memoir

“In the Spirit of We’Moon” narrated by Musawa

February 1, 2016 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Celebrating 30 Years, An Anthology of We’Moon Art and Writing

Recommended to me by: gift from a friend

We’Moon, now in its 35th year, is an feminist astrological datebook that centers the moon cycles rather than the sun cycles. This anthology contains the extraordinary history of this project, as well as sample art and writing from each year’s calendar.

Musawa and others created the first multi-lingual We’Moon calendar in a women’s land collective, Kvindelandet, in Denmark. The first five editions were published from different European countries as Musawa moved around and found other women volunteers willing to help. We’Moon publishing moved to women’s land in Oregon after that, and has resided here ever since.

One woman’s inspiration and dedication has inspired and nourished many others with this ongoing celebration of women’s rhythms. While she generously credits everyone who stepped forward to support and contribute to the project, it is clear that it was her leadership that made it happen.

While I’ve occasionally owned We’Moon calendars, I didn’t realize that each year’s theme is based on the Tarot Major Arcana for that year.

This anthology is fun both to read sequentially, and to open randomly to see what message appears. Recommended!

Available at biblio.com.

“Trauma Stewardship” by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk

November 4, 2015 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others

This book describes and offers solutions for the secondary trauma of working to address trauma and injustice. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky shares her own experiences as a trauma social worker as well as a wide range of detailed profiles of other helping professionals. The writing is empathic, engaging, and perceptive.

A generous sprinkling of cartoons reinforces her point that humor is a survival technique when working with grim material.

The last section contains a lot of specific, useful suggestions for self-inquiry and self-care for trauma healing professionals. It felt validating to notice that over the years I have built a lot of the suggestions into my life, with healthy food, enough sleep, meditation, lots of exercise, singing, dancing, and participation in community. Also, setting limits around the number of hours I work, and holding fast to the belief that my own healing and helping one client at a time is enough in the face of the world’s vast need. Maybe I can trust my body and my instincts to find sustainable habits in this profession.

I did not find the last section’s framing of five directions to be helpful or necessary. Since the directions were matched with the five elements in a different way than I’m used to, it was actively distracting. Fortunately, the framing is simply used to group the very practical, solid advice in each section, rather than devolving into new agey spirituality.

From the conclusion:

By now we know that if we want to decrease the suffering in our world, we will need to learn a behavior that is fundamentally different from the ones that have caused such pain and destruction. We must open ourselves to the suffering that comes with knowing that there are species we can’t bring back from extinction, children we can’t free from their abusive homes, climate changes we can’t reverse, and wounded veterans we can’t immediately heal. We must also open ourselves to the hope that comes with understanding the one thing we can do. We can always be present for our lives, the lives of all other beings, and the life of the planet. Being present is a radical act. It allows us to soften the impact of trauma, interrupt the forces of oppression, and set the stage for healing and transformation. Best of all, our quality of presence is something we can cultivate, moment by moment. It permits us to greet what arises in our lives with our most enlightened selves, thereby allowing us to have the best chance of repairing the world.

Highly recommended for helping professionals and those considering going into the field. I feel very lucky to be self-employed, after reading about the working conditions in a lot of helping agencies!

Available at bookshop.org.

“Sammy, the crow who remembered” by Elizabeth Baldwin Hazelton

August 2, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

I had this book as a kid. I remembered it because it has a character named Sonya, which is the only place I ever saw my name in a book, even spelled ~~wrong~~ differently. Well, until Crime and Punishment, but that was much later. Representation is important! I also remembered an overall warm feeling about the story.

It’s a true story, told with photographs, of a crow who returned to play and live with the family who raised him. Re-reading it now, I wonder about the photographer, Ann Atwood. There are gorgeous black and white photos of Sammy interacting with a cat, a seagull, a passel of kids, and gently leaning into an adult’s petting hand.

Highly recommended, if you can track down a copy.

“The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer

July 15, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

Recommended to me by: Amanda Palmer’s TED Talk

This book brought me to tears, laughter, and boredom. It’s a confessional mix of Amanda Palmer’s friendship with her childhood neighbor Anthony, her relationship with Neil Gaiman, and her band’s tours and tangles with a recording company.

Some of it recapitulates the TED talk. Some of it reveals more than I’m comfortable even repeating here about her famous husband. Some of it is really good advice about asking, forgiving, being in the moment, connecting, loving.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Through the Gates” by Susan Windle

May 24, 2015 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: A Practice for Counting the Omer

Recommended to me by: Kol Aleph – Jewish Renewal Omer Offerings Online

I tried Counting the Omer this year, moving through the sephirot of the Kabbalah in all their pairings over 49 days. I quickly found that I needed a woman’s voice to guide me through this historically men-only practice. Susan Windle’s book gave me warm, personal, inclusive guidance.

The book has a sense of movement through the days as she writes poems and letters to a group of people counting with her. She includes her struggles as well as insights. Her interpretations are clear, and resonate with what I sense in my body. At the end, she says counting the omer is about becoming more ourselves, which also makes sense to me.

Recommended to learn about Kabbalah and Counting the Omer from a woman’s perspective.

Available at bookshop.org.

“She Who Dwells Within” by Lynn Gottlieb

May 24, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism

Recommended to me by: Orasimcha Batdina

I loved this book. Lynn Gottlieb talks about exactly what I needed to hear, that other women find Judaism to be hostile ground. I cheered on her battle to make that hostile world hers in a new way, and winced at the ways men fought to suppress her.

“Women need a new situation. In a Jewish context, we need to transform the way we talk Torah, the way we practice ceremony and ritual, the way we tell and pass on stories, the way we codify laws, the way we organize our communities, and the way we envision sacred mysteries.” Yes!

Also it doesn’t hurt that she chooses a dragon (longtime favorite symbol of mine) to represent Shekhinah.

I appreciated the links between Judaism and the pre-existing Goddesses in the Middle East. I’ve worked with the Descent of Innana without realizing the story might be part of my heritage. Yes, we need stories about women that resolve in powerful, healing ways, not just, “And then she got married and had a son.”

I appreciated re-imagining keeping kosher as caring for the environment. I hadn’t viewed that as a directly spiritual act before, although it makes sense now that I think about it.

I also appreciated the section on recovering from violence and abuse, although there was a bit of “help them recover” about it.

Perhaps someday I’ll come back to the book for some of the re-imagined rituals it offers. For now, it’s the company I enjoy.

Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.