuitively see who you are drawn towards. Rather than tell you about any of them, I would encourage you to find out yourself, by initially taking the quiz.

Take the Quiz

Which Female Archangel Can Accelerate Your Growth? 

There are suggested rituals or meditations you can follow or create yourself. These can be adapted to suit your own particular practice, they are excellent for creative inspiration and provide a focus that moves us away from thinking about a situation, into actively doing something symbolic that can transform the energy around it and alter our perception and boost our inherent intuition in a way that is healthy and healing.

It thought it was excellent. I began reading it as an e-book and when I realised how much of a reference it was, I bought a print copy and look forward to reading it again and focusing on the two that stood out for me that I want to work with.

Claire Stone is a Hay House UK author, and holistic practitioner of many therapies, designed to equip participants with resources and technique to reawaken their gifts and empower themselves.

 

by

Sensitive is the New Strong by Anita Moorjani

The Power of Empaths in an Increasingly Harsh World

Another excellent work from Anita Moorjani, who had a life-changing experience that gave her a heart-based perspective of reality beyond the three dimensional, externally focused world, we inhabit. Leaving that story aside, she now shares more insights that assist those who already relate a little or a lot to this perspective.

I have read both her previous books Dying to Be Me and What if THIS is Heaven? and I have listened to her speak, it is here where she is fluent, spontaneous and highly relatable, her most authentic and resonant. I love her books, but listening to her YouTube series Tea With Anita (this episode on empaths) and this one on Forgiveness, has for me, been life-affirming.

Become Aware, Develop Appropriate Resources

The Power of Empaths in an Increasingly Harsh WorldHere, she focuses particularly on the experience of those who are empaths, no matter where on the spectrum of empathy they sit. It explains and supports how they feel, expanding awareness and helps them understand how to cope with certain situations and why it is important that they play a larger role in our societies.

Having listened to her speak on the subject, I’m aware there are different categories of empath, depending on certain characteristics. Some people are highly sensitive but may not be as affected by the energy of other people in their presence, or some may have already learned coping mechanisms.

Anita Moorjani shares her experience, which is unique and sees the gift in being this way, identifying some of the ways to mitigate the negative effects of what an empath absorbs and suggests ways to focus on their own well-being.

She writes of appreciating the gift and beauty of our sensitivity, seeing the strength in it, recognising the responses and behaviours in our society that may have contributed to it being devalued.

The Beauty of Your Sensitivity

“Your sensitivity opens up six sensory world. It’s connected to the other side. If you block your sensitivity, you block what’s coming in from the other realm. The thing is to be aware that you’re giving your power to the outside world, and to start giving it to your own inner world or to your higher self.”

And the consequence of suppressing it:

“It’s when you give your power to the outside world that you lose your connection to your inner sense of knowing, and your life starts spirally downward.”

To make the most of the gift of sensitivity, and to develop one’s intuitive capacity, it is necessary to quiet the noise coming from external sources.

Dealing With Sensory Overload

Sensory overload quiet the mind

Photo: Taryn Elliott, Pexels.com

Each chapter provides a short mantras and a meditative text that specifically address the aspect encouraged in that chapter, so that it becomes not just something theoretical, that we read and understand, but something with a practical aspect, an action one can take, something that many who are inclined to read this, will no doubt already be practicing.

“The outside world is loud and demanding so the first step in honing our powers is learning to deal effectively with sensory overload. We have to identify and manage the things that jam our inner guidance system. And that involves turning down the volume on the outside world so we can hear what’s going on inside.”

There are also practical ways to protect one’s energetic body, to recognise the impact  negative influences have on it, and a variety of ways to protect it. This is something I encounter frequently talking with other practitioner’s, how to proactively protect oneself from unwanted energies, and in a case where we have absorbed something, what to do immediately afterwards to remove it and to remember to prevent it in future.

Protect Your Energetic Body (Aura)

1. Carry black tourmaline with you.
2. Smudge your aura with white sage (especially after being in and around groups of people)
3. Strengthen your aura by using colour and learning how to expand and contract it, learning to contract it, helps avoid picking up unwanted energies.
4. Keep your body healthy – drink plenty of water, exercise, go outside (clears energy, centres you)

Connect With the Web of Consciousness

Creativity the Souls purposeOne of the best rewards of dealing with the imbalances and disequilibrium is the creativity that awaits expression, something that is there within, buried beneath layers of issues that once addressed, reveal potential.

“As with Michelangelo finding his angel in the block of marble, we need to strip away these layers and chip away at the false beliefs, thought patterns, fears and unnecessary pressures that jam our internal radar and hinder our connection to our inner mystics.”

Ego and Conscious Awareness

Ego often gets a bad rap. Anita Moorjani puts it in context by considering it one of two elements required in balance, ego and conscious awareness – that it is only when one or other are out of balance with each other that problems arise. If the ego dial is on high and conscious awareness is low egocentricity results. Likewise, raised conscious awareness with little or no ego, results in an ability to act or change. A healthy ego and conscious awareness aligns us with our  purpose and brings meaning into our lives.

“Ego serves a huge purpose. It offsets a tendency to second guess oneself or give power away.”

Imagination Unveils a Calling

“A clue to finding one’s purpose is to use your imagination. When I set my imagination free, I connect with something that is exciting and beautiful: for me, it’s my sixth sense, my intuition, and my higher self.”

Giving the example from her own life experience, from within one of the cultures within which she was raised, she shows how each culture puts upon us a set of differing beliefs, that are often in conflict with each other, which adds to our confusion. And shows how suppressing one’s inner guidance and giving our power away to an authoritative cultural figure can have a detrimental effect.

“Death taught me that I had to recognise my own divinity first before I could be or do anything of value to others.”

Being Your Authentic Self, Empowered Within

“Good teachers help you believe in yourself, rather than cultivate a belief in them. They teach you to connect to the divinity within you.”

There is so much I highlighted throughout the book that I could share. If any of this resonates, I highly recommend reading it, the messages are reassuring, it’s a book I have already passed on to another with whom I have discussed these issues.

One way empaths deal with the effect of this characteristic is to share stories and methods to resolve the associated dilemmas we face, to empower each other, to overcome the obstacles, because the reward of being able to use that quality as a strength is not just beneficial to oneself, but to all we come into contact with, a quality we need more of in this world.

“Accept that your inner world is real. It’s real and you have to empower it.”

Anita Moorjani
by

Courageous Dreaming by Alberto Villoldo

How Shamans Dream the World Into Being

I have read a few books by Alberto Villoldo, my favourite and the best to begin with if new to his work is The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power, and Grace of the Earthkeepers.

It introduces the philosophical, spiritual and medicinal wisdom of the medicine men and women of the Americas, the concepts of serpent, jaguar, hummingbird and eagle consciousness and thinking, and is helpful in understanding the further learning his wisdom offers.

The Earthkeepers believe the world is real, but only because we’ve dreamed it into being. But dreaming requires an act of courage, for when we lack it, we have to settle for the world that’s being created by our culture or by our genes – we feel we have to settle for the nightmare. To dream courageously, we must be willing to use our hearts.

I’d had this book a while by my bedside and immediately turned to it to become my daily morning read at the beginning of this period of confinement we are currently in and what a Godsend. I loved it and wish it had been twice as long. I read a chapter a day and would recommend it as the equivalent to doing half an hour of meditation, the effect for me was very similar.

Not only is it filled with resonating wisdom, each chapter begins with the words of another great teacher, a collection of inspiring quotes that I’ve been playing with by putting images to them from my daily walk, to create a kind of story. Infinite possibilities as Alberto and Albert would no doubt agree.

Logic will get you from A to B.

Imagination will take you everywhere. Albert Einstein

Alberto Villoldo

Alberto Villoldo is a psychologist, medical anthropologist and renowned shamanic healer, who has studied the ancient spiritual practices of the Amazon and the Andes and now runs The Four Winds Society, an education facility for practitioners of shamanic healing and energy medicine and courses for individuals interested in cellular detoxification to grow a new body.

Once familiar with the four levels of perceiving reality, this book beautifully expands the concept further into ways of dreaming, levels of consciousness, of courage and of beauty or appreciation.

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare”. Mark Twain

Photo by Samrat Maharjan on Pexels.com

It shows us how we are all living within our own stories, that they can either stay stuck in the past and put on repeat, or we can rewrite them and courageously imagine or dream a better version of ourselves and of our future.

Our situation may be a difficult one, but it’s only a nightmare if we choose to make that our reality. By taking the facts and writing a new story with them, we can script a different experience of reality.

To help illustrate courage at the level of eagle consciousness – the highest level of perception, where we’re able to see the big picture and the details all at the same time, where we are aware of that we are part of the all-seeing and all-knowing divine force of the universe, conceiving a world where we are in harmony and our lives are fulfilling, abundant and sustainable – Alberto uses the example of Prometheus’s Gift.

Prometheus

Prometheus was the Greek God of inspiration, craft and creativity, who held great sympathy for humans because he’d co-created them with Zeus. He saw them freezing and wanted to gift them fire for warmth, security and to alleviate hunger. Symbolically fire represents creativity and inspiration, it transforms and illuminates. He stole fire and gave it to humans, angering the Gods, who punished him for it.

Prometheus brought humanity another great gift – the courage to defy the gods, the ability to think original thoughts and to create – and this brash act was what really caused him to be so severely punished…But this act of defiance launched humans into our true journey, forcing us to mature and develop discernment.

Photo by Monique Laats on Pexels.com

He reminds us of the power of creativity and warns of the threats against it, citing many examples of genius that are now revered, who were shunned in their moment of innovation and inspiration such as Einstein and Van Gogh.

Being creative requires letting go of that big bucket of cold water you throw on yourself and your ideas when things start to become really interesting. You need to stop asking yourself , ‘Will anyone be offended?’  and ‘Who am I to ask questions?’ and instead inquire ‘What if?’

Holding on to old stories creates imprints in our energetic body or LEF (luminous energy field) even after the facts and circumstances change, those resentments and bad feelings create energetic cords that tie us to the players in the drama, which is why we then get triggered so easily and again when we observe those patterns in others.

We don’t see things as they are;

We see them as we are. Anaïs Nin

Symbols & Metaphors

Alberto Villoldo uses illuminating metaphors to help us see our situations from a different perspective and provides suggestions for how to change. Understanding our own tendencies is the first step, rewriting a better narrative of our lives follows. Learning to sever unwelcome ties and clear karmic baggage, all the better.

Seeing our lives as river with an accumulation of silt and imagining clearing it is liberating; decoding the symbols and metaphors of our dreams, where our subconscious solutions lie, tips us off to what our conscious mind resists recognising and provides us possible resolution.

We fight the current, yet we never clean the river.

Especially now, we are all being forced to confront what lies within us, the build up of silt that requires clearing, so the crystalline waters of our lives can flow more easily.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

When you start pouring beauty into your river, you’ll find that the waters are becoming clearer every day. To practice beauty, you must give up the ugly stories in which someone is a victim and someone else is the perpetrator. Practicing beauty means recognising what is pure and of value in every situation and in every person.

We are not in control of where the river flows, only of how clean we keep its waters.

I may go back to chapter one and read it again, to allow the wisdom to sink in deeper and help the river to continue to flow clean.

“Curing is the elimination of symptoms. Healing is a journey on which you discover the cause of your ailment and make fundamental life changes from diet to belief systems that will create health.”

Further Reading

Interview with Alberto Villoldo: Gaia.com

My Reviews

The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power, and Grace of the Earthkeepers

Shaman Healer Sage

The Heart of the Shaman: Stories and Practices of the Luminous Warrior

One Spirit Medicine: Ancient Ways to Ultimate Wellness (not reviewed)

 

 

 

by

Dodging Energy Vampires by Christiane Northrup

An Empath’s Guide

Christiane Northrup, M.D., draws on the latest research in this field, along with stories from her global community and her life, to explore the phenomenon of energy vampires, showing us how we can spot them, dodge their tactics, and take back our own energy.

A while ago I read and enjoyed Christiane Northrup’s book Making Life Easy, A Simple Guide to a Divinely Inspired Life. I’ve had this title on my kindle for a few months and I have been dipping in and out of it in-between other books. For the past few weeks, as I mentioned in my Sunday Morning Haiku post, I’ve been reading a chapter a day of Alberto Villoldo’s Courageous Dreaming, which I have now finished and will be sharing soon, so I went back to this book and finished it too. It’s a time of completion.

I listen to her on Hay House Radio sometimes, she is an advocate for women (and men) taking control of their own health, well-known for her books on women’s health including Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing; The Wisdom of Menopause; Goddesses Never Age and more.

Now she turns her focus and offers more great wisdom for highly sensitive empaths, detailing what that means, giving examples of their tendencies, how they respond and adapt to the world right from childhood, which then explains why they act the way do as adults.

Empaths often take extreme measures to contort their true identities into something less painful. They become very good at blending in and figuring out how to be loved and accepted not for who they really are but instead for how they can serve others.

She describes it as a survival mechanism.

Because they are so attuned to other people’s energy, they suffer when other’s suffer, so they work harder not to make anyone suffer.

You can stop trying to explain why you don’t want to see that award-winning war film.

They also avoid scary or violent movies or television shows because they are too painful to watch.

Due to that ability to sense energy around them, they are often drawn to animals and nature because of their calming, pure and innocent energy. Fortunately, highly sensitive people also tend to experience the simple joys of the world more fully.

Photo by Jean van der Meulen on Pexels.com

Evading Relationships That Drain You

She cuts through what others give terms like narcissism and sociopathic behaviours and refers to people exhibiting these behaviours as ‘energy vampires’, a way of relating to the effect they have, rather than spending too much time on describing the way are. She’s here for the empaths after all.

There are tips and examples of how to recognise these behaviours and why empaths in particular are susceptible to attracting them.

Restoring Your Health and Power

She gives practical advice on how to first recognise and then deal with people and situations that drain your energy. Tips, techniques, practices and tactics that increase your awareness and better equip you to navigate your life and your relationships in an empowering way. The kinds of things you may already know but that we benefit in being reminded of regularly. Recognising the important qualities in a relationship and starting with the one you have with yourself.

Dr. Mario Martinez notes that for each of the archetypal wounds – abandonment, betrayal, shame – there is a corresponding healing field that will ameliorate suffering. These healing fields are energies that oppose the energy of the wound.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Much of the book is then given over generally to how to stay in the light, protect yourself from the dark elements in the world but also in ourselves.

Her suggestions promote well-being, actions that don’t require waiting for something to get worse before being proactive, because problems present themselves in the energetic body long before they are detected by traditional medicine. They can be addressed before manifesting in the physical body, allowing us to maintain equilibrium, well-being. Listening to and acting on our intuitive sense, taking care of ourselves.

Generally speaking, highly sensitive people do far better with healing approaches based on quantum energy, not chemical and surgical intervention. Homeopathy, flower essences, acupuncture, massage, herbs, prayer, yoga, Pilates, chiropractic, medical intuition, and Divine love healings – I consider all of these to be actual health care because of these things interact with the energy field of the body.

Reading this is like listening to her speak, a lifetime of experiences and now she shares the wisdom of it all, holding nothing back, refreshingly courageous in stepping outside the conventional norm.

Ideal slow-reading during a global pandemic. (I’ve been reading this over the past three or four months.)

by

Top Five Spiritual Well-Being Books

Well-Being Inspiration

Welcome to today’s new list, my top five spiritual well-being reads . This is Day 2 in my series of Reading Lists for this period of total confinement. Yesterday I shared the Top 5 Reads on My TBR.

There is a tab above with links to more authors and books in this category and a short intro to the author and what they specialise in.

Many of my suggestions are Hay House authors. Hay House is a publishing company founded in 1984 by Louise Hay when she was 58 years old. In the 1970’s she wrote a pamphlet known as ‘Heal Your Body’ which later became the bestselling book ‘You Can Heal Your Life’.

I have an affinity for Hay House authors as I often listen to their free radio HayHouseRadio.com when I’m cooking dinner. Many authors have a weekly radio show where they interview interesting people and invite callers to ask questions. Ordinary and extraordinary life questions that receive spiritually enlightened answers from what I perceive as pretty grounded, high functioning empathetic teachers, with open-minded perspectives on the Divine.

Top Five Spiritual Well-Being Books

1. Raise Your Vibration by Kyle Gray

I came across Kyle Gray thanks to Christiane Northrup, a protégé of Louise Hay, she invited him to present at an I Can Do It event (gatherings of kindred souls to share similar experiences, expand awareness and reach higher levels of consciousness) when he was 22-years-old. It’s so heart-warming to see a young man inspiring so many in such a grounded, reassuring and confident way.

Raise Your Vibration is the perfect bedside read and daily practice. Vibration is a similar term to energy, we all vibrate energetically at a particular frequency. The lower the frequency, the denser your energy, and the heavier your problems seem. The higher the frequency of your energy or vibration, the lighter you feel in your physical, emotional, and mental bodies. We experience greater personal power, clarity, peace, love, and joy. You have little, if any, discomfort or pain in your physical body, and your emotions are easily dealt with.

Kyle refers to his practices as vibes. So raising our vibe is good. It’s not necessary to read more than one per day and we benefit more by doing this as often the day will show us something that relates to what we’ve read. I loved this book because it opens us up to serendipitous events and makes us more aware of them. It’s informative, uplifting and can be life changing.

2. Making Life Easy: A Simple Guide to a Divinely Inspired Life by Christiane Northrup

Christiane Northrup is great. A woman with a foot in both camps, a medical doctor, OB/GYN physician who specialises in women’s wellness and has published lots of health related books (with terribly unappealing covers) I’ve never read on menopause, physical and emotional health & healing, ageing, mother-daughter genetic health legacies and more.

I had heard her often on the radio but only began to read her after she wrote Making Life Easy, the book in which she “comes out of the spiritual closet” and shares many of the alternative, more spiritual practices that have guided her through the years.

3. The Four Insights – Wisdom, Power and Grace of the Earthkeepers by Alberto Villoldo

I came across Alberto via Colette Baron-Reid, they have worked together and produced a Mystical Shaman Oracle deck, which is a great way to learn about this ancient wisdom, Alberto writes wonderful books which really help deepen one’s knowledge. A medical anthropologist who thought he knew a lot (PhD’s etc), he spent years investigated the effects of energy healing on blood and brain chemistry and spent years in the company of shamans, a humbling experience that changed the course of his life and views. He writes with simplicity and gives examples from his own experience as well as those of clients.

The Four Insights is an excellent introduction to this ancient wisdom and energy medicine, explaining the four levels of perception with suggestions as to how we can how we can alter our own reality, by shifting perception into a higher realm. It is a pre-requisite to Shaman Healer Sage, How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of The Americas. 

4. The Grief Recovery Handbook, The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, & Other Losses updated to include How Grief Recovery Addresses Trauma & PTSD by John W. James & Russell Friedman

I haven’t reviewed this book for obvious reasons (My Long Absence Explained), but I have to include it on the list as it is a real gem and totally resonated for me when I needed it. Ironically, I bought this for research and had it sitting unread on my shelf, when the day arrived that I needed and was thoroughly comforted by it.

“Recovery from loss is achieved by a series of small and correct choices made by the griever. This book takes on the the specific challenge of reeducating anyone who has a genuine desire to discover and complete the emotional pain caused by loss.”

5. Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elisabeth Gilbert – I include this because I believe creativity is an essential key to unlocking or releasing suffering. Once we understand it, we find that creativity lies at the centre of our calling or purpose in life. I don’t mean the often quoted traditional form that some take to mean art, that’s one form, not do I mean a career. I mean that thing within us that yearns for expression, the thing that we like to do that makes us feel good. That keeps us sane.

“Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents.

It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).”

Tell me, do you have a favourite read for your spiritual well-being? Share it with us, I’m always looking for inspiration!

Further Reading Lists in the Series for Total Confinement

Top 5 on My TBR

Top 5 Nature Inspired Reads

by

Shaman Healer Sage, How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of The Americas by Alberto Villoldo

Following on from yesterday’s review of Alberto Villoldo’s The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power and Grace of the Earthkeepers, here are my thoughts on the book I followed up with.

Shaman, Healer, Sage begins in the first chapter with an extract from the Journals of the author, from his travels and training with the Inka shamans. He was apprenticed to an old Inka named Antonio Morales, who guided him and gave him the opportunity to both observe others at work – engaging in ancient healing practices – and to pursue his own personal healing.

Inka shamans practiced energy medicine for more than five thousand years, transmitting this knowledge from one generation to the next through an oral tradition.

From the practices he observed and learned, he developed his own contemporary reinterpretation, which he describes in this book, interspersed with more extracts from his journals, sharing some of the original experiences he had in the early days, when he was ignorant of what was occurring.

In the first part he talks about the belief system upon which these practices are based.

“We are luminous beings on a journey to the stars,” Don Antonio once said to me. “But you have to experience infinity to understand this.” I remember smiling when the medicine man first told me how we were star travellers who have existed since the beginning of time. Quaint folklore, I thought, the ruminations of an old man hesitant to face the certainty of his death. I believed that Don Antonio’s musings were akin to the archetypal structures of the psyche as described by Carl Jung. Antonio interpreted his myths literally, not symbolically as I did. But I didn’t challenge him then…

The mythologist Joseph Campbell used to say that reality is made up of those myths that we can’t quite see through. That’s why it’s so easy to be an anthropologist in another culture – everything is transparent to the outsider, like the emperor’s new clothes. At times I attempted to show Antonio that the emperor was naked, that he was confusing mythology for fact. That is, until I sat with him while he helped a missionary to die.”

He introduces us to the Luminous Healers, significant teachers and mentors he had during his time with the Native American shamans and puts historical references into a modern context. It is incredible that any of these beliefs and practices have survived after the destruction of the Indians by early settlers, which obliterated the spiritual traditions of most native groups. Native American shamans were reluctant to share their heritage with white people.

The Spanish conquistadors, and the missionaries who accompanied them, destroyed the healing schools in Cusco. The temples were demolished, and the churches were built on the same grounds using the original temple stones…

We imagine that the inquisition is a thing of the past, that this brutal organisation ended with the arrival of the Age of Enlightenment, and this is largely true. The Inquisition shut down its offices many years ago except in one country, Peru, the land of the Inka.

He introduces the universal concept of the Luminous Energy Field, something we each possess, surrounding the physical body, informing it.

When the vital reserves of the Luminous Energy Field are depleted through illness, environmental pollutants, or stress, we suffer disease. We can ensure our health and vitality and extend our active, healthy years by replenishing this essential fuel.

Part two provides techniques for learning the shaman’s way of seeing, for creating sacred space and practices to try out for your own personal healing. Part three continues this, describing for information purposes only, how a practitioner works with others (however he cautions against using this healing with others, something that should only be performed by a master practitioner who has undergone appropriate and comprehensive training, apprenticed to a skilled teacher. He also shares some of the dangers, which are fascinating insights in themselves.

Some of the things I found fascinating were:

  • the ‘rivers of light’, points stimulated by the healer, which Alberto discovered coincided exactly to the Chinese Acupuncture meridians.

For Maximo and other shamans in the Americas the rivers of light in the body are tributaries that flow into and draw their substances from the great luminous rivers that course along the surface of the Earth.

  • That pain and emotional trauma can leave imprints in the luminous energy field, that require extraction and illumination to be freed.
  • That imprints can be positive as well as negative, that they are active and cause us to gravitate towards situations in which they will be played out.
  • That there are generational imprints, that the energetic process of healing them often only requires only one or two sessions compared to months or years of ‘talk therapy’.
  • Intrusive energies and entities can exist in the luminous energy field.

Overall, it was an insightful read and one that definitely requires rereading, especially if the subject is new to you. I will certainly be reading it again to increase my awareness of my personal energy field, perceiving it and learning how to heal it.

Buy a Copy of Shaman, Sage Healer

via Book Depository

by

The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power and Grace of the Earthkeepers by Alberto Villoldo

I’ve been listening to Alberto Villoldo through some of his Hay House connections, in conversation with Intuitive, Colette Baron-Reid (see my review of her book Uncharted here) and recently watched a documentary featuring he and his wife Marcelo Lobos explaining certain rituals of the shamans, explaining them and showing them as they occurred.

Most recently I’ve been following his year long Living a Sacred Life Webinar Series, monthly hour long conversations between himself and leading shamans, mystics and contemporary spiritual teachers of the 21st century from a variety of the ancient wisdoms.

I looked at his range of books and decided that this was the one I wanted to begin with, I also have his book Shaman, Healer, Sage and although it was written earlier, it seemed more appropriate to read about the insights before diving into the healing practices. Again, I highlighted many passages in the book, but it’s so good, I passed it on immediately!

I’m attracted to his field of study because he works with energy medicine. I’ve studied the philosophy of traditional chinese medicine, in learning how to practice Acupressure and to understand the body and its disharmonies, when it is in and out of equilibrium, and the research Alberto Villoldo has done reveals something similar, a knowledge discovered by another group of people, that complements it.

The wisdom of these medicine men and women was under threat and they disappeared for a long time, only re-emerging in the 20th century to pass it on to those who could learn and share it. His methods are now being used by many therapeutic practitioners, as a complement to their existing methods of healing.

“For millennia, secret societies of Native American medicine men & women carefully guarded their wisdom teachings and acted as stewards of nature. They existed in many nations, known under different names, in the Andes and Amazon, they were “Laika”. In 1950 a group of them appeared, attending a gathering of shamans, to share their wisdom, recognising it was time, their people would need it to birth a better world.”

The four insights was an excellent read for me, for where I am at in my understanding, I absolutely loved it and all its insights, I was already familiar with the shamanic levels of perception, of serpent, jaguar, hummingbird, eagle, which correspond, to body, mind, soul, spirit and their associated languages.

This book expands on those themes and provides deeper explanations of how we perceive at each of these levels, what we need to understand about how we are responsible for creating the reality of each of those levels, and that we can only change our own inner perception and try to uplevel, we can never change another’s perception, except through being the role model that they might perceive and respond to without influence.

At each level of perception, different insights are shared, below are just a few phrases that relate to the large body of work that describes them in much more detail, their essence can be encapsulated in a few words, as mentioned below:

  • The Way of the Hero (serpent) body – the senses – physical reality, physical solutions – language = molecular and chemical – survival, self-preservation – reptilian brain
  • The Way of the Luminous Warrior (jaguar) mind – curious, inquisitive – mammalian brain – language = words – to express ideas, beliefs, feelings – look for cause to resolve problems, reflect
  • The Way of the Seer (hummingbird) – soul – language = image, music, poetry, dreams – neocortex – reason, visualise, create
  • The Way of the Sage (eagle), spirit – consciousness – prefrontal cortex – dreaming a new reality

There are four practices shared within each of these “Ways”, suggestions as to how we can alter our own reality, by shifting our perception into a higher realm, learning how to move up a level when necessary, to see things from that elevated perspective. It doesn’t mean we have to stay there, just to become aware of it and hopefully learn how to do it, to embrace the wisdom.

It is a practical book, so exercises are offered at each level, to take the reader through a practice to begin to become aware of the energy field and other concepts mentioned. Not everyone gets it first time, but he insists that anyone can learn how to do this, if they are interested or inclined. Having a teacher is preferable, but it can also be learned independently.

When we get stuck, particularly at the level of serpent (physical reality) and jaguar (intellectual/analytical reality), we spend a lot of time struggling with issues, yet when we succeed to shift our perception to a higher level, and practice seeing things from that perspective, we suffer less. We still have to deal with issues, but we are no longer tormented or traumatised by them, we have the opportunity – if we practice – to no longer get triggered by patterns of the past, or patterns inherited.

All levels have their place and use, and we don’t necessarily want to stay at one level, but by becoming aware of them and the gifts they offer us, we can heal aspects of ourselves and learn how to emit more light, like the luminous beings that we are.

Further Listening

Inspire Nation: Michael Sandler interviews Alberto Villoldo on How to Upgrade Your Energy Field

by

Love by Anita Moorjani & Angie DeMuro and a Poem by Derek Walcott

“Be your own best friend. Love yourself just as you are!”

is the message that Love: a story about who you truly are teaches children to embrace.

Anita Moorjani, author of Dying to Be Me and What If This is Heaven and illustrator Angie DeMuro have co created this book to help parents teach children how to love themselves, especially through the hard times, and to know and understand that this is something important and valuable for all of us to learn.

Within the beautifully written and illustrated pages of the book, children are taught how to have compassion and acceptance for themselves, and how to love themselves through many everyday situations. The happiness and confidence that can come from learning this ability is a gift that children, even grown-up ones, will carry with them their entire lives.

“You can’t love another unconditionally until you love yourself unconditionally, and when you truly do achieve that, you will never allow anyone to use you or abuse you.”

Anita Moorjani, What If This Is Heaven

At the end of the book is a Love Yourself Pledge, with a space to write the name of the person who has been given the book. Anita Moorjani believes her own childhood might have been changed had she had access to something like this.

Although I have not yet bought a copy for myself, this is a book that I’ve gifted, and one I recommend gifting to anyone who might have the opportunity to read to children and to impart positive messages of love and compassion in today’s increasingly stressful world.

I can’t think of any child that wouldn’t want to be exposed to something as reassuring and heartfelt as this, and it may just make a difference to some who needs to hear its message now, especially as we become more aware of the widespread silencing of victims of bullying and criticism, events or experiences that too often children are too afraid to share with parents.

It reminds me too of a wonderful Derek Walcott poem, which since today is Valentines Day, I share below for you, for not everyone can rely on another to express loving words or gestures on this day, but as Derek shares with us below, we have it in us to do that for ourselves.

So what loving thing are you doing for yourself today?

L O V E   A F T E R   L O V E

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

 Happy Valentine Everyone!

by

Raise Your Vibration – 111 Practices to Increase Your Spiritual Connection by Kyle Gray

Raise Your Vibration is a book I read in 2016, but hadn’t reviewed as I read over a long period of time. I’ve since read another book by him, his latest called Light Warrior.

Kyle Gray is an inspiring (and by his own admission, ‘flawed’ as we all are) Scottish, best-selling author. He is published by Hay House, an expert in archangels, ascended masters, goddesses and many other characters in mythology, religious stories and other enlightened souls of ancient wisdom traditions, as fields of spiritual energy in the universe.

I came across him, when I read Christiane Northrup M.D.’s book, Making Life Easy – A Simple Guide to a Divinely Inspired Life. In her book, she made a number of recommendations regarding authors and people whose work she is interested in and follows, and Kyle Gray was one of those who I followed up on, in particular because it was the period just over a year ago, when I was about to spend ten days in hospital with my daughter, who was undergoing surgery to straighten her spine, I was going to be bringing as many spiritual resources as I could muster with me, from the traditional to the more esoteric!

I’ve loved all Kyle Gray’s books, which I read little by little, he’s one of my preferred reading choices on public transport thanks to a few free ebook offers from Hay House.

I read this particular title over a number of months and I’m sure I have benefited from it significantly, and I know I will continue to do so as I use it in a more random fashion going forward, it’s one to keep nearby and dip in and out of.

With it’s 111 vibes or spiritual practices, it’s designed not to be read in one sitting, but daily or randomly. I found often that the vibe for the day was often something that really resonated with my day, it’s also like an energising, elevating pick me up or start to the day, it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Originally I read an electronic version on my kindle, but then bought a physical copy so I could use it in a random way, and during the second reading, I was drawn to the practices relating to the seven chakras, which dovetailed perfectly with a 21 day meditation I was doing, by Deepak Chopra, called Finding Your Flow.

This particular meditation practice  was divided into three 7 day sections designed to activate the seven energy centres of consciousness, also known as chakras. In the first week, we find and become aware of them, week two we activate them and week three is focused on expressing them. Regardless of whether you relate to the system of chakras or not, it’s just about changing patterns of thoughts and behaviour that affect our energy, so listening to someone speak about how to do this, and/or reading, is beneficial to us all.

Kyle Gray’s work in this area, through this book extended the efficacy of the meditations and understanding of the energies in each of these areas.

I have since bought copies of this book as gifts for friends and family members who are open to a little spiritual inspiration and guidance. It’s one of the gems.

In conclusion, as I go back and reread my review on Christiane Northrup’s book, that lead me to Kyle Gray, I share this extract as it encapsulates much of my motivation for choosing this kind of reading input to accompany my other more literary tastes:

She also discusses thoughts and inputs, the effect of what we are constantly exposed to and how it should be managed in order to avoid overdosing on negativity and the toxic, fear-enhancing effect of the media for example. She discusses the positive power of affirmations, meditation, gratitude, the power of giving and receiving, connecting with nature, tapping and much more.

And in her own words:

“No human being has nervous, endocrine, and immune systems that were designed to process the negative news from all over the planet that’s being piped into their living room on a daily basis.”

“On a purely physical level, fear lowers our vibration and makes us far more susceptible to viruses and bacteria. The biochemical state that fear creates in our bodies adversely affects our immunity and increases our susceptibility to the pathological viruses and bacteria that are all around us.” Christiane Northrup M.D.

Buy Your copy of Raise Your Vibration via Book Depository

Note: This book was an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) kindly provided by the publisher.

P.S. I just tuned into Hay House Radio now, as I finish this review and, no surprise, Kyle Gray is speaking live!