alternative and holistic

In the foreword to this book, we are told that the word anthology "literally means a gathering of flowers." The editors of this remarkable collection of essays asked healers from various perspectives to share their ideas, in order to define and foster the "common denominator, or 'golden thread,' that unites all healers and healing methods of ancient, current, and future times."

Below are some representative insights (there are many more contributors -- and much more to each essay-- than are quoted below):

Bernie Siegel, M.D., F.A.C.S., founded the Exceptional Cancer Patients program and is author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles. He believes that his own role -- teaching people how to feel and express love -- succeeds only if he is able to show them that they are lovable.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D., is noted world-wide for her work in death, dying, and transition, her books including On Death and Dying and AIDS: The Ultimate Challenge. She believes that healing does not occur only at an individual level: "Because each individual is connected through a vast network of relationships to innumerable other people and creatures on the planet, the process of healing even one person has far-reaching ramifications."

Hugh Prather -- a crisis therapist, columnist, and minister who has written such books as I Touch the Earth/The Earth Touches Me -- has concluded that "all healing approaches heal the body in the identical way; the only difference is in how they limit their options." The "great mistaken assumption" is that healing necessarily means a physical improvement -- it is not up to us to prejudge the form in which the gift of healing is to be received for a given person.

Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. -- former director of the Mind/Body Clinic at New England Deaconess Hospital, Harvard Medical School and author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind -- writes very succinctly, "The message that underlies healing is simple yet radical: We are already whole... The work of healing is peeling away the barriers of fear that keep us unaware of our true nature of love, peace, and rich interconnection with the web of life. Healing is the rediscovery of who we are and who we have always been."

Jack Schwartz is a research pioneer and author in the field of voluntary control of mind-body processes. He sees disease as holding back energy that can be released if we align ourselves with the process of transformation. Even by using the label of "disease" we create an attitude that constricts our life energy's flow -- as if an enemy is attacking us from outside. He asks that healers be "mapmakers" or "guides" who walk alongside their clients, showing them how to release their own power, how to overcome the fear of change.

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., F.A.A.P., who specializes in chronic and life-threatening illness, asks, "beyond all these techniques, what is it that truly fosters the healing process? I think it is the way we stand in relationship to each other that is most important." She offers a model for any healer with whom we might partner in our journey of healing: "...two people in a healing relationship are peers, both wounded and both with healing capacity... I don't believe that one person heals another. I believe that what we do is invite the other person into a healing relationship."

Richard Moss, M.D., founded a nonprofit organization for health and wholeness and is the author of The I That Is We: Awakening to Higher Energies through Unconditional Love and How Shall I Live? "When I was a traditional physician," he writes, "I was content to regard healing as the restoration of health. But today I know that healing is far more than a return to a former condition. True healing means drawing the circle of our being larger and becoming more inclusive, more capable of loving. In this sense, healing is not for the sick alone, but for all humankind."

Designed "to search for the common denominator......that unites all healers and healing methods", this book pulls together almost 40 relatively short essays by various authors noted for their work in healing body and soul. Because of this approach, some chapters have more relevance than others, depending on the interests of the reader. Reading the ideas of a particular author can spark a desire to read more by that person, so in that sense this is a nice overview course on the breadth of attitudes held by contemporary healers, both traditional and alternative. It probably should be included as required reading by all practitioners of the healing arts.

This collection of essays by a Who's Who of American Healing started changing my life twenty minutes after I picked it up. The advice of people like Louise Hay and Carl Simonton went straight to the heart of issues we all face with our own health and the health of our loved ones and clients.

Of course, not all of the 37 different takes on the healing process will seem relevant to any individual reader. But it's easy to get what you need; most of the essays are no longer than 1500 words. Authors include writers Lynn Andrews, Norman Cousins, and Ram Dass, visionary MD's Gerald Jampolsky, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Deepak Chopra and Rachel Remen, and alternative healers Sun Bear and Dolores Krieger.

If you were my friend, and if you practiced in any area of health, or faced health issues yourself, I would want you to read this book.