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Healing Ceremonies: Creating Personal Ritual for Spiritual, Emotional, Physical, and Mental Health
Practical, powerful techniques for creating personal rituals for mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health.
- GenresSpiritualityNonfiction
203 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 10, 2026
mandatory reading for my internship… definitely quite a few outdated ideas in here. kind if a hard read in that it was so boring and uninteresting and nonapplicable to my job that it took me so long to finish this and it’s like 160 pages. thank god it’s over
January 22, 2024
Interesting rituals... if you have time for this
December 28, 2019
"Patients carry their own doctor inside. The come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the physician who resides within each patient a chance to go to work." - Albert Schweitzer
____
When it comes to healing, how we feel is at least as important as what we know. This is true for both patient and healer because both must connect with feeling if they are to maximize their shared healing journey. (9)
____
True healing only occurs when both participants are connected in pursuing the common goal of healing. (12)
____
Choice elevates the spirit by allowing you to exercise your responsibilities to yourself and your faith. (17)
____
In Indian country, to be healthy means to be in balance. Balance occurs when what you know is the same as what you say, and when what you say is how you really feel. Balance happens when knowledge, feeling, and action are in harmony. That is the essence of your being, your truth. The Navajo's call this path "Hozho" - the way of beauty. To be healthy is to walk in beauty. (24)
____
The first step a healer must take in helping us create change is to get our attention. Old learning is so engrained and new possibilities so dim that, without realizing it, we may be colluding in giving up our dreams before giving them a shot. (52-53)
____
Looking again at something we thought we knew - is what gives rise to every creative breakthrough. Every act of genus or insight is simply the result of a prepared mind and a serendipitous event. In a flash we can become enlightened, if we are prepared to harvest the miracle moment. (53)
____
You probably already have the answers you seek, you just don't see them. (54)
____
A crucial aspect of ceremonies is the involvement of others. As a species, human beings need each other. It is through relationships of mutuality, of shared interest, by giving and getting, that we find what we wish to gain... connecting with people helps us achieve our innermost strivings. Once we have been joined in a community, we take a little piece of that community with us when we move on. We create community when we come together to make sense of our realities by beginning to share our lives, our stories, and the wisdom we have acquired. Renewing and sharing our spirit selves and the truth of who we are is the path of fulfillment in the season of autumn. (88)
____
House made of evening light
Happily may I walk
Happily with abundant showers may I walk
Happily with abundant plants may I walk
Happily on the trail of pollen may I walk
Happily may I walk
- from Navajo Nightway Chant (89)
____
In Indian country, they say there is no life line, it's a spiral. (page?)
____
Some questions don't have answers, it's enough to know they are important. (112)
____
"I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. - Richard Feynman (113)
____
I'm looking forward to the most fascinating experience in life, which is dying. You've got to approach your dying the way you live your life - with curiosity, with hope, with fascination, with courage and with the help of your friends. Let us have no more pious, wimpy talk about death. The time has come to talk cheerfully and joke sassily about personal responsibility for managing the dying process. - Timothy Leary (118)
____
Timothy Leary's daily diet, last month before dying of prostate cancer at age 75:
- 44 cigarettes
- 3 cups of coffee
- 2 glasses of wine
- 1 beer
- 1 marijuana joint
- 2 morphine pills
- 12 balloons of nitrous oxide
- ketamine
- 3 "Leary biscuits" - cheese soaked marijuana bud on a cracker
____
It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that move the human spirit forward - Joseph Campbell
____
Ceremonies are ways of telling stories - even painful ones, ceremonies create times of blessing. Ceremonies provide a structure for getting in touch with our hearts. Ceremonies help us see old certainties in a new way, and something good always happens. (126)
____
Everything you love will go away and come back to love you another way. - Franz Kafka
____
When it comes to healing, how we feel is at least as important as what we know. This is true for both patient and healer because both must connect with feeling if they are to maximize their shared healing journey. (9)
____
True healing only occurs when both participants are connected in pursuing the common goal of healing. (12)
____
Choice elevates the spirit by allowing you to exercise your responsibilities to yourself and your faith. (17)
____
In Indian country, to be healthy means to be in balance. Balance occurs when what you know is the same as what you say, and when what you say is how you really feel. Balance happens when knowledge, feeling, and action are in harmony. That is the essence of your being, your truth. The Navajo's call this path "Hozho" - the way of beauty. To be healthy is to walk in beauty. (24)
____
The first step a healer must take in helping us create change is to get our attention. Old learning is so engrained and new possibilities so dim that, without realizing it, we may be colluding in giving up our dreams before giving them a shot. (52-53)
____
Looking again at something we thought we knew - is what gives rise to every creative breakthrough. Every act of genus or insight is simply the result of a prepared mind and a serendipitous event. In a flash we can become enlightened, if we are prepared to harvest the miracle moment. (53)
____
You probably already have the answers you seek, you just don't see them. (54)
____
A crucial aspect of ceremonies is the involvement of others. As a species, human beings need each other. It is through relationships of mutuality, of shared interest, by giving and getting, that we find what we wish to gain... connecting with people helps us achieve our innermost strivings. Once we have been joined in a community, we take a little piece of that community with us when we move on. We create community when we come together to make sense of our realities by beginning to share our lives, our stories, and the wisdom we have acquired. Renewing and sharing our spirit selves and the truth of who we are is the path of fulfillment in the season of autumn. (88)
____
House made of evening light
Happily may I walk
Happily with abundant showers may I walk
Happily with abundant plants may I walk
Happily on the trail of pollen may I walk
Happily may I walk
- from Navajo Nightway Chant (89)
____
In Indian country, they say there is no life line, it's a spiral. (page?)
____
Some questions don't have answers, it's enough to know they are important. (112)
____
"I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. - Richard Feynman (113)
____
I'm looking forward to the most fascinating experience in life, which is dying. You've got to approach your dying the way you live your life - with curiosity, with hope, with fascination, with courage and with the help of your friends. Let us have no more pious, wimpy talk about death. The time has come to talk cheerfully and joke sassily about personal responsibility for managing the dying process. - Timothy Leary (118)
____
Timothy Leary's daily diet, last month before dying of prostate cancer at age 75:
- 44 cigarettes
- 3 cups of coffee
- 2 glasses of wine
- 1 beer
- 1 marijuana joint
- 2 morphine pills
- 12 balloons of nitrous oxide
- ketamine
- 3 "Leary biscuits" - cheese soaked marijuana bud on a cracker
____
It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that move the human spirit forward - Joseph Campbell
____
Ceremonies are ways of telling stories - even painful ones, ceremonies create times of blessing. Ceremonies provide a structure for getting in touch with our hearts. Ceremonies help us see old certainties in a new way, and something good always happens. (126)
____
Everything you love will go away and come back to love you another way. - Franz Kafka
January 6, 2011
This is a really interesting mix of Jewish and Native American ceremonial traditions by a psychiatrist who believes in the power of ritual. I really like the way he is unafraid to craft new traditions by blending elements from existing rituals to meet the needs of individuals in the Here and Now.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews