What's New on IJHC (Sep 2010)

Table of Contents 9-3

Editorial Musings

On Thinking Positively and Holding a Space of Love while Dealing with Negativity: Personal and Collective Perspectives
Daniel J. Benor, MD

Research

Healing Cities Working Group
Lindsay Clark BA, BS, M.Sc ; Mark Holland BLA, M.Sc, MCIP, LEED, Joaquin Karakas BA, MA, MCIP, Keltie Craig BA, MA, and Nicole Moen, BA, MP NLP, CH

The healing process in the human body is the ability to rebuild, repair and regenerate cells, tissues and organs. Regeneration draws upon the body’s innate intelligence to heal itself.

What would it then mean for a city to be "healed," and eventually to reciprocate and be healing and heal itself, its inhabitants and visitors. Furthermore, what methods and processes would support cities to facilitate healing in the context of sustainability planning? How might the built form and natural spaces of the city nurture and develop its residents' holistic health – to include addressing physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual needs?

This “healing cities” project explores how to address planning processes and to design cities in a self-reflective way that may foster greater connectivity both to the world around us, and to ourselves – and to thereby make us healthier and more whole. Specifically, the healing cities approach seeks to develop a framework for building and shaping communities in a manner that fosters natural, physical, social and spiritual healing. Planners, designers and health practitioners have an opportunity to open up a dialogue about how different conceptualizations of holistic healing may interact within the healthy cities framework.

This article is a foundation statement upon which we are planning to build research in support of our thesis that spiritual health is a vital and important contribution that urban design can make and enhance in the holistic spectrum of healing.

Remarkable Recoveries

Remarkable Recovery from a Severe Spinal Injury
Jill Raiguel

Living with Life Challenges

We Get To Listen
Stephen Haff

Over the years of my career as a teacher, in classrooms and rehearsals and now in the meetings of Still Waters in a Storm, I have preached compassion. When schools generated oppressive lists of rules and standards, and mind-crushing rubrics for grading everything children do, I threw those charts and lists in the garbage and asked young people to follow only one rule: LOVE EACH OTHER. I believe that if we respond to our neighbors according to this rule, everything’s going to be all right.

But what does it mean to love each other?

 
Variations on the Theme of Healing

Chakra Rebuilding: A Shamanic Healing Tool
Jill Raiguel, MS, Marriage & Family Therapist

FEAD Yourself a Different Way
Mary Ann Wallace, MD

Benefits of Intergenerational Programming
Amy Lemieux, BA (Psychology and Elementary Education), MA (Counseling)

Wholistic Approaches

Awakening to a Consciousness of Love and Healing
Anne Hillman, M.Ed.

Breaking the Habit and Reversing the Effects of Pretending to Be Alright
Judith A. Swack, PhD

Backyard Bounty: Guelph’s Urban Agriculture Project
Julianna van Adrichem

Backyard Bounty is a unique community-based agricultural project that began in the spring of 2008 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.  Our small business is partnering with community members to use their yard space and convert them into productive vegetable gardens.  Landowners receive either some vegetables or a discount on the price of a share in return. The organically grown produce is sold to local consumers through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares, at farmers’ markets and through many restaurants in Guelph. It is our hope to foster community, utilize urban space to increase sustainable food production, and provide the community with healthy, nutritious vegetables.   

Disposability Consciousness: Where Is 'Away' When We Throw Something Away?
Julia Butterfly Hill

Student and healee experiences of healing

Chakra Rebuilding: A Shamanic Healing Tool
Jill Raiguel, MS, Marriage & Family Therapist

FEAD Yourself a Different Way
Mary Ann Wallace, MD

See many brief cameos of intergenerational healing interactions
Benefits of Intergenerational Programming
Amy Lemieux, BA (Psychology and Elementary Education), MA (Counseling)

See brief case reports of HBLUTM healing responses
Breaking the Habit and Reversing the Effects of Pretending to Be Alright
Judith A. Swack, PhD

Poetry, The Creative Arts and Humor are Healing

The Invitation
Oriah

Throw It Away
Abbey Lincoln

Inspirations
Being the Garden
Stephanie Ann Barrows

Book Reviews

John L. Payne. The Healing of Individuals, Families & Nations: Transgenerational Healing & Family Constellations.

Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Hopkins, Rob. The Transition Handbook – From oil dependency to local resilience.

Shaun Chamberlin and Rob Hopkins. The Transition Timeline: For a Local, Resilient Future.

Frederic C. Craigie, Jr. Positive Spirituality in Health Care: Nine Practical Approaches to Pursuing Wholeness for Clinicians, Patients, and Health Care Organizations.

Judith Orloff. Second Sight: An Intuitive Psychiatrist Tells Her Extraordinary Story and Shows You How to Tap into Your Own Inner Wisdom.

Yuliya Cohen, Healing Without Effort: Energetic Boundaries.

Operation: Emotional Freedom – The Answer.

Caron B. Goode, Kids Who See Ghosts: How to Guide Them Through Fear.