Below are some of my favorite books on embodiment and health:

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy
by Michael Shea
A 500-page tome covering a broad range of topics related to health, vitality, and wellness from the perspectives of embrology, buddhism, osteopathy, and Jungian psychology. The biodynamic approach looks to fluid, tissue, organ, and structural formations during the first few weeks of life to gain greater understanding of the organism as a whole.

Bodymind
by Ken Dychtwald
Looks at experiments in Mind/Body awareness during the first stages of the Human Potential movement at Esalen in the 70's.

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
by Trungpa Rinpoche
A truly pragmatic book that gives lucid and humorous insights into the ego's attempts to appropriate the spiritual quest for its own goals. Along the way, numerous nuggets of luminous intelligence are shared on the subjects of self-love, compassion, identifying as a deity, the mentality of wealth from which true compassion springs, and metaphysical elucidations on the nature of form, space, and the continuum of life.

Embodying the Movement of Life
by Bonnie Gintis
An Osteopath's insights into fluid dynamics, embryology, and movement. Dr. Gintis had significant scoliosis that was partially resolved through craniosacral work. She is also a student of Emilie Conrad, developer of Continuum movement. See "Life On Land" below.

Energy Medicine
by Donna Eagan
A great book by massage therapist and intuitive, Donna Eagan, that shares practical ways she has learned over the years to boost energy, immunity, and general wellbeing through a fusion of asian modalities, acupoints, keltic grid work, and intuitive imagery.

Energy Medicine in Therapeutics & Human Performance
by James Oschmann
Provides a solid scientific framework through which to view energy medicine. Fairly dry reading, but chock-full of relevant research.

Job's Body
by Deane Juhan
Technical while still accessable to anyone interested in learning more about the body, this book gives a fresh and grounded perspective on the power of touch and the science behind the effectiveness of bodywork.

Healing with Whole Foods: Chinese Medicine and Modern Nutrition
by Paul Pichford
An immensely invaluable book to have around the house as a reference. Clear description of the principles behind Oriental medicine and how to better understand the properties of food for use in the ultimate preventive care - food as medicine. Also explores nutritional perspectives on fairly serious or difficult-to-treat ailments such as AIDS and Candidiasis. Backed with sound scientific research. Very user-friendly. A tome worth owning.

Intro to Tantra
by Lama Yeshe
An excellent introduction to Tantra, or how to fully utilize and transform desire into creative, compassionate energy within the continuum: "Instead of viewing pleasure and desire as something to be avoided at all costs, Tantra recognized the powerful energy aroused by our desires to be an indispensable resource for the spiritual path." Basic Buddhist concepts, such as the nature of emptiness and the self-luminous cognition of the universe, are explained within the context of the Bodhisattva path - dedicating one's life to the liberation of others.

Life on Land
by Emilie Conrad
Autobiography of the developer of Continuum movement. Emilie's story is an engaging account of her journey to freedom through movement, first as a dancer in Haiti in the 50's, then later as developer of a movement style based off of embryological fluid dynamics. The discoveries she makes through movement eventually lead her to collaborations with Dr.Valerie Hunt of the UCLA Kinesiology Labs, where she later learns to help patients with spinal paralysis through her unique approach to movement.

Molecules of Emotion: the Science Behind Mind/Body Medicine
by Candace Pert
"Pert, once a chief of brain chemistry at the NIH, freely intermingles vibrant stories of her professional and personal life with her theories about neuropeptides. In the early 1970s, she had a key role in discovering the brain's opiate receptors. An interesting read on the sexual politics of scientific achievement. She also traces her own evolution from competitive bench scientist to explorer of personal healing modalities."

Space, Time, & Medicine
by Larry Dossey
This book explores the different ways that cultures view time and the startling correlations and differences in disease between cultures with linear vs. cyclical notions of time. Dossey gives simplified examples of quantum physic's discoveries of the holographic universe and relativity and proposes that Western medicine can benefit greatly from these newer, revolutionary views of space and time and their implications for health.

Spiritual Wellbeing

Maitripa Institute
Offering teachings in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Portland, OR.
www.maitripa.org

Reccomended Health Care Practitioners

Todd Jackson
Chi-kung, Yoga and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. Portland, OR.
www.toddjackson.com

Kelly Jennings, ND, MSOM
SE Portland, OR.
http://www.urbanwellnesspdx.com/jennings.php

Health Care Products

Naturokits
Naturopathic first aid kits.
www.naturokits.com

Resources by Mae Wan Ho
Mae Wan Ho is a biochemist who studies the physics of wholeness in organisms and is also outspoken on a broad range of topics, from environmental pollution to genetic engineering. All of her work is directly or indirectly related to health and the challenges to health that we all face in these times.

Electromagnetic Fields of Influence
by Mae Wan Ho, PhD
"Electromagnetic radiations are increasingly flooding our environment, as evidence of health risks is mounting, suggesting that organisms are sensitive to very weak electromagnetic fields.
This requires a new biology that understands organisms that has been systematically ignored and excluded from mainstream discourse, to our peril." Read more here.

Collagen Water Structure Revealed
by Mae Wan Ho, PhD
"Collagen is the main protein in connective tissues of animals and the most abundant protein in mammals. Connective tissues contain a lot of water; soft connective tissues (all apart from bones and cartilage) are typically 60 to 70 percent of water by weight. The proteins together with the water form a liquid crystalline matrix in which every single cell in the body is embedded, which makes connective tissues the ideal medium for intercommunication, as I have suggested in my book The Rainbow And The Worm [1] ." More here.

How the Environment Affects Genes
In this video, Mae Wan Ho confronts genetic engineering and the fallacy of genetic predetermination. How does this relate to healing? Well, we need to realize that we are more than our genes. We are not physically or otherwise destined to any particular genetic fate.



Personal Mythology Resources
from David Feinstein, PhD

At Play in the Fields of the Mind: Personal Myths as Fields of Information
The concept that personal myths shape individual behavior in a manner analogous to the way cultural myths influence social behavior has been gaining increasing attention over the past two
decades. A personal mythology is an internalized model of reality comprised of postulates about
oneself, one’s world, and the relationship between the two. These postulates, which address
immediate as well as eternal concerns, are both descriptive, furnishing explanations, and
instructive, generating motivation. A comprehensive theory of human development based on the
individual’s evolving mythology integrates the biological, psychodynamic, cultural, and spiritual
dimensions of experience. This paper expands the personal mythology construct, suggesting that personal myths function not only as biochemically-coded models of reality, but also as fields of information—natural though non-visible elements of the physical universe—that impact
consciousness and behavior. Read the full PDF here.

Mythic Perspectives for a World in Distress
David Feinstein Ph.D., Ashland, Oregon
Ann Mortifee, Vancouver, British Columbia
Stanley Krippner, San Francisco, California

This essay is concerned with the myths that are leading us into an uncertain future, how they can be understood, how they can be worked with, and how they can be transformed.  Some people think a myth is no more than a quaint relic from an antiquated culture, a fanciful story created to explain what is not known.  More exactly, myth is the way people combine what is known and what is not known into the maps that guide them through their lives. Read the full PDF here.