Influences
A constantly-evolving and ever-growing list of my inspirations, influences, and soul-filled recommendations. I dare you to make such a list of your own. It’s an interesting exercise in self-awareness, self-definition, branding, support, and LOVE.
Places with People
Southwest Retreat: San Geronimo Lodge in Taos, New Mexico. Owned by my friends Pam and Charles Montgomery since 2007, and gorgeously restored and upgraded since then, this sacred space realigns your breath, reconnects you with the earth and the infinite, and helps you tap into deep wells within you that can get obscured in everyday life.
Northwest Retreat: Doe Bay Resort and Retreat on Orcas Island, Washington. Purchased by Joe & Maureen Brotherton in 2002 and lovingly restored in the years since, this resort maintains its status as a Northwest icon where ethical treatment of people and earth is braided together with fine food, breathtaking scenery, and peaceful atmosphere.
SoCal Yoga: Yoga Grounds in Tujunga, California. Owned by my friends Vera and Evae Silva, Yoga Grounds is full of love, humor, and yoga and totally lacking in pretension. A great place for beginners to find their yoga groove — and longtime yogis to sink into a blissful corpse pose at the end of the day.
SoCal Haircut: A Wild Hair in La Crescenta, California. Owned by friend and one-woman dynamo Michele Allmon, painted purple with zebra stripes, cut with love, inspiration, humor, and life lessons, this is the only place to go for hair if you’re in the L.A. Foothills.
Soul in the World: Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California (motto: For the purpose of tending soul in the world). This is where I got my Master’s in Counseling Psychology and met scores of people of both brilliance and depth — people such as Dennis Patrick Slattery, Steve Aizenstat, and Richard Tarnas. It’s a place of depth, reflection, and profound inquiry into the nature of Psyche in the individual, in the collective, and in nature herself.
World Views
Depth Psychology: Best accessed through the public and degree programs at Pacifica Graduate Institute, as well as through the writings of luminaries like Carl G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, James Hillman, Marion Woodman, and others, the depth perspective blends psychology with mythology, literature, religion, spirituality, art, dreamwork, and deep self-reflection to illuminate and integrate our darkest shadows.
Astrological Psychology (aka Huber Astrology): Best accessed at Astrological Psychology Institute (UK). Developed by Bruno and Louise Huber, this holistic, visual, integrated view of astrology takes the practice way beyond piecemeal interpretations and into the realm of the best of depth psychology.
Nonfiction
Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg
Care of the Soul and The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life by Thomas Moore
Collected Works by Carl G. Jung
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Unreliable Truth by Maureen Murdock
Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life by D. Stephenson Bond
Other Media
The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte
