Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We have a hard time talking about death in our culture, despite it being inevitable. Our reluctance to address this important part of life has led healthcare down a narrow path in which extreme effort to preserve life at all costs sometimes rips all meaning out of those remaining days.

Gawande does an excellent job of showing what is wrong with the system and how various people are working to make end of life care more humane. Death comes to us all. Giving some thought to the process might help make it easier for everyone.


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Trigger Point Therapy Workbook

I have been meaning to review this book for forever, but since time is limited and I still want to link to it, I will just say that You Need This Book.  It is one of the most practical self-help guides for treating pain, and is written for the layperson so that it is very accessible.  You will thank me. Your family will thank me.  Buy this book & feel better!

God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

God's Hotel is the story of what may have been the last almshouse in America. Dr. Victoria Sweet writes a riveting account of her experience practicing medicine in a place that exists between what she calls 'premodern medicine' and our modern health care system. In such a place, she discovers that "Tincture of Time" and a bit of attention can have a profound effect on how well the patient fares.

Set up during the Gold Rush, Laguna Honda is a hospital from a different era. Wide hallways and open, separate wards from the days before antibiotics are set up in a way that would make Florence Nightingale proud.  Staff was limited, and mostly used for patient care. Doctors would certainly take a patients' vital signs in person, possibly do their own x-rays,  and perhaps even prepare slides in order to examine necessary fluids. Laguna Honda was a facility where people ended up who had no where else to go. Outside the modern health care customer base (and funding) the hospital was short on money but long on time.

At least, that is how it was when Dr Sweet arrived. Eventually, however, the modern notions of efficiency and bureaucratic accountability caught up with Laguna Honda. Outdated architecture succumbed to the pressure of modern earthquake regulations, and a new Laguna Honda was born.

Dr. Sweet came to Laguna Honda because she wished to practice as a part-time physician, a notion all but unheard of in modern times. Ironically, this was because she wanted to pursue her PhD in medical history, studying a period in which practioners of medicine were always part time, and had other roles in their communities. Like her historical counterparts, Sweet had other interests. Specifically, she was intrigued by Hildegaard of Bingen, a 12th century infirmarian who also happened to be a nun. On the journey toward her PhD, Sweet learns that Hildegaard's approach to medicine had some value and truth. She found herself approaching her more challenging cases with a new perspective that often had miraculous results.

With all of our modern equipment, testing, and pharmaceuticals, today's medicine still faces many challenges in helping people find wellness in their lives.  Modern medicine relies on these technologies, often to the detriment of everyone involved. A new doctor admitted to Sweet that she didn't really know how to perform a complete physical workup on a new admission; there was so much else to learn that they didn't cover that in school anymore. Considering the amount of incorrect diagnoses that Dr. Sweet discovered, this does not bode well for the delivery of appropriate care.

If you are intrigued by the evolution of medicine, you will find this book fascinating. Finding the balance between modern technology and old-fashioned time and attention is essential to the future of medicine. If we can do this, we can create a better future, increasing wellness, reducing the cost of health care and most importantly, saving lives.


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The Magic by Rhonda Byrne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found this book to be incredibly hokey. Really, it was repetitive, and cheesy, and I had to force myself to finish it.

Nevertheless, Byrne is on to something important in this book, and I found that making myself slog through it helped me to get in touch with the power of gratitude to transform my experience of life.

I gave up on the exercises early on as they were time consuming and difficult to fit into my already packed life. However, just reading a chapter or three every day or so had a strong impact on my use of gratitude and my recognition for all that is right in my world. When we remember to be grateful, both verbally and energetically, we change our perspective from one of lack to one of bounty. This helps us to feel better, and according to Byrne, helps us to invoke all the good we can imagine.

I haven't manifested anything massive through these practices (yet) but I have to admit that I feel better, and I am noticing all the good that does come my way with clearer vision. Hot running water coming out of the tap. My general good health. A refrigerator. A car that runs. A house with room for all. This computer I type at. The information well that is the internet. My eyes, my hands, my ears. My family. A better job prospect and new opportunities that I had never before thought possible. Every single day, I give thanks for these blessings and more. And you know what? I do feel better. And things are looking up. Or at least, I am.


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Barefoot Running: Step by Step

Barefoot Running Step by Step: Barefoot Ken Bob, The Guru of Shoeless Running, Shares His Personal Technique by Ken Bob Saxton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Spring is here, and the days are brightening. After a wet winter without warm minimal shoes, I have gotten out of the habit of movement and activity. Now that the days are lengthening, I have felt the urge to run again, to use my body and connect with the earth.

I did, in fact, go for a run. I ran in my VFF Treks that have been my winter wear this past year, at least when it is dry. But I was at the park, and I got the urge, and it felt so good I did a bit more of it. The next day, my lateral metatarsals were rather upset with me. The big luggy treads on the Treks were fine for hiking, or walking on sidewalk. But the pounding of my stride mashed my feet around the treads and bruised them into hamburger.

I knew I needed to educate myself, because I shouldn't have let that happen.  So while I recovered, I picked up Barefoot Running: Step by Step by Barefoot Ken and Roy Wallack. I am very grateful that I did, because I had apparently forgotten everything I had ever learned about barefooting.

Barefoot Ken insists that one should learn to run barefoot.  Really barefoot, none of this minimal nonsense.  And with good reason; true barefooting gives you rapid feedback that helps you correct your technique. If you are running right barefoot, it is comfortable. In fact, Barefoot Ken suggests starting out on gravel, because when you learn to make that comfortable, everything else is easy. Discomfort is something you figure out how to adapt to. If you are in even the most minimal of shoe, the feedback is lessened and  your form will suffer. Shoes are to our proprioceptive sense what gloves are to our fine motor coordination. They make it possible to ignore information that could make a big difference in our long term structural health.

So I did.  I ran barefoot.  I didn't run far, but I did run.  And he was right; running without shoes is a sensory extravaganza that requires full attention and focus. In this, it becomes a fabulous moving meditation of responding with intention to the world. By paying attention in this way, I became very aware of how I had been pounding the pavement in my Treks, and that if my form had been better, my feet wouldn't have suffered as they had. One thing is certain though: if I hadn't worn my Treks, I wouldn't have taken 2 paces with the kind of stride I got away with in them.


So will I be joining the legions of true barefooters, eschewing the sole and having to defend my lifestyle choice in every interaction on the street? Not likely. Barefoot Ken admits that even some barefoot training can make a huge difference in the quality of sensitivity we bring to our running. Which is good, being in the PNW, where the cold muddy wet just doesn't appeal to my naked feet in the dark months. But I will take Barefoot Ken's advice and run in bare feet often enough to remember what it is supposed to feel like. And when it is too muddy out for my feet, I will remember to work them out inside with dance and yoga and qigong so they stay in touch with the earth.


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Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a fabulous introduction to the notion that we can help create a more peaceful world by improving our ability to communicate effectively and compassionately. Rosenberg points out a disturbing fact: we have more words in our language with which to judge each other (and ourselves) than we do to express our emotions. By learning to feel and express our emotions with words, we become less likely to act aggressively from these same emotions. When we can honestly say, "I feel angry when you speak to me like that," we become more able to own our feelings and less likely to escalate the conflict through assumptions, accusations, and violence.


Like many other books I have read recently, this book helps us to understand that by really being present in the moment, we gain access to the ability to steer the course of the future. Typically, we are barely listening to the other, especially in conflict. Instead, we are preparing our rebuttal, mentally judging the other, chewing on the past, or worrying about the future.  This impedes our ability to be truly present for what is going on. The ironic thing is that once we get in the moment, our presence and attention is often all that is needed to de-escalate the conflict.


Rosenberg provides many entertaining and inspiring anecdotes to demonstrate the many ways one can use Non-Violent Communication. From conflicts in the Middle East and Central Africa to the classroom, from parenting to prisons to self-defense, NVC proves over and over that violence comes from lack of connection. Learning to facilitate that connection can decrease violence, increase compassion, and help people grow into more compassionate and community oriented lives.


I found this book inspiring and educational. Rosenberg helps me to see that we can help others heal just by how we move and communicate in the world. By modeling effective and compassionate communication, we can create more peace in our own lives, and help to create a less violent future for us all.


I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in connecting more deeply with the people in their lives. It is especially useful for people in positions of power, who can learn to act in a way that empowers and inspires others. Parents, educators, health care professionals, managers, mediators... really everyone could use a little help in communicating in a way that enriches life for us all.


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spring thoughts

Lately, I have been contemplating what threads tie together the concepts and theories that I have been examining over the last year at Evergreen. As someone who has already started down the road of homeschooling, I was glad to find so much research that confirmed my feelings about education. Having studied the work of Riane Eisler, I have found myself questioning much of what is accepted as the dominant paradigm.  Darwin, for instance, is a good example.  As a confirmed agnostic, I have always scoffed at those who questioned his ideas, taking evolution as an obvious explanation of what came before us, and labeling the rest as fundamentalists of one sort or another. Eisler helped me to understand that as important as Darwin's contribution is to our modern understanding, the notion that competition fuels the process is detrimental and misguided. Biologist Bruce Liption demonstrates that co-operation is a common strategy for life, even at the microscopic level. Eisler shows just how pervasive this acceptance of competition is in our culture, and how damaging that ubiquity can be.

As I look at the world around me, I see that the paradigm of competition is crumbling around the edges.  The winners are resented by the losers, and the losers are getting wiped out. It is time for a new paradigm that helps us to reorder our values in ways that are life-affirming, constructive, and cooperative.

I feel that the domination paradigm has infected many of our public spaces. Ranging from healthcare to education, from housing to the nature of our economy, we need new perspective. Science tells us we are on the brink of climactic disaster; doing things the same old way isn't going to serve anyone for much longer. 

So how can we get there from here?  We can recognize the truth in the work of William Glasser: everything we do is a choice, even the choice of inaction. We can actively make choices that lead us toward growth, health and connection. We can study the work of Marshall Rosenberg, and learn to speak from presence, compassion, and the belief that if we put our minds to it, we can get everybody's needs met. We can study Riane Eisler, who reminds us that human nature isn't defined through competition, and that there have been other successful ways of organizing society. We can practice mindfulness, and be gentle with ourselves and others as we learn new skills that help us to create a future that does, in fact, get everybody's needs met.