My top books of 2022
I love reading. I didn't always feel this way. In school it was forced, anything that is forced I don't align with. I didn't absorb any of the wisdom of the books then but now, when I have discernment and freedom of choice, I love getting into a good book. As a diverse business owner who is also a Mum, Wife and home maker, I don't have a heap of time to invest in quiet days with nothing to do but read. I have a weird habit of reading 3 or 4 books at once:
I have an audio book (for the school runs back and forth -- about 25 minutes each way).
I have a car book; this lives in my carry basket so when I am waiting for an appointment or at a cafe, this is the book I read
I have a toilet book
I have a bedtime ebook
Strangely, reading books these ways I have found some parallels of learnings. Each book is entirely different yet I can connect the dots and really absorb the wisdom. I love to read mostly non-fiction but one of my favorite book series of all time is fiction (with so much research and wisdom it is almost non-fiction!)
When I look back on 2022 and where I was in January (physically, mentally, spiritually) I cannot believe the trajectory of growth from then until now. I feel like I have jumped into some space-time wormhole. The years 2020 and 2021 seem like distant memories and this year (2022) had so many dense experiences clumped into 10 months. Its unreal. Anyone else notice this?
As many low moments and dense moments we have experienced collectively, there has been an incredible amount of growth and awareness gained. That is exciting!
My main Yin time practices are good books to pour over, art practice, cooking nourishing meals, spending time in nature and listening to music that suits my vibe in each moment. A good book is everything. I read them like textbooks, underlining and making notes in pencil (a bit frustrating when you are listening to an audiobook and want to highlight someone or make a note!)
So, without further ado, here are my top reads of 2022
Book 1: Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
You may be familiar with Liz from reading "Eat Pray Love" quite a few years ago now. This book landed in my awareness by chance. I had watched a few Brene Brown videos around this time, revisiting shame, and then this Big Magic landed with me. It was perfect timing and I have learned to trust the timing of all awareness - I don't question this anymore, I just follow the breadcrumbs.
What I appreciated about this book
It is a boldly inspiring book for anyone pursuing a creative life. I really dug deep within this wisdom to unshed limiting beliefs that society has indoctrinated us that you cannot live a successful life as a creative. I say hogwash.
If you are a creative, or want to answer the call of intuition to start creating, I highly recommend this book. Authors, poets, musicians, artists, creators, designers, tinkerers, hobbyists - whatever your flavour, this book is for you.
I also loved a notion she shared about idea's having consciousness. This was a big a ha moment for me because I was experiencing a dense challenge of someone using my idea. This got me out of scarcity and contraction and back into love and expansion. There are plenty of pieces to the pie and no one can do it quite like me (or you), so take the idea and run with it in your unique expression if you see something you'd like to try.
I listened to this book as a audiobook and I would like to get this book as a paperback so I can re read it and make notes - there are some beautiful anecdotes and quotes that she shares that spoke to me so clearly.
Book 2: Discover Your Dharma, Sahara Rose
I listened to this as an audiobook - I would actually recommend reading this on paperback as she has some exercises to do and would require note taking. I still got a lot out of this book.
This is a second awareness of Ayurveda (another breadcrumb) and it led me to purchase her Ayurveda book (another recommended book but I won't include it on here as it is a cookbook mostly and introduction to Ayurveda through the lens of a millennial and easy to understand). I also love her podcast, there are some incredible subjects and guests she hosts, so start there if you aren't sure about investing in her book.
What I appreciated about this book
I loved the reminded about deconditioning our minds - big magic (book 1) was a good place to start but this really sealed the deal and provided tools and resources to action. Once you start deconditioning your mind you will be mind-blown at how deep it goes (I am still doing this process). And once you have kids - watch your words and actions, are they conditioned or projections or are you speaking from integrity?
I loved the archetype and I resonated with many of them, it helped me understand my identity a little more and why I am the way I am. The biggest appreciation is the Dharma Circle. This is how the Aligned Feminine was born. I dreamed of creating a community of aligned feminine's who could support each other, share knowledge and brainstorm while celebrating success stories, be there for bad weather season's and opportunities for collaboration. This chapter was really inspired action!
Book 3: Untamed, Glennon Doyle
This book came into my awareness from a recommended read on Audible. I looked it up as an ebook instead as I was feeling the need to start writing notes in books and the last two were audiobooks.
This is not something I would normally read, it looked a bit too much like a self-help woman power book but it was actually really inspiring. I had some more work to do around people pleasing and this was a huge lesson to decondition. As a woman, we are indoctrined from a very young age (in the womb even) to be people pleasers. It actually made me really angry when I realized how deep it went. This is part of the voice behind The Aligned Feminine. If you are a Woman Business Owner you would have felt isolated by friends or families or other women who don't own their own business, at some point. It isn't their fault that they don't show support (do we even need their support? no, actually - it is just validation we are seeking because that is part of the systemic indoctrination of what it 'means' to be a woman and the system runs deep). This is one reason why I have started this collective gathering of women entrepreneurs, because many voices are louder than one voice and we grow together.
What I appreciated about this book
I stopped fearing about not being 'good' and instead just be. In each moment, I gave myself permission this year to do what I want, when I want and how I want. Communication with my husband has never been better, a role model for my daughter I am, and for my community. This change is only going to grow as each ripple of awareness integration increases and how awesome is that! I also appreciated her chapter on racism. It made me realize that I am in fact racist, because I am part of a systemic indoctrination of privilege. Most of you reading this will also be racist in some capacity - gently treading here as it is a difficult admission but necessary for growth.
She was really real with her own awareness of this and is uncovering some pretty nasty truths and making waves of change in her community. This has activated me in wanting to decondition my own mind on my systemic indoctrination on racism and take inspired action each day. It is a slow process and I will make mistakes along the way but I am keen to contribute to changing the status quo and being an ally where its needed.
Book 4: The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children) Series, Jean M. Auel
I was first introduced to this book many years ago by my grandmother. I think I was a child. I don't remember reading it until I was a teen though. I think this was her sex ed lesson for me -hahaha. Among other lessons because there is so much beautiful wisdom in these books. The subject of sex was of course very uncomfortable for someone born in her generation so this was her way of showing me the way. There are 6-7 books in total I think, and I read all 7 of them as an ebook this year. These are books you can't put down. I didn't really enjoy the last book, it was repetitive and felt rushed in other parts but the whole story is amazing and she did a phenomenal amount of field research when writing these books. You can almost think they were non-fiction.
What I appreciated about these books
The book is based approximately 30,000 years ago, so for starters, that is pretty intriguing. The dawn of evolution between Neanderthal and Homo Sapien and the main character was spent time with both. She becomes a healer who is very skilled with herbs and there is a lot of notes about herbalism that I loved.
It is a beautiful love story with some heartache, new tribes of people and cultures to learn about, the author paints a beautiful story of a passage through time. The main character is unapologetically herself, even in the face of 'should do, shouldn't do' culture. It inspires you to be your unique weirdo too.
Book 5: Women who run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
I came across this book in a beautiful little bookshop in Paddington (A suburb of Brisbane).
The Author explores intercultural myths, fairytales and stories, many from her own family, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Again, it revisits a common theme of deconditioning your mind in many areas. There is so much wisdom in oral history.
What I appreciated about this book:
It allowed me to look into my own beliefs as well as societies. I had a really good look at how I was raised as a child and how I am raising my own. It inspired change and I have changed the way I parent. I read this book like a textbook - so many notes so I can revisit some time later with new understandings.
Some of my favorite quotes from this book.
“When we assert intuition, we are therefore like the starry night; we gaze at the world through a thousand eyes.”“Each Woman has potential to arrive at the world-between-worlds. She does this through deep meditation, dance, writing, painting, prayermaking, singing, drumming, active imagination, or any activity which requires an intese altered consciousness. A woman arrives in this world-between-worlds through yearning and by seeking something she can see just out of the corner of her eye. She arrives by deeply creative acts, through intentional solitude, and by practice of any of the arts.
“Sometimes a woman is afraid to be without security or without certainty, for even a short time. She has more excuses than dogs have hairs. She must just simply dive in and stand not knowing what will happen next. It is the only thing which will retrieve her intuitive nature.”
“There is no greater blessing a mother can give her daughter than a reliable sense of the ceracity of her own intuition. Intuition is handed from parent to child in the simplest ways: ‘You have good judgement.’ ‘What do you think lies hidden behind all this?’”
“Failure is a greater teacher than success”.
“The doors to the world of the wild are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.”
“Though her soul requires seeing, the culture around her requires sightlessness. Though her soul wishes to speak its truth, she is pressured to be silent.”
“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories from your life--not someone else’s life--water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is the work. The only work.”
“There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision - possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life - and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they’ve “had it” and “the last straw has broken the camel’s back” and they’re “pissed off and pooped out.” Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises.”
“It is worse to stay where one does not belong at all than to wander about lost for a while and looking for the psychic and soulful kinship one requires”
“Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.”
Book 6: Plant Intelligence and The Imaginary Realms:
Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth , By: Stephen Harrod Buhner
I found this book in a little shop called Happy Herb Co. in West End. They have a wonderful curated book section with herbalism, shamanism, seasonal rhythms and all kinds of earth magic.
This book is my car book, I can only read 3-4 pages at once because it is a lot of sciency information at one time but each new chapter or section is mind-blowing. This is an ongoing read - I will likely take 2 years to read it in its entirety but each time I open up the next page it is perfectly timed for me to ‘hear’ the wisdom.
What I appreciated about this book:
I saw many parallels in this book with the pandemic and the control of the governments, media and society judgements. I loved learning about perception gating and the effect it has on censorship and psychology, and how you can train it to be more open, simply by being in nature. Something I felt and understood unconsciously so it was great to be demonstrated through a scientific explanation. We can find more meaning to living things by understanding metaphysical science, the interconnection of all living things on this planet. The continued focus on interpreting meaning on just shape or material, we reduce the capacity to find meaning - at all. The reductionist and mechanistic viewpoints of scholars and our education system is so outdated and people are starting to wake up to this thankfully.
This is why taxonomists know so very little about plants and why physicians are so often terrible doctors. To fully understand, we need to feel. This is metaphysical understanding. A holistic approach.
Book 7: The Beauty Load, Nicole Mathieson
I came across this book by fate. I was in a Kundalini Yoga Class and there was just one other woman. It was Nicole. She was having a book launch that weekend and of course this was a loud and clear breadcrumb of fate so I booked in and it was such a wonderful book launch. Supported by friends, family and new fans (myself included!). With my fair share of dense beauty load in my life, this book was a very good read. Even though I have curtailed most of the beauty conditioning, you are never truly free of it.
Reading this equipped me to be a role model parent to my young daughter and I will revisit it, like a textbook, in future.
What I appreciated about this book:
Everything that Nicole writes about is a near copy and paste of my experience, e as I was bullied quite badly for my physical appearance by boys and girls alike in mid-primary school.
I like how she provides prompts for journaling and reflection at nearly every chapter.
I love how she identifies the timeline of what is considered beautiful and how it has changed drastically -- and contradictory -- throughout our history within the last 400 years.
I appreciated the notes on the differences of how men and women expectations were treated culturally throughout history and it really hits home at why women have many struggles -not to say that men don’t have all or similar, but as a women I can resonate with her words and I believe it is important to call it for what it is and not dodge those subjects and hope they go away, because they won’t. We have to heal and reintegrate first as ourselves and then as a society.
And within the next few pages she demonstrates how the Beauty load is not just a gender issue.
The chapter about the shame shitstorm. Resonate!
The chapter section on feeling - how she forgot to feel. I felt this too, it wasn’t until I did some deep spiritual work with a healer that I was able to release and feel, and then see another holistic practitioner to heal and integrate. I discovered I had a lot of rage within me and it was manifesting as emotional and physical symptoms. Incredible!
I love the quotes from her network on what woman believe makes them beautiful - it isn’t skin deep and it embodies their inner light.
Book 8: Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimerer
My sister-in-law suggested this book to me. When I looked it up and saw it was woven with Indigenous Wisdom, Science and plant wisdom - it was bumped up on my must read list.
I read this book as an ebook - I can still utilize it like a textbook as I highlighted and book marked heaps of pages and passages, however I will buy this as a paperback for my home library.
What I appreciated about this book:
I loved the way she weave's storytelling of her family life and the origins of her Indigenous wisdom, and how she became indoctrinated by western science and then come full circle to say that Western science has a place in society, however she dreams of a world guided by a lens of stories rooted in the revelations of science and framed with an indigenous worldview -- stories in which matter and spirit are both given voice. And I agree wholeheartedly. If both systems speak to each other, we can heal generations, our planet and our psyches.
I love the wisdom of practicing gratitude for everything we receive; lessons, food, plant medicine. It is such a simple reciprocity practice to give thanks to our Earth Mother, yet so many of us don't, because we are on auto-pilot programming or simply don't care.
I loved learning about the Haudenosaunee thanksgiving address. Such beautiful wisdom.
I loved learning about the era's of life with the metaphors of Fire from the Anishinaabe people, referring to the places they lived and the events and the teachings surrounding them with their ancient oral histories. They speak of the seventh fire prophecy of which we are in now in our current timeline, a fork in the road or a crossroads is happening and we need to set it up correctly so our children and our children's children can be bearers of the eighth and final fire.
I love how she identifies us as Humans as having a unique gift as a species and that we DO have a responsibility to sustain this earth. We can do this through language. Language is our gift and our responsibility and her words are just part of the weave.
I loved her explanation of Windigo mentality and the stories her people have with Windigo scarcity/ hungry / greed season and the parallels she draws with our current societal climate of corporate and government greed. The solution isn't clear but it starts with gratitude. Mother Earth gives so freely and we have taken advantage of this; all she asks is that we are grateful and that we are stewards of the land for sustainability. Gratitude is the seed of abundance. Dance with the abundance all around us and we all start to heal collectively, in turn healing our planet.
Collectively, we are awakening to a wider ecological consciousness, with this awareness comes responsibility which requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.
So many chapters, words and passages that she writes that speak so clearly to me, I highly recommend this book if you love earth, science and wisdom.
Book 9: Carlos Castaneda | Journey to ixltan
This book found me. I was just coming home from a camping trip and we stopped at a little coffee van perched upon a hill in the mountains and there was this non-descript vintage book, complete with linen book covering and had that distinct old book smell. It was the only book there so I flipped it open as I LOVE old books. I read the titles of each chapter and knew I had to read it. I sat down and eagerly read the first chapter while my husband drank his coffee.
The barista said that his Aunty gave that to him and told him it is a must read for life.
I quickly purchased an ebook as I couldn’t wait for delivery of the hard copy.
I believe if I found this book, say, 1 year ago, it wouldn’t have made sense or spoken to me like it did. It is certainly spiritual, alternative and with indigenous wisdom roots.
UPDATE: OCTOBER 2024
I “found” another book this year, this one titled “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. This time at an Air Bnb on Isle of Skye, Scotland.
It is written by one of Carlos Castaneda’s concubines /wives and tells a tale about the man behind the Don Juan spiritual movement of the 60’s and 70’s. The two men are elusive and quite toxic in their dogmatic approach to new age spirituality and have come under the microscope for critics - nothing new when something goes against the grain of accepted cultural status quos to be sure. But it is a good equilibrium read to counter any big shifts of perception, not everything we read is true, there is always two sides (or more) to a story or experience.
”Despite the general impression that he (Castaneda) discovered a whole range of practices previously unkown in the West….there is no technique in his books that was not already documented…..It was Castaneda’s poetic insider’s account was unique”. (And created the thousands of devote followers to his way of thinking).”
I will share the chapter titles as notes for this one and perhaps that may be enough for you to see if it resonates. Some parts scared me and were so deeply into the spirit or ‘other’ world that it affected me and my perception of what is real. Perhaps it is fiction but I do believe there are things we don’t yet understand, or can see or perceive. And even if we do see or perceive, our minds will convince us otherwise.
Chapter titles:
1. Reaffirmations from the World Around Us
2. Erasing Personal History
3. Losing Self-Importance
4. Death is an Adviser
5. Assuming Responsibility
6. Becoming a Hunter
7. Being Inaccessible
8. Disrupting the Routines of Life
9. The Last Battle on Earth
10. Becoming Accessible to Power
11. The mood of a Warror
12. A Battle of Power
13. A Warrior’s Last Stand
14. The Gait of Power (scary chapter for me!)
15. Not-Doing
16. The Ring of Power
17. A Worthy Opponent
18. The Socerer’s Ring of Power
19. Stopping the World
20. Journey to Ixtlan