Celebrate Chinese New Year – Update

Click on book ordering.   You can pay via pay pal, or with a credit card.  Or if you prefer you can send a check or money order to Ama Press, 1977 Lendee Drive, Escondido, CA 92025.

In December I shared the art of mandala making with residents at the Escondido,CA Interfaith Community winter shelter residents, as well as with some residents of the veteran housing.  As always, I was delighted to watch the mandalas in the making, and amazed at the results.  My students included a blind veteran who could see shadows and although he was not able to work in the detail he wanted, he enjoyed the process and relating to the other students.  One student created a vibrant and intricate mandala, and it turned out he was hoping to get training as a graphic designer.  A large man on my right got to work immediately with a compass and protractor and we learned he was heading out soon to motorcycle mechanic training.  When I asked the residents of the winter shelter how they liked the mandala trees we painted on the walls the month before, one woman said quietly, “I like my mandala by my bed.  It helps me feel centered.”  As someone who lost my home and was perilously close to not having any home, I relate.  Mandala making has helped me stay centered.

February 1st was the first day of artists in schools as part of the Escondido Art Alliance pilot program to help pave the way for getting art back in schools!  I had two 2nd grade classes during which we discussed what mandalas are, where we see them, what centering is, how we can get centered with some yoga breathing and spinning movements, and then went to work.  There was a large  variety; some were spirals, pies, clocks, flowers, all starting small and then filling the page.  Next class will consist of spreading out a large canvas on the floor, and incorporating each child’s mandala onto a larger sphere.  This will then be the floor pattern or map for some of the classes to perform on in April.  Other classes will keep the canvas to hang as a tapestry.  I was struck by one child who asked if she could take home a blank piece of paper.  Of course we said yes, and it seemed to make her day.  I wonder why, in what I imagine to be one of the wealthiest places in the world, a single piece of paper to draw on is a scarcity.

Escondido Arts Partnership Mandala Tree murals at Interfaith Community Services winter shelter open house

Circles of Healing available on Amazon!

You can order Circles of Healing on Amazon now, for $24.95, for your friends, family, students, clients, customers, staff, co-workers, or yourself

(Or, if you prefer, you can order at this site when you click on book orders and pay via paypal, etc.)

http://www.amazon.com/Circles-Healing-Complete-Guide-Massage/dp/1480259004/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1355887832&sr=8-1&keywords=Circles+of+Healing%2C+Gwen+hammarstrom#reader_1480259004

A timely and comprehensive guide for taking care of ourselves, each other and our world

Escondido Arts Partnership artists paint mural of mandala tree at Winter Shelter

Welcome to Circles of Healing

     

                                        

Circles of Healing 

The Complete Guide to Healing

With Massage & Yoga

For Caregivers, Practitioners, Students & Clients

Gwen Wendy Hammarstrom, BFA, LMT

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Welcome to my book’s new blog/website.  This book has been a work in process and a labor of love for over eight years.  It will continue to be that for the rest of its life!    I look forward to sharing what I am learning along the way, with this book as my guide.

 Click on Book Order page to receive a pre-order discount through December 15, 2012.

500 PHOTOS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

A must read for every bodywork and yoga practitioner, teacher and student; as well as for therapists, medical professionals, veteran advocates, hospice workers, first responders and the vast numbers of us who are caregivers by profession, or within our families.

•  Learn how to care for yourself AND expand your work to include students or clients with a variety of health challenges.

• Follow step by step instructions of hands-on techniques and exercises.

• Extensive resources for working with many diverse client population.

• Useful and practical charts and forms for your professional practice or use at home.

• Great tips for professional body workers and caregivers.

• Read author’s experiences, laced with humor and wisdom gained during 15,000+ hours of hands-on client and teaching experience.

        

• Mother & infant massage/movement /healing touch in the NICU
•  Partner stretches & massage
• Animal massage    
• Massage & Restorative Yoga for cancer, stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, Cerebral Palsy, Parkinson’s disease
• Healing touch and self-care for  veterans and first responders, those with brain injuries, trauma, PTSD
•  Flowing and dancing through midlife
•  Massage & Yoga through the years
•  Living & working with elderly
•  Polarity Therapy – a gentle touch
•  Caring for the Dying
• Self-care and movement with the differently-abled

 

Many Circles of Healing

The Circle has healing power. In the Circle, we are all equal.  When in the Circle, no one is in front of you. No one is behind you. No one is above you. No one is below you.  The Sacred Circle is designed to create unity. The Hoop of Life is also a circle. On this hoop there is a place for every species, every race, every tree and every plant.  It is this completeness of Life that must be respected in order to bring about health on this planet.”

~Dave Chief, Oglala Lakota, Sun Dancer and Elder

As the author of a new book and a new blog, I was anxious to google Circles of Healing.  I have not found my wordpress site but did see many others from an assortment of cultures.  Why did I name my book this?  Because I like to create mandalas and because each mandala or circle has a centerpoint, from which all else flows outward.  As individuals we all have inner cores or centers.  As a community we do also.

The Tree of Life on the cover of my book, at the top of this blog, is bearing circular or mandala fruits, each representing a chapter in this book. Mandala is a Sanskrit word for circle or wheel, or beginnings with no ends.  The variations of patterns are endless, but each has a specific center, and concentric rings that emanate from that center.  Some people believe that creating mandalas is “making order out of disorder.”

Focusing on the mandala’s midpoint can bring us to a place of physical and emotional equilibrium, as does using the self-care techniques described in this book, such as conscious breathing, movement, and giving and receiving healing touch.  Psychotherapist Carl Jung thought of making mandalas as an opportunity for processing feelings and events, for self-exploration and for healing. He said that a mandala symbolizes “a safe refuge of inner reconciliation and wholeness,” and believed the mandala is the ultimate symbol of well-being and wholeness.

The circle with a center pattern is the basic structure of nature, from the smallest molecule to the seeming endless Milky Way galaxy. Flowers, rings found in tree trunks, snowflakes, sand dollars, tree fungi, stars and planets surround us, as do the conceptual circles of family, friends and community.

This book encompasses the circle of time as well, beginning with the unborn child in the circle of the womb, and ending with the spirit leaving the body and becoming part of an ever-changing energy.

Mandala making at Kids Fair, Westside Park, Escondido, August 4, 2012

ordering options

1 book$22.50 USD 2-4 books$21.25 USD 5 and over$20.00 USD

I am constantly amazed by the beauty of mandalas made by all ages.

December Update

December 2012 Update

As part of Art Connexions at the Escondido Art Partnership Gallery on Saturday, October 13, on Kalmia and Grand, in Escondido, CA.,  I presented on the art of mandalas as they relate to yoga, bodywork and other forms of healing.  On November 9th, along with artists from the Escondido Arts Partnership Gallery, I painted mandala tree murals on the walls of the Winter Shelter at Interfaith Community Services.

Good news!  Massage Magazine, the premier massage and bodywork magazine in the U.S  highlighted my book in their on-line New Products column in the November issue.

Please tell your friends and co-workers in yoga, bodywork, caregiving or teachers of these professions about my book. I welcome any and all comments or suggestions from my friends and readers.