Inspiration and Resources
INDEX
Poetry
Recommended Web Resources
Books
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- “In an Unspoken Voice” Peter Levine
- “The Language of Emotions” Karla McLaren
- “Acknowledging What Is” Bert Hellinger
- “The Body Remembers” Babette Rothchild
- “A General Theory of Love” Thomas Lewis M.D., Fari Amini M.D., Richard Lannon M.D.
- “The Developing Mind” Daniel Siegel
- “Parenting from the Inside Out” Daniel Siegel
- “Trauma Proofing your Kids” Peter Levine and Maggie Kline
- “Trauma through a child’s eyes” Peter Levine and Maggie Kline
“The Body Keeps the Score” Bessel Van Der Kolk
Poetry
“Language against which we have no defenses” ~ David Whyte
David Whyte
David Whyte’s poetry reflects a living spirituality, a deep connection to the natural world and a personal inspiration. Below is an excerpt from David Whyte followed by a couple of inspirational pieces.
“The poet lives and writes at the frontier between deep internal experience and the revelations of the outer world. There is no going back for the poet once this frontier has been reached; a new territory is visible and what has been said cannot be unsaid. The discipline of poetry is in overhearing yourself say difficult truths from which it is impossible to retreat. Poetry is a break for freedom. In a sense all poems are good; all poems are an emblem of courage and the attempt to say the unsayable; but only a few are able to speak to something universal yet personal and distinct at the same time; to create a door through which others can walk into what previously seemed unobtainable realms, in the passage of a few short lines.”
The House of Belonging
I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other. But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room, it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep, it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night. And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love, this is the black day
someone close
to you could die. This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light, the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made. This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love. This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life. There is no house
like the house of belonging.
Mary Oliver
“Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”
Mary Oliver is best known for her clear and poignant observances of the natural world. Her creativity is stirred by nature, and Oliver, an avid walker, often pursues inspiration on foot. Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home: shore birds, water snakes or the phases of the moon. Her words evoke in me both what is simple and the complexity of the natural world.
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
Now she lifts her pale forearms and throughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I’ve been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is the author of more than forty books of essays, poetry and novels. He has worked a farm in Henry County, Kentucky since 1965. He is a former professor of English at the University of Kentucky and a past fellow of both the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has received numerous awards for his work, including an award from the National Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters in 1971, and most recently, the T.S. Eliot Award. “My work has been motivated,” Wendell Berry has written, “by a desire to make myself responsibly at home in this world and in my native and chosen place.”
The Real Work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Recommended Web Resources
Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute-SETI
Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute-SETI is a non-profit, educational and research organization dedicated to the worldwide healing and prevention of trauma.
Peter Levine’s Website
A wealth of information from one of the more brilliant leaders in the trauma field. Peter Levine has worked in the field of stress and trauma for over 40 years and is the developer of “Somatic Experiencing.” He teaches trainings in this work throughout the world and is the author of the best selling book “Waking the Tiger – Healing Trauma,” (published in twenty languages) as well as four audio learning series for Sounds True including the book CD, “Healing Trauma, a Pioneering Program in Restoring the Wisdom of Our Bodies;” and Sexual Healing, Transforming the Sacred Wound.” He is the co-author of “Trauma through a Child’s Eyes, Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing.” And “Trauma-Proofing Your Kids, A Parents Guide for Instilling Confidence, Joy and Resilience.”
Constellation Works
All you need to know about our offerings in the world of systemic constellation work.
Books
In an Unspoken Voice Peter Levine
The Language of Emotions Karla McLaren
Acknowledging What Is Bert Hellinger
The Body Remembers Babette Rothchild
A General Theory of Love Thomas Lewis M.D., Fari Amini M.D., Richard Lannon M.D.
The Developing Mind Daniel Siegel
Parenting from the Inside Out Daniel Siegel
Trauma Proofing your Kids Peter Levine and Maggie Kline
Trauma through a child’s eyes Peter Levine and Maggie Kline
Excerpts from Karla McKlaren: “Healthy anger acts as the honorable sentry or boundary holder of the psyche.” “Sadness offers life-giving fluidity and rejuvenation.” “Depression isn’t a single emotion, but a strangely ingenious constellation of factors that erect a vital stop sign in the psyche.” “Healthy and properly focused fear is our intuition.”
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