Bodyworkers, murderous healers and more vampires

April 10, 1975 I read:

Bodies in Revolt (Thomas Hanna) for the second time

Even though I read it twice circa '75, I had no recollection of this book. I went and looked it up online and found it was all about somatics, and Hanna was evidently a charismatic explorer and teacher of bodywork--which probably explains why I read it twice. I'm a sucker for charisma. Hanna lived and died (in 1990) not far from me here in Northern California. I found this quote and an appreciation of him on http://somatics.org/somaticscenter/library/bea-passing.html

“Life can be seen lucidly only against the supporting background of non-life; I cannot see myself without seeing us; and we cannot see ourselves as a species without seeing the gyrating whole of the cosmos.”

Yet for Tom, even the “vision that is whole” remains incomplete if it is not translated into the realm of action and experience, as we can see in these lines from “Zero” (2,3):

“I believe that wisdom is not discovered by knowing the truth but by living it. Unless it is lived it is humanly worthless.”


April 10-12, 2005, I read:

Cruel and Unusual Intuition, Claire Daniels
In the interests of full disclosure I should say that Claire Daniels is my close friend, Jaqueline Girdner. But, her New Age mystery about a murder at an intensive workshop for healers might possibly have amused Thomas Hanna--who seems to have a been a prototype for the kind of healing Jaki is writing about. Although maybe you have to be a mystery fiend to realize that throwing a murder in spices up the healing so very much! Jaki/Claire's books always make me laugh out loud, which makes them a treat to read.

Bride of the Fat White Vampire, Andrew Fox
Another one of the many flavors of vampire--set in New Orleans, but much richer fare (and funnier) than Anne Rice. This sequel was even more fun for me than Fox's first--Fat White Vampire Blues. I've reviewed these on my website if you want more info, and I put a link to his web page. He's got a lot of improvisation on old horror movie themes in this book, and if I knew more about comic book horror, I'm sure I would have been able to see stuff from them also.

Reading material-wise, I notice that I seem to be getting more frivolous as the years go on. This works for me. Although I've always had a strong frivolous streak, I'm just getting more and more confident about letting it out to play.