On Our Bookshelf: Springtime Stories for Growing Minds and Expanding Souls

Professor of psychology Dacher Keltner, a scientific consultant on Pixar’s Inside Out and Inside Out 2, will be here this summer to lead Emotional Wisdom: Inside Out and guide us through the latest science and practice of emotional well-being. With Awe, he tackled one of our very favorite (and most understudied) emotions, and, in doing so, discovered the secrets to creating a good life. “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world,” Keltner notes in the opening chapter. Though this is a rigorous and grand investigation containing science, philosophy, and history, traveling across continents and involving multiple religions, the profound and extraordinary/ordinary personal stories will also captivate. (The author decided to rediscover awe after witnessing his younger brother pass after a two-year battle with colon cancer. “I felt small, quiet, humble, pure. The boundaries that separated me from the outside world faded,” he writes.) A mind, soul, and heart-expanding comprehensive description of an elusive, enriching feeling.

“A woman who has touched thousands of bodies with her one-of-a-kind Esalen massage.” That is how educator (and upcoming workshop leader) Jasmine Star Horan describes her mother, Peggy. “There is nothing quite like my mama’s touch,” says Jasmine, and we couldn’t agree more. With this book, the longtime Esalen Massage practitioner brings decades of experience to the page so readers can create a deep and meaningful connection with their partners’ bodies. Horan shares the time-honored massage traditions originated here on campus — which she has been developing and working with since she first arrived in the late ’60s. “We were exploring touch, exploring that it's okay to be touched. It's okay to have a body. This was a pretty new concept after the ’50s,” says Peggy. “We were divorced from the body: The body was a dead end. But sensory awareness and the movement and massage brought a sense of embodiment.” Discover the power of intimate touch from the beloved legacy teacher who has studied, practiced, and taught somatic practices here for over fifty years.

A first-of-its-kind anthology that collects essays on and interviews with women who have pioneered psychedelic research, therapy, advocacy, and spiritual leadership. “Psychedelics are enjoying a rebirth in the 21st century as people recognize the capacity to change the way we think. In this book we encourage readers to also adjust our thinking on the place of women in this psychedelic past as we chart a psychedelic future.” (One of the book’s editors, Dr. Glauber Loures de Assis, will be on campus in May to share some wisdom as he leads Hapé: The Ancestral Medicine of Sacred Snuff.) This collection is a deep journey into shamanism and ayahuasca that celebrates some of the field’s forgotten female figures.

Writer Anne Lamott calls this a “gorgeous, transformative, welcoming book for anyone who wants to feel more present, more alive, more joyful and aware of the holiness of daily life,” and this very much sums it up. Mirabai Starr (who will lead a workshop on the same theme this summer) offers readers tools to reclaim their roots and experience the divine outside of traditional places of worship: “Your everyday life as the place where we meet that great mystery.” The author, internationally acclaimed speaker, and interspiritual teacher captivates readers with her unique and accessible storytelling style along with practices and writing prompts to help discover holiness in daily moments. “Welcome to the temple of your everyday life, she writes. “Your life is holy ground and you are a mystic.”

Baraz, a Buddhist scholar and a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, has been teaching mindfulness and meditation since 1978, and he brought all the wisdom of those years to this step-by-step guide with time-tested practices that “train the mind to learn new ways of thinking.” Readers will discover tools to make happiness a habit and find joy (even during difficult times). Quoting the Buddha, Baraz writes, “Whatever the practitioner frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of the mind.” (A notion very much validated by today’s scientific research.) This June, Baraz will draw on timeless Buddhist principles and modern neuroscience to lead Awakening the Heart. “We’ll discover ways to love ourselves and extend that love into our relationships so that we can truly delight in the joy of others,” he writes. Those with children in their lives can also check out Baraz’s follow-up, Awakening Joy for Kids: A Hands-On Guide for Grown-Ups to Nourish Themselves and Raise Mindful, Happy Children, which he created with the help of a classroom teacher. Because it’s never too early to embrace happiness (or too late)!