Wordsmith | Artist | Healer | Teacher | Wannabe Rockstar |
Steven Farmer
Dr. Steven Farmer is a licensed psychotherapist, shamanic practitioner, and author of several best-selling books and oracle cards, including Animal Spirit Guides, Pocket Guide to Spirit Animals, Healing Ancestral Karma, Earth Magic, Earth Magic Oracle Cards, and Children’s Spirit Animal Cards. Dr. Farmer offers individual and couple’s consultations in person or remotely by Zoom. He draws from a wealth of training and experience as a psychotherapist, shamanic healer, and trauma recovery specialist. He offers a popular Private Mentoring program and serves on the board of the Society of Shamanic Practice. For more information visit his website at www.DrStevenFarmer.com
and Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Steven-Farmer/93018852583
My 10 Best
(In no particular order)
Way of the Peaceful Warrior
This was groundbreaking for me. I was in the earlier stages of a spiritual awakening and this book found its way into my hands. I was at the “seeking” stage of the awakening process, had very little introduction to alternative approaches to spirituality. I was fresh, a great story, and some parables that struck home.
The Alchemist
I’ve read this book three times over the years and enjoyed it each time. A hero’s journey, an adventure into the wilderness of the desert. There is so much to this story and the subtext of teachings that it is a must-read for anyone on the spiritual path, because in one sense, that is a hero’s journey.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
A fascinating history of how we evolved from the earliest apes to the present-day Homo Sapiens. Harari traces the beginnings in Africa and how Sapiens conquered and even cross-bred with other types of humans to eventually be the dominant member of the species and populate the entire planet.
The Four Agreements
I like this book for its profound simplicity. Drawing from his Toltec lineage Don Miguel has offered four easy to remember guidelines for the art of living. It’s very popular and offers much needed wisdom for navigating the complexities of life.
Braiding Sweetgrass
This is a book everyone should read, one for the challenging era we are going through at this time. Like sweetgrass, she weaves tales of both grief and hope. Grief at the losses of native plant and animal species, and hope that this can be corrected with a mixture of scientific knowledge and, as the title indicates, indigenous wisdom and plant teachings. Well-written and fascinating reading.
Waking the Tiger
This is a seminal book on how trauma lives in the body first and foremost, and a different way to approach the healing of that trauma that offers ways to release the frozen “energy” that remains stored in the body using the theory and practice of Somatic Experiencing©. It was a refreshing and extremely useful approach to working with clients with PTSD and I found that it was very compatible with other approaches that I trained in.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
I realize this is an odd one to include here. However, I was 13 years old when I read its 1000+ pages and was shocked at the historical recount of the Third Reich. I was raised in Iowa and although my family was certainly dysfunctional, I wasn’t exposed to any catastrophic events. The horrors that were described were so extreme that I had no idea that humans could treat each other that way and I began to understand to some extent this darker side of humanity. The birthplace of my cynical side!
How to Change Your Mind
There is increasing interest in how psychedelics can be used responsibly for healing and for spiritual revelation. For instance, there has been some evidence that some of these mind-altering substances can help heal PTSD. Pollan not only cites his research on the subject but as he has done in his other books on different subjects, goes through an experience of what he writes about. He ingests some psilocybin, the active substance of magic mushrooms, and describes in detail what the experience was like and how it affected him.
The Way of the Shaman
The advent of this book foretold my entry into a shamanic path in the early 90’s. I didn’t know much at all about shamanism and it opened my eyes to a totally different way to approach healing. I had a very active psychotherapy practice and in retrospect was guided to this book, then an initial course with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, following which I took as many trainings in a variety of shamanic approaches. This eventually led me to put my therapy practice on hold and dive headfirst into shamanic healing. I’d published some books as a therapist, but this led me to publishing several works related to shamanic realities.
The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Like The Alchemist, this is a book I’ve read through more than once. Narby carefully investigates how bountiful the image of snakes is in a variety of cultures, indigenous and contemporary, such as the symbols of the AMA. He attributes this to how pre-historic shamans were given visions of serpents, singular and intertwined, and proposes through his research that these shamans were perceiving the double helix of DNA yet the only reference they had in the physical world was snakes. Fascinating and made complete sense to me in my shamanic awakening.