Ramblemuse^SM Annotated Bibliography for Massage Practitioners

"Storycatcher" reveals the powerful role stories play in life, and empowers readers to examine their own to bring greater awareness and positive change. Personal-writing pioneer Christina Baldwin first draws on examples from history and mythology to show how stories do indeed change events. She then shows readers how to apply this idea to their own narratives, acknowledging and reclaiming them — both the positive and the negative aspects — to realize a better future within their families, workplaces, faith traditions, and even nations. Each chapter features suggestions, examples, and anecdotes to get people thinking and writing about their own lives.

The World Café is a flexible, easy-to-use process for fostering collaborative dialogue, sharing collective knowledge, and discovering new opportunities for action. World Café originators Juanita Brown and David Isaacs outline seven core design principles and provide practical tips and tools for convening and hosting "conversations that matter," even with very large groups. Each chapter features actual stories of Café dialogues from business, education, government, and community organizations across the globe, demonstrating how the World Café approach can be adapted to many different settings and cultures. Based on living systems thinking, this is a proven approach for fostering authentic dialogue and creating dynamic networks of conversation around your organization or community's real work and critical questions--improving both personal relationships and people's capacity to shape the future together.

"Creating a Life Together"is the only resource available that provides step-by-step practical information distilled from numerous firsthand sources on how to establish an intentional community. It deals in depth with structural, interpersonal and leadership issues, decision-making methods, vision statements, and the development of a legal structure, as well as profiling well-established model communities. This exhaustive guide includes excellent sample documents among its wealth of resources. Diana Leafe Christian is the editor of "Communities" magazine and has contributed to "Body & Soul, "Yoga Journal", and "Shaman's Drum", among others. She is a popular public speaker and workshop leader on forming intentional communities, and has been interviewed about the subject on NPR. She is a member of an intentional community in North Carolina.

Do you "give a lot of importance to helping other people and bringing out their unique gifts?" Do you "dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and 'making it,' on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods?" Do you "want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life for our country?" If you answered yes to all three of these questions--and at least seven more of the remaining 15 in Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson's questionnaire — then you are probably a Cultural Creative. "Cultural Creative" is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices. Cultural Creatives do not just take the money and run; they don't want to defund the National Endowment for the Arts; and they do want women to get a fairer shake — not only in the United States, but around the globe. On the basis of Ray and Anderson's research, about 50 million Americans are Cultural Creatives, a group that includes people of all races, ages, and classes. This subculture could have enormous social and political clout, the authors argue, if only it had any consciousness of itself as a cohesive unit, a society of fellow travelers. The husband and wife team wrote the book "to hold up a mirror" to the members of this vast but diffuse group, to show them they are not alone and that they can reshape society to make it more authentic, compassionate, and engaged. It is an idealistic call for a new agenda for a new millennium.

From the ancient Greek symposia to Gertrude Stein's famous Paris gatherings, salons have always been the incubators of provocative-at times even dangerous-ideas: the frontiers of cultural change. People who might elsewhere have been socially ostracized were included in salons, welcomed for their wit, intelligence, charm, and insight. And passionate conversation often led to passionate action. In 1991, Utne Reader launched a salon renaissance all over North America when it featured a cover story on salons. The response to the article was staggering, leading Utne to organize a National Salon Association that quickly drew over 20,000 members. Conceived and written by the folks at Utne, "Salons" is the quintessential authority on the subject, demonstrating that joining or starting your own salon is just a living room away.

The old neighborhoods or small towns in which generations shared lore, helping hands, and news, good and bad, have nearly disappeared; but there is an option for replacing the support and resources our ancestors took for granted. Shaffer and Anundsen define community as "groups of people who play, work, learn, and celebrate together." They set out specifics on how to organize, manage, and enjoy such groups across geographic, age, and other boundaries. Among the alternatives discussed in depth are cohousing arrangements, computer linkups, sports teams, and workplace communities. Leadership and participatory how-tos are spelled out, as are conflict resolution tips. Each chapter closes with recommended resources.

"The intent of this book is to encourage and support you to begin conversations about things that are important to you and those near you," Wheatley writes right up front in the clean, straightforward voice that always saves her work, unlike that of so many other "New Age" gurus, from cheesiness. "It has no other purpose." She then delivers on that promise, making her points in short, succinct, finely written essays on various aspects of human understanding and connection, invoking the thinking of great humanists like Paolo Friere and Nelson Mandela, peppering her thoughts with encounters with people around the world, and then expanding on 10 "conversation starters" like "Do I feel a 'vocation to be truly human'?" "When have I experienced good listening?" and "When have I experienced working for the common good?"