Psychosynthesis Made Easy

I'm reading an interesting book at the moment, from O Books new "Made Easy" series, about to be launched at Watkins, the esoteric bookshop in London.

Psychosynthesis Made Easy has been written by Stephanie Sorrell, who trained at the Institute of Psychosynthesis in London and is an Applied Practitioner in the discipline.

This is a short, easy to read volume, ideal for the layman who would like to understand what psychosynthesis is all about. Stephanie illustrates the idea throughout with her own personal life experiences to which many, myself included, will be able to relate. Psychosynthesis, we are told, allows psychology, soul and spirituality to meet on mutual ground.

I was particularly interested in the chapter towards the end of the book linking psychosynthesis with ecopsychology, or eco-therapy. It has been understood since the mid 1900's, Stephanie tells us, that nature has healing power for humans, and that our empathy for the plants and animals we share the planet with is an essential part of our personal well being.
But this of course has a far wider significance for our world, a social significance, as we would surely not damage our world so much with our unsustainable living if we felt a greater empathy for all the life that it contains. And by our thoughtless actions we not only induce climate changes but we damage the very soul of nature that could help us most in our own healing.

"If we do not allow the natural world to speak to us, if we do not let the fierceness give us solace, or the silence reach and heal us, then we can turn our wounds, our own brokenness, against the natural world. And that is what we are doing.
"This powerful source of healing is itself now hurt. Nature has become the docile dog that will savage the child who innocently pokes it in the eye. We are hurting our planet. If we do not act quickly, it may turn on us and destroy us"

These latter sentiments come from my own book, Healing this Wounded Earth, where I write in one chapter of the healing power of nature, and the effect we are having on its fine balance by our present lifestyles, with a call for healing and change. But I further explore the need in some detail for empathy and compassion in all aspects of our lives, at work and at leisure, in our creativity and finances, in our faith and our healthcare, and of course in our relationships and our communities. This must be the future of a better world for us all, and for our children and grandchildren to inherit.

© Eleanor Stoneham 2011

Depression as a Spiritual Journey

Another day and another brush with the paparazzi - when will they leave me alone?! Seriously though, I have just returned from a day in London being interviewed for TV in connection with depression, more specifically a book, "Depression as a Spiritual Journey" by Stephanie Sorrell, published by O Books.
   Isn't that just a lovely painting for the cover - and if you read the book you will soon understand how appropriate it is. Of course the main focus of the interview was on Stephanie and her own experiences which led to her writing the book. I was asked along because someone else pulled out and I could talk from my own life around the same subject. And I think I could give Stephanie some moral support - I hope I did anyway.

The organisation is Conscious.TV. They produce programmes for Sky TV and other outlets. It all came about from a chance meeting with Iain McNay at a Scientific and Medical Network conference a few weeks ago. That was the weekend of flight chaos when Britain's planes were grounded because of a certain Icelandic volcano and skies were absolutely clear of aeroplane vapour trails. A unique experience. Just look at that sky!

Life is so full of wonderful serendipitous moments - they seem to have directed the course of my life for quite a while now. One thing I have learnt and now live by is that you get nothing in this world if you don't ask. And if you don't talk to people, strangers, anyone, you will never have chance conversations that can so often lead you in another exciting direction.
The film will be out in about 10 days and I will keep you posted. If I like the result, anyway! But I guess it will be in the public domain so there's no going back!

That same weekend at the SMN conference I found this quote from Thich Nhat Hahn. If only we could all understand that simple truth!

That's all for now - I am exhausted from the day and need to get supper!

Progress with the manuscript

Progress Bulletin for To Heal the Fractured Earth - Well I submitted the completed manuscript to the publisher, O Books, on 18th January 2010, and on 26th January it was forwarded by the Editorial Manager to a copy editor. As far as I understand the system, the copy editor will check sentence structure, readability, that kind of thing, picking up missing words and grammatical errors, and then return it to me as a copy edited manuscript for checking through. However careful we are to check thoroughly, read carefully, even have peer reviews of our work, a few errors still inevitably creep in - or rather do not get eliminated! Apparently there is only one known book that had absolutely no such mistakes in its final published form - I will find out which it was for a later blog, unless someone can meanwhile tell me!

Does this mean that the Editorial Manager had no substantial editorial changes to suggest? I assume and hope so! After all this is probably my third or fourth rewrite - each time the structure has been reorganised and evolved into a "final" version that I am happy with - at least for now. There comes a point in time in the development of a non-fiction book when a line has to be drawn, and any further ideas, developments etc need to be kept for a reprint or later edition.

For example, I learnt today (from an article by Marguerite Theophil in The Times of India), that whilst Carl Jung popularized the Wounded Healer motif in recent times, the idea is not only traced back to the Centaur chiron, but also to Plato, who recognized that the best physicians had themselves suffered, and were therefore better equipped to understand and heal the ills of their patients. I need to go back to that idea and store it away for future reference.

Final manuscript submitted to publisher

Wounded Healers in a Wounded World - Ripples of Hope - To Heal the Fractured Earth - so many title ideas - not decided which to use yet. Whatever the title, today is a momentous day in my life! I uploaded the final manuscript of my book onto the O Books database today! Publication due 12-15 months hence - watch this space. Soon I should appear with my own page on the O Books website. How exciting is that!!

The photo is on Bournemouth beach - taken when book was called Ripples of Hope!