Meditating on the spirit

The Theft of the Spirit: A Journey to Spiritual Healing with Native Americans ~ by Carl A. Hammerschlag, 1992, psychology, 9/10

A series of remarkable stories about spiritual connections.  Using Native American experience as an example, the author provides advice on living wisely, well, and spiritually in an increasingly materialistic world.  He shows how to journey past fear and illusion to a new strength of spirit and self.  Whether telling the story of how the Hopi Indians lost their cultural center when they lost their sacred religious objects, or how brave men and women have faced incredible odds — mental, physical, or emotional — this book is compelling and moving.

Here are some quotes I want to save from this book:

To Joseph Campbell, who knew that the meaning of life was in the experience of it.
To Mahatma Gandhi, whose prescription for living with joy has not been improved upon:
"If you're going to be somewhere, be there."
(These two are in the middle of dedicating the book to 13+ people)

"Without faith in a believable ethic, we suffer. ... Without any cultural or political guides who inspire trust, our perceptions of reality are created by sales professionals.  Image has become more important than substance ... If self, technology, and possessions have become our pervasive mythology, how can we reawaken in ourselves a sense of community that can sustain us?  We can return to a life of morality through telling and listening to stories, through experiencing genuine awe, through participating in rituals and ceremonies" (p. 25).

"Movement pumps the immune system!  If you stop moving your body, if you just lie down and become inactive, you slow your immune response.  Sneakers are the secret of life!" (p. 56).

"Researchers have now shown that prayer, a sense of personal power, love for pets, a family — all promote a healing response" (p. 88).

"Prayer is how you stop thinking about yourself; prayer is the taming of the you. ... it's a heart song ... Speech is a mind song" (p. 153).

"The Hopi say that clouds are formed from the last breath of living things.  Each cloud with its own shape is a reminder that the form comes and goes but its essence is transferable.  Wood burns and becomes ash.  And in being consumed by the flame, the wood gives off heat, which becomes moisture, which accumulates in clouds and showers rain, allowing the wood to reemerge as flowers" (p. 163).

"The Hopi say humanity must collaborate if we are to restore our existence on the planet" (p.164).

By the way, the author is a (formerly arrogant) medical doctor.