Ferndale Public Library Staff Recommends: Kathleen's Healthy, Healing Picks

This story was written by Jeff Milo and Kathleen Hellenberg.

Checking back in from the Circulation Desk at the Ferndale Public Library: We’ve got a round of rich, refreshing recommendations for you. Maybe you’re hitting a lull in your summer reading? Looking for something completely different to soundtrack the rest of your summer? Maybe your late summer camping trip could be made that much more sublime with sounds from the other side of the world?

Thankfully, then, it’s library page Kathleen Hellenberg’s turn to provide this week’s staff picks. I always look forward to what she’s been reading and what she has to say about her current cultural engagements. She always has the most eclectic, wide-ranging, thoughtful suggestions. From cook books to cute laughs to insightful, conversation-stoking subjects, Kathleen’s got you covered.

Kathleen’s Picks

Gluten sensitivity can affect several different systems and create symptoms in numerous parts of the body, causing skin problems, neurological disorders, autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, anemia, chronic infection and asthma, as well as digestive problems and disorders. Just flipping through this book, I found every single health problem a friend of mine has ever suffered. The author is a clinical nutritionist, and has found that as many as 85 percent of her clients who follow gluten-free diets report often dramatic improvement in their health. For more information, see her website, www.drshapiro.net.

DVD-COMEDY
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

What a delightful, touching movie. The group of folks who travel to India to retire at the hotel expect things to be much different than what they find when they arrive. They have no choice but to make the best of their personal and collective situations, and learn that if you can open to it, life will provide opportunities to learn and grow and even love! 

This book gives a wonderful, simple way to help you help yourself feel better. Working with body parts, feelings and colors, one can relax and open to clearing out the energy holding the ailment in place and release it, as well as replacing it with the energy that will support health. For more information, see her website, www.InnaSegal.com.

In a comment about Kodo's concerts I read online, someone wrote, “Anyone with a heartbeat will love this show.” Indeed, Kodo means “heartbeat” and also “children of the drum.” The troupe plays a wide variety of percussion instruments, ranging from hand-held cymbals to the 800 pound o-daiko. In this performance, they also used what sounds to me like wooden and metal flutes, a rain stick and a thumb piano. They used their voices to sing a call and response song, and to call and shout in songs that one can imagine might represent a sword fight. 

Kodo's music is both meditative and energizing, making one listener say he felt peaceful and focused. The members of the troupe learn through an intense apprenticeship program so they can play “with the heart of a child.” Greenvilleonline.com arts writer Paul Hyde quotes Kodo's artistic director Tamasaburo Bando: “Drumming is simultaneously the drummer's prayer and a comfort to the audience. Kodo seeks to create a primal, even spiritual atmosphere in concert.” If you ever have a chance to attend one of their concerts, you are in for a very special experience.

You might guess that PTSD only occurs after a major trauma, but the same amount of damage can result from a series of small traumas over a long period of time. What one needs to begin to heal PTSD is an inviting, warm, soothing helper to lessen stress, which this author's tone provides.

The most significant and important thing I learned from this book is that family members living with those who suffer from untreated PTSD become secondary victims of the initial trauma, and can, unfortunately, also become a primary victim if the PTSD sufferer acts out and does something that harms the family member. Either or both can cause the family member to also suffer from PTSD.

The good news is that, with the right kind of help and the right helper, the symptoms of PTSD will decrease. Several pages of resources for help of this kind are listed at the end of this very informative and helpful book.