Laura Lander's Blog

 Latest book release!

In this bi-lingual storybook (English and Spanish), Marco and his abuela exchange Valentine surprises: a handmade card and a tin of heart-shaped cookies. But when one goes missing in the mail and days go by without the package being delivered, Marco wonders what could have happened to it. At bedtime, his imagination takes him on a wild exploration of increasingly fanciful scenarios of how the package may have disappeared and to where. At last the mystery is solved, the package is delivered, and all is well.

Children will relate to the feelings of anticipation being put on hold, the unsettling experience of not having the answer to something unknown, as well as the satisfying resolution when an explanation is found. Both children and parents will find amusement and delight in the colorful illustrations. More to enjoy: the recipe for the cookies is included at the end.

With text presented in both English and Spanish, this book has application in multi-lingual homes and classrooms.

                                                   To order your copy

 Latest book release!

In this bi-lingual storybook (English and Spanish), Marco and his abuela exchange Valentine surprises: a handmade card and a tin of heart-shaped cookies. But when one goes missing in the mail and days go by without the package being delivered, Marco wonders what could have happened to it. At bedtime, his imagination takes him on a wild exploration of increasingly fanciful scenarios of how the package may have disappeared and to where. At last the mystery is solved, the package is delivered, and all is well.

Children will relate to the feelings of anticipation being put on hold, the unsettling experience of not having the answer to something unknown, as well as the satisfying resolution when an explanation is found. Both children and parents will find amusement and delight in the colorful illustrations. More to enjoy: the recipe for the cookies is included at the end.

With text presented in both English and Spanish, this book has application in multi-lingual homes and classrooms.

                                                   To order your copy

Latest book release!

Finding Faeries in the Woods
at Wolfe's Neck Park


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One reader's review:  Love, love, love your new book!!!  I can't wait to read it with a little one.  At the same time I thoroughly enjoyed looking at it and reading myself.  Your paintings are wonderful and the storyline charming.  Such a gift to the world -- hope you have great success with it. R.S., Brunswick, ME.

This is what happens when legends of the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House do a mind meld with Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The surprise ending could be a Christmas wish for more than half of the nation. 
I invite you to pour yourself a cup of tea or a glass of wine and enjoy when you have time for a good 15-minute read.
Feel free to share as widely as you like. 
Click here to read: http://lauralanderauthor.com/45/ Scroll to the bottom to download a free copy. 
You can also find it, along with my books, at www.LauraLanderAuthor.com

Laura's latest children's book:


A timeless, classic counting book whose luscious illustrations evoke the colors, sounds and feelings of a delightful day at the seashore spent with someone special. For any child, or anyone who loves a child, or indeed, anyone who loves being near the ocean! This book will fill your heart.


to order your copy

Latest Book Release!

Piper Mae and the Purple-y Day

by Laura Lander




For young children, the topic of favorite color is of nearly universal interest. Piper Mae and the Purple-y Day is a charming peek into the mind of a child and her delight in a favorite color. The engaging text with the colorful illustrations involve the reader (and the child being read to!) in a guessing game and foster further dialogue. Fun to read any time, this book lends itself well to snuggling and sweet conversation for parent and child at bedtime.
 Purchase your copy

 

The Arrival of Iris Tallulah 
is the retelling of a birth story from the authentic perspective of a believer in miracles and in magic, one who observes life through the lens of grace.
I have long celebrated the feminine privilege of bearing life into this world. Anyone who knows me at all knows how treasured my three daughters are to me. I am thankful for the privilege and honor of having been present for the birth of my first grandchild, a momentous occasion in my (or any parent’s) life. This story was penned a few weeks after that event. The illustrations evolved a few years later. Their tender beauty, painted with heartfelt and focused intention by a mother for her cherished daughter, son-in-law, and first granddaughter, is infused with the power to convey love and healing on a soul level.
The intention is lovingly transformational in purpose: to soothe the hurt and relieve the angst around what may have been traumatic about the past and allow its reshaping into blessing going forward. It employs the effective practice of therapeutic writing: a fanciful re-writing of the script in order to resolve emotions and restore wholeness of being.
The making of this book is an offering in gratitude from the bottom of my heart. It has been a joyful endeavor. It also marks a new beginning for me, a new combination of my lifelong love of writing together with my rekindled joy of painting. The Arrival of Iris Tallulah is the first of what I hope to be many more of my books for children.
Buy this book!

Ten thousand diamonds
dripping from the rain-drenched trees.One million tiny sunsglinting in the dewy grass.And I,solitary witness to eachspectacle of light.Two mornings, separated by years,Same light, different diamonds,Same soul, new eyes.Sheer grace, this life.Photo by Bas van Anholt on Unsplash
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The following ideas were received via a shamanic journey on behalf of a woman who was seeking answers to a question about her health. She had reached a time in her life in which her spiritual, emotional and mental self were all in good shape. She felt happy, vibrant, positive, engaged. More than ever before, in fact. Yet physical ailments and issues continued to present themselves, niggling reminders that all was not well. What was this about? Why, she wondered, was her physical body not in alignment with the rest of her?

The answers held such profound truth and near universal application for our gender in this culture at this time, that we both agreed there was benefit in sharing them. I share the message of the journey here, with her permission. You are welcome to read this as if it is directed personally to you. It may well be. You will know.

First I saw a circle, a hoop, with a cross in it, depicting the four aspects of your being: spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. Spiritual was in the north. Mental was in the east. Emotional was in the west, and physical was in the south on the circle. Three bright lights, spirit-beings, stood at the north, east and west. Together they were joined in attending to the one at the south, which was very dim. I was given to understand that these spirit-lights are a part of your highest being. They are the highest and healed eternal aspects of your spiritual, mental, emotional and physical bodies, and are connected with Divinity.

Next the dim spirit-light in the southern position of the hoop turned into a newborn infant, and the others laid her on her side on the circle as on a table. They massaged her with oils, rubbing her back, and gently tapping her feet, to soothingly awaken her physical body and to seat her soul in it. Perhaps this was not done perfectly at your birth, these loving ministrations to make sure that your spirit felt completely welcomed and embodied? (For most of us, it was probably not even thought about.)

Photo by Chiến Phạm
Next I watched you grow into a three-year- old, a five-year- old, a third-grader jumping rope. Something may have happened or not happened at these ages of your body. Injury? Illness? Trauma? Each age of your body was surrounded by the north, east and west spirit-lights and attended to in whatever way was needed.

Then we stopped at your twelve-year- old self. A significant disconnect may have happened here with the coming of puberty, adolescence, and awareness of body image. As well, the importance of being accepted in social circles of girls of that age figured largely. It was explained that this is not at all uncommon in our culture. At an age in indigenous cultures when tribal belonging and growth into womanhood is marked with ceremony and celebrated, in our culture it is largely kept secret, bemoaned, dealt with as minimally as possible, the subject of grave warnings of impending danger. Instead of being encircled among girls and women, this coming of age is often accompanied by the experience of being shunned or excluded, or of feeling as though you are separate, apart, and not as good as.

Photo by Yoann Boyer

Of course it is not news that treatment of body image among young girls and women has been brutal in our culture. This is so all-pervasive that it has taken us a long time even to be aware of it. Finally the correction of that is beginning to happen in current generations. It was at her age of attainment that the north, east and west spirit-lights gave instruction to the south, “You are a woman-warrior. You are strong, capable and beautiful. We welcome you into your womanhood.” She knows this already at some level but needs to be told it again.

Next we were at age eighteen-nineteen- twenty, and then pregnancy, and then first childbirth. By this time the light-being in the south was under a heavy dense cloud of fog comprised of all of the cultural oppression of women in all of its forms that has accumulated over centuries of ignorance. The sacred process of giving birth was interrupted and replaced by surgery. No true recognition or recompense was ever really expressed or offered. Why would it be? was the general accepted mindset. Instead, a substitute and an oh well.

Photo by Yannick Pulver

This was all a part of that cloud of non-caring and discounting of what is important to our physical aspect, this shrugging it off as oh well and never mind and don’t complain and just make the best of it. And of course, seated as this event was next to the joys of motherhood and of having a healthy baby, it was easily neglected and discounted further. It was let go, put away by the emotions, logically discarded by the intellect. It was even looked upon as somewhat selfish and petty by the spiritual. Yet your own physical body in its experience of childbirth was and still is intrinsic and important. It is right and good to attend to this part of your being.

The spirit-lights of north, east and west surrounded south again as a grown woman. They cleared the fog over and around her in an ever-widening circle of clarity. This is what needs to be done and it is being done in a species-wide manner right now. A clearing of the fog that has blanketed our gender is in process and if we recognize it and acknowledge it and cooperate with it we will hasten the process. This fog is comprised of centuries of oppression and ignorance. Its clearing is a return to a way of being that is forgotten in our tangible world but can be revived from within us. In this it is like the migration of the monarch butterflies across North America to central Mexico…they know the way though they themselves have not been there, not for three or four of their generations. And just so will we return to the originally intended beauty and power of our gender within our species. This is currently in process, and every woman’s observance of it within herself will help to bring it about for others.

It is no wonder that, given a lifetime of being discounted, criticized and un-included, our physical bodies may not have a strong connection with our spiritual, emotional and intellectual self. One prescribed “remedy” is to be conscious of including and welcoming your physical body. To foster this re-connection, visualize the spiritual, mental and emotional parts of yourself as spirit-lights of the north, east and west. Three women who will now make it their practice to befriend the fourth.

Photo by Suhyeon Choi

Create with them a ritual of healing and inclusion for your physical body, the south spirit-light. Let it be something ongoing until its effects are complete. In addition to a ritual, make a daily practice of visualizing all four parts of yourself participating in everything you do. If you are going somewhere, hold the conscious thought: “Hey, body-being, we’re going out…come with us!” Visualize all four parts together, in a loving and strong company, a group of lifetime friends.

When you are sitting down to eat, acknowledge and include your physical body and joyfully celebrate her presence, her membership in the circle. Share food with her generously, not begrudgingly or with guilt. (Oh the dense fog around food and self care that clings to our feminine bodies!) Receiving massage therapy (because your body is worth it) is another example of something helpful in re-establishing connection with your physical body. You might honor your physical being by paying attention to her, complimenting her ( !!! ), thanking her. Purposely and with awareness, include and address your physical body as if she is important, too, she is an equal part of your being, right up there with spiritual, mental and emotional.

Photo by Ben White

In the evolution of our species, the meaning and splendor of these four aspects of being have made and are making a comeback, in this order: spiritual, mental, emotional, and last but certainly not least, physical. Our timely and observant task is to notice this disconnect if it is present within ourselves and to seek wisdom to address and heal it. There are many among us who would benefit from inner work of this type. In this we have good company.

I thank our spirit teachers and guides for imparting this helpful information. I offer it to you for your healing and wholeness and for the highest good of all.

This account is an example of one type of shamanic service that I offer: journeying to obtain helpful information for a particular issue. For more about this and other services, please visit www.LauraLander.com, and click on Shamanic Services.

https://unsplash.com/photos/YG_Fxyqz9... is on a vision quest,” one of my sisters wrote to me. I understood her to be referring to the current tumult playing out in nature, culture and government as well as to our interrelationship as human residents of our planet with each other and with the earth.

Photo by Steve Halama

A vision quest is a ceremony practiced by Native Americans. In the Lakota tradition it is referred to as hanblecheyapi (literally "crying for a vision") and is one of seven main rites. It is a quest for truth and purpose, for soul-searching and personal growth, for spiritual guidance. It is an experience of seeking a deeper understanding of Nature and Spirit. It does indeed seem as though our earth and everything that is a part of it is crying for vision.

Not a casual undertaking, a vision quest is prepared for by cleansing of body and mind through the inipi, or sweat lodge ceremony, and is accompanied by solitude in the wilderness, fasting from sleep and food, deep prayer and observation. It entails suffering. And then, hopefully, a vision.

Photo by Juskteez Vu
Black Elk, a holy man of the Oglala Lakota Sioux (1863-1950) described a part of the vision that he received during his hanblecheyapi: “Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”

Photo by Luis Perdigão

It is a gift that we have this record of Black Elk’s life and visions due to his own decision near the end of his life to impart his story to ethnologist John Neihardt, who met with Black Elk and transcribed his words in the book Black Elk Speaks.

Heroic resistance warrior, also of the Oglala Lakota Sioux, Crazy Horse (circa 1845 – 1877) was a cousin and contemporary of Black Elk. This description of his vision, spoken only four days before his death, is also well worth pondering today, approximately seven generations later:

“Upon suffering beyond suffering; the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of seven generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things, and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be as one."

Photo by @Hikersbay
We are longing for light again. Let us go with the earth in a quest and cry for a vision with her. Let us learn to live together like one being, many hoops making one circle, all children of one mother and one father. May we, in this time of the seventh generation, humbly receive the knowledge and understanding of unity from the ones who carry it, and by that means may our sick world be blessed. May we recognize and salute the light within each other’s eyes where the whole universe dwells. This is my prayer.

Photo by Neven Krcmarek