The Creative Art of Living, Dying, and Renewal: Your Journey through Stories, Qigong Meditation, Journaling, and Art

by Elise Dirlam Ching, Kaleo Ching

Drawing from the healing powers of qigong and the expressive arts, this book offers a path for personal transformation full of wisdom, compassion, and understanding
 
Tapping the tremendous healing power of qigong and the expressive arts, this beautiful book invites the reader to contemplate the continuum of living, dying, and renewal within this life and beyond. The stories, qigong meditations, and journaling/art processes, including collage and mask-making, are invitations for you to engage them for your own healing, transformation, and wisdom. 

Authors, artists, healers, and teachers of qigong and art, Elise and Kaleo Ching draw on their twenty-three years of experience working with others on their paths of personal transformation to present an approach to living and dying that is saturated with wisdom, compassion, and understanding. Through their work, the authors have witnessed many personal journeys of dying, transformation, rebirth—facing terminal illness or loss of a loved one; letting go of old lifestyles and embracing new; connecting with past lives and future dreams. The stories and processes in this book will inspire a wide range of people interested in using qigong practices and meditations, journaling, and art for self-cultivation, mindfulness, spiritual awareness, and  artists, clergy, spiritual seekers, psychotherapists, hypnotherapists, social workers, chaplains, hospice workers, teachers, students and practitioners of transformative, shamanic, and healing arts.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Douglas Eisenstark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is well intentioned but I could hardly finish it. First I didn't know it is more of workbook with exercises and lessons. But primarily my problem with it is in the first chapter which is a first person recount of their own death. This seems a disingenuous trick that is more literary than it deserves given the title's promise. Following are other "stories" written in the first person I wouldn't trust as the authors' own experiences. But given the opening chapters who could know? That and the stories are new-age cliches of mysterious shamans and mystical coincidences with a dollop of obstacles overcome. I guess I should have read the subtitle more carefully.