Contributors - November/December 2018

Kevin Anderson PhD is a psychologist, a marriage therapist, and a lover of language who has developed a way of playfully writing out for oneself life’s sticking points with a form of poetry called “nested meditations.” A longtime contributor to S&H, he has some wonderful new meditations—including “I Want to Leave the World Awake”—for our 20th Anniversary. He also has a new book, Now Is Where God Lives: A Year of Nested Meditations to Delight the Mind and Awaken the Soul.

Julia Cameron is a longtime contributor we had to reprint for this keepsake issue. Cameron is an artist, playwright, filmmaker, and author of more than 40 books, including The Artist’s Way. Her classic practice—Morning Pages—is still one of the best ways to wake up and connect with your deepest, highest, and most ethereal self. But even the great practice of Morning Pages won’t free your artistic soul if you don’t first update your creativity god. 

Deborah Gordon MD is a competitive rower and Paleo aficionado who practices integrative medicine in Ashland, Oregon, and has been helping us with healthy aging for many years. Right now, she is wrestling with the huge problem of dementia—the fact that so many people still think nothing can be done to reverse the decline, especially in its early stages. She notes that a constant thread of many forms of dementia is insulin resistance, which can be helped. Learn “How to Get Your Brain Back.” 

Alena Hennessy is our featured artist, who describes herself as “a lover of fluid color, botanical detail, and heartfelt expression.” She’s a Reiki Master and flower essence practitioner who believes “we are here to know ourselves as intimately as possible, for that is how we show up for our own care and thus others’, which the world so desperately needs at this time.” And she is also a teacher who has been opening people to their artistic gifts for over 17 years, both in her studio and around the world.

Erik Sean Larson is an existential psychotherapist and conscious leadership expert who lives in Northern Michigan on a 40-acre farm. There he created the Hero Quest model to distill and teach the wisdom he has gained from the heroic journeys shared in his years of practice. For our 20th Anniversary, the staff of S&H chose to go through his workshop, and then worked with Erik to adapt the quest for the magazine. We think you’ll enjoy and value taking the journey. 

Hal Robinson uses and teaches The Medicine Way that is aboriginal from the Americas. He has a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling and is a certified Gestalt psychotherapist. He is also an ordained minister in the Circle of the Sacred Earth Church and a Sun Dancer whose last teacher “in the physical” was Germaine Sitting Crow. He works in partnership with a holistic family physician at the Healing Arts Center in Kerrville, Texas. Learn the ancient practice of “stalking your own mind.”