These books shaped my worldview and my identity as an artist, somatic practitioner, and activist. They also challenged how I see the state of the world, asking me to sit with discomfort while still making room for hope. Part 1 of this series began with my roots in meditation and nondual teachings. Part 3 will turn to different perspectives on healing trauma.
Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
This book influenced me so much that I read it multiple times and led a reading group on it for activists interested in deepening their understanding of the metacrisis. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira writes about modernity’s dis-ease in a way that is confronting, often uncomfortable, and deeply impactful. I don’t think I’ve read a more thought-provoking book. She doesn’t offer clean solutions, and says so from the start. Her intention is to build our capacity to “compost the shit” of our times: to reckon with our complicity and ask what other ways of being in the world might look like. The book is full of stories, personal reflection, and inquiry exercises, which make it an active read for anyone willing to look honestly at their own blind spots and face the complexity of our entangled crises. Whatever excuse or explanation you might reach for, she has likely anticipated it. It’s a book about staying with hard truths without turning away or rushing toward easy answers.
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein
This book is perhaps the counterpart to Hospicing Modernity. Charles Eisenstein acknowledges that hope has a bad name in some circles, but says we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this primal element of the human psyche. It made me feel hope, not because our worst fears won’t come to pass, but because, as he puts it, we become reconciled to them after they do. Here is a passage I brought to a sharing circle I facilitated: “In the darkest despair a spark of hope lies inextinguishable within us, ready to be fanned into flames at the slightest turn of good news. However compelling the cynicism, a childlike idealism lives within us… surviving despite infinite disappointments. Even in the darkest moments of resignation to the old normal, our participation in it has been halfhearted, for part of our energy was seeking something outside the world as we have known it.”
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
As the daughter of two professional artists, I grew up loving art. I have also always been critical of the art I make, and because art is so personal to me, critique of my work often felt like critique of me. Julia Cameron calls this inner critic the Censor, and much of The Artist’s Way is about getting out from under it. In some ways the book is simple. Its backbone is two practices: morning pages, three longhand pages of stream-of-consciousness writing each morning, and artist dates, a weekly outing taken alone to feed your creativity. Together they push us into reflection and into a closer relationship with ourselves. I felt a lot of discomfort at the idea of spending that time alone with myself, and that turned out to be an important edge to meet. Each chapter also ends with reflection tasks, which makes it a great book to work through with a friend or a group.
The Politics of Trauma by Staci K. Haines
I came to this book as someone who has been involved in activism since I was a teenager and became a somatic practitioner in my twenties, and I appreciated how clearly it connects these two kinds of work. Staci K. Haines argues that somatics has mostly focused on the individual and overlooked the social conditions and systems of oppression that create trauma in the first place. She defines trauma as an experience, or the impact of social conditions, that breaks or betrays our inherent need for safety, belonging, and dignity. A chapter at the back, “Power-Over: An Intersectional Analysis,” gives critical context for that argument. For Haines, individual healing and social transformation depend on each other. She asks: if you are a somatic practitioner, why aren’t you organizing for social justice? If you are an activist, have you brought trauma and healing into your strategies?
