Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.
Sigmund Freud
Whatever I write . . . it always seems to be a celebration of the
relentless Grace of redemption~ in any form.
All in-print titles shown below can be purchased from http://bearblessings.com/
All in-print titles shown below can be purchased from http://bearblessings.com/
If you do not see the title you want, contact Susan Lind-Kanne on the Bear Blessings Contact page and she will see to it that your request is fulfilled. Books ordered through Bear Blessings will come with an author's inscription on request.
A few of the most popular titles:
A few of the most popular titles:
Books in Chronological Order of Publication
This is a comprehensive overview that includes cover images, excerpts, reviews and sometimes Contents. To see only the book covers and minimal information, simply scroll down and stop when you see a book cover and skip the text in-between. If you know what you're looking for, click Control and F, then type the title into the lower left search box. To buy any title still in print:
To order available books or cassettes with a credit card for your own use or as a gift, or to have a book inscribed, type the title in the Search box and order from
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Generous readers' responses:
"You draw on waters of a well you have dug and filled, with a lifetime
of spiritual reflections and
observations about the cosmos and the human condition within that
cosmos– emerging as truth dressed up in the magnificent language of
poetry. You minister to us with poetic soul-talk of the highest
order. Thank you for finding such a distinctive way to touch and teach
me ~ us ~ in so many remarkable ways with your
extraordinary spirit. Love, blessings, and shalom~"
Rolf Gompertz, author of A Jewish Novel about Jesus, Sparks of Spirit, Abraham the Dreamer
"Your cards and notes and comments come from such a deep and holy place, and my similar place responds like a child waking up." Elizabeth Oakes
B. Michael St. Jacques You truly live the Gospel and Cry it out with your life and your craft. Your writings, all that I’ve read, are like a Living Stream of Living Water that flows deep from within your soul!
Thank you so much!
Ruthanne Bullock: "Alla, thank you for these [poems and writings]. Thank you for watching the world for us~"
To read a comprehensive Interview with Alla about writing
and poetry go to allabozarthinterview.blogspot.com
To view any of Alla's other blogs go to www.blogger.com/profile/07163511991184059081
To view Alla's main blog, Alla Bozarth Words and Images Welcoming Light in the Wilderness, go to allabozarthwordsandimages.blogspot.com
To contact Alla for permission and procedure/protocol information to
reprint or otherwise use her words, or for other reasons pertaining to
her writing, please email her at allabearheart@yahoo.com. Type
“Permission” or "Writings" in the subject line.
Though some books in this bibliography will be shown as "out of print" by the original publisher, some titles can still be ordered from Alla along with all the currently in-print titles through Bear Blessings Soul Cards via the link below.
To order available books or cassettes with a credit card for your own use or as a gift, or to have a book inscribed, type the title in the Search box and order from
http://bearblessings.com/
To request permission and protocol information for reprinting a poem or other excerpt from a book, email Alla Bozarth at: allabearheart@yahoo.com, and type "Permission to Reprint" in the Subject line.
In addition to book titles which can be purchased from Bear Blessings Soul Cards, owner and artist Susan Lind-Kanne has created lovely graphic wall hangings and frameable cards enhanced by her inspired art with selections from Alla's poetry. Her catalog is growing! Enjoy browsing the website: http://bearblessings.com/
We have no copies of the out-of-print-titles, Six Days in St. Petersburg: A Chronicle of Return and Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys, but you may search for them Online. The same is true for copies of the 1978 chapbook collections, Gynergy and In the Name of the Bee & the Bear & the Butterfly under the name of Alla Bozarth-Campbell. These titles may be available Online from various booksellers. A search might prove fruitful. Check here:
www.amazon.com/Alla-Renee-Bozarth/e/B001HPJDCS
To order available books or cassettes with a credit card for your own use or as a gift, or to have a book inscribed, type the title in the Search box and order from
http://bearblessings.com/
To request permission and protocol information for reprinting a poem or other excerpt from a book, email Alla Bozarth at: allabearheart@yahoo.com, and type "Permission to Reprint" in the Subject line.
In addition to book titles which can be purchased from Bear Blessings Soul Cards, owner and artist Susan Lind-Kanne has created lovely graphic wall hangings and frameable cards enhanced by her inspired art with selections from Alla's poetry. Her catalog is growing! Enjoy browsing the website: http://bearblessings.com/
We have no copies of the out-of-print-titles, Six Days in St. Petersburg: A Chronicle of Return and Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys, but you may search for them Online. The same is true for copies of the 1978 chapbook collections, Gynergy and In the Name of the Bee & the Bear & the Butterfly under the name of Alla Bozarth-Campbell. These titles may be available Online from various booksellers. A search might prove fruitful. Check here:
www.amazon.com/Alla-Renee-Bozarth/e/B001HPJDCS
Also try www.betterworldbooks.com, which offers free shipping, and allows you to support their literacy program.
Now scroll down to see the books themselves following the bibliography showing prices.
Now scroll down to see the books themselves following the bibliography showing prices.
Here Online is the bibliography with prices, followed by covers of all the books with excerpts from Contents or Reviews, for which the brochure doesn't have room. Continue to scroll down to see them. Please click on each page of the brochure or any book image below to see it alone, and enlarge it for reading comfort, then click anywhere on the black background or press Esc, the far left key on the top of your keyboard, to return here. Alternatively, to see enlargement simply click Control and the Plus Sign + to your desired reading comfort, and reduce it with Control and the Minus Sign -
If you know what you want, you can go to the order page by typing your selection in the search box of,
https://bearblessings.com which will take you to a page with similarly themed books or cards, then click on the picture of your selection and you'll be shown the actual order page:
If you know what you want, you can go to the order page by typing your selection in the search box of,
https://bearblessings.com which will take you to a page with similarly themed books or cards, then click on the picture of your selection and you'll be shown the actual order page:
To see larger images go to:
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To order using a debit or credit card, go here, and if you know what you want, use the Search box to find your selections:
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My books brochure, December 1, 2019:
Thank you!
________________________________
The Titles in Chronological Order of Publication 1978-2014
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
Poems by Alla Bozarth-Campbell with Drawings by Julia Barkley
Wisdom House Press 1978
Out of print. Search the Internet.
Gynergy
Poems by Alla Bozarth-Campbell
Wisdom House Press 1978
Out of print. Search Internet.
Out of print. Search Internet.
by Alla Bozarth-Campbell
First Edition: Paulist Press 1978
Hardcover. Out of Print.
Search the Internet.
Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey
by Alla Renée Bozarth
Revised Edition: Luramedia 1988
Quote:
Morality in the Christian community flows spontaneously out of a shared perception of Christ’s love. It is a shared attitude of desire for the common good, an attitude of well-wishing toward life so forceful that it shapes the good it intends. Genuine morality is the actualized overflow of the love of Christ into the world; it is an acted yearning for the wholeness and well-being of others. It is, finally, a mutual empowerment toward wholeness in creation.
Morality in the Christian community flows spontaneously out of a shared perception of Christ’s love. It is a shared attitude of desire for the common good, an attitude of well-wishing toward life so forceful that it shapes the good it intends. Genuine morality is the actualized overflow of the love of Christ into the world; it is an acted yearning for the wholeness and well-being of others. It is, finally, a mutual empowerment toward wholeness in creation.
Chapter Headings
Part One: Dancing in the Dawn Light
Call
Parents
Friends
Teachers
Sisters
Wisdom House
Diaconate
Marriage
Priesthood Frustrated
Priesthood Fulfilled
Controversy
Christian Feminism
We are the Church
God is a Verb
Possibility
[the revised edition includes this additional section]
[the revised edition includes this additional section]
Part Two: Dancing Under Burning Stars
This is My Beloved
Phoenix
Coming Home: Jerusalem
Readers' Responses
Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey [First Edition]
Alla Bozarth-Campbell (Alla Renée Bozarth) Alla was one of the first women to be ordained priests in the Episcopal Church. She was one of Philadelphia Eleven: eleven ordained women deacons who were irregularly ordained to be priests as well, in an “underground” service by two retired and one locally resigned diocesan bishops of the church, the canons of which declare “a priest is a priest forever.”The Church national conference, known as the General Convention consisting of laity [and priests, but at that time, not deacons had several times voted to accept women as priests, but either the House of Bishops or the House of Deputies continually blocked the ordinations by very slim minorities. Some of the young male candidates for ordination were “striking,” refusing ordination, until the Church at large allowed women priests.
These eleven women pushed the matter from hypothesis into reality, and forced the Church to deal with it.To be one of these eleven required courage, and faith, but also a sureness of vocation. How Bozarth-Campbell came to have these qualities makes a remarkable biography.
Bozarth-Campbell is a gentle writer: she is neither a braggart, nor cloyingly modest. Her writing suggests that she is soft-spoken, but nonetheless certain of herself. She is also never at a loss for just the right word; altogether, this story is gripping. Even though we know how things turn out, there is suspense; we don't know the details, and I, myself was on the edge of my chair waiting for them.
Anyone interested in women’s spirituality or church history must read this book; people who enjoy biography in general will not be disappointed either. And those who just enjoy good writing should like this book.
Rivcah Maccaby Bloomington, Indiana
Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey [revised edition]
I have been spending time with you as I read Wisdom and Wonderment and Accidental Wisdom. A few days ago I read a news article about the plight of the Catholic nuns who live in the real world as they minister to people who also live and function in today’s world. Yet they are being censured by Bishops who live in their own little make believe world/ivory tower of their own construct and are berating the nuns for their lack of obedience and acquiesce to their male domination which they present as “God’s will”. That evening I read your poem The Annunciation which in two pages addresses this issue with precision. “And Christ will live again in every woman’s resurrection.” I marvel at your wisdom. Your books are aptly titled. I can’t begin to imagine what you endured as one of the Philadelphia Eleven . . .
I marvel as I
read your books that you reveal yourself in such a bare-bones fashion.
There are your feelings, your desires, your wishes and your actions, your joys
and your disappointments and your struggles – right there on the page, in
printed words that can’t be taken back or obliterated or recanted if you
have second thoughts about making such revelations about your deepest
self. I am most deeply touched when I read about your marriage.
Your love for Phil, your struggle to remain true to yourself within the
marriage, your courage to move to Oregon, your ability to withstand the wonderings of others about the
choices you made. And finally, as the two of you connect in love and joy within
each of your own comfort zones – poof – he is gone and grief is the
new path to travel. Powerful stuff!
Marlys Collom San Diego, California
Two Responses specifically to the poem, "Passover Remembered" in Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, revised edition 1988.
Dearest Alla, I met you almost twenty
years ago to date. I was a junior in college at Mount St. Mary's in Los
Angeles. Never in my life had I seen a woman who was ordained within the
church. Since then, my feminist consciousness has evolved, so much so
that I am in a doctoral program now at Claremont Graduate University in
the Women Studies in Religion program. I am writing this note because,
along the way, I have kept your poem, "Passover Remembered," close to my
heart. When I am distressed or need to be comforted that the days are
long and the work to be done is too much, I can look at your poem and
find comfort. Along the way as well I have shared it with women, who
like myself, are engaging in the feminist task of hearing ourselves into
speech. For twenty-years, indirectly, you have been a
conversation-prayer partner for me, through this poem. For that, I wish
to thank you today.
Theresa Yugar
Theresa Yugar
Fantastic! This is what we need. Like a pen to write the fireworks, vivid and outstanding.
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
The Word's Body: An Incarnational Aesthetic
of Interpretation by Alla Renée Bozarth
University Press of America 1997,
Impint of Rowman and Littlefield.
Soft cover.
This is a reprint of the original hard cover book
published under the name Alla Bozarth-Campbell
by the University of Alabama Press, 1979.
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
Contents
Introduction: Toward an Incarnational Aesthetic of Interpretation
Metaphor and Interpretation
The Art of Interpretation: Creation, Incarnation, Transformation
In the Beginning Is the Word
Interpretation As the Embodiment of Literature
Hermeneutics and Interpretation
Toward an Erotics of Interpretation
The Word Becomes Flesh
The Word Becomes Flesh
Making/Acting
Logos/Eros
Intersubjectivity/Hypostasis
Theopoiesis/Synergia
Apophatic/Cataphatic
Kenosis/Plerosis
Unconscious/Conscious
Word/Icon
Substitution/Participation
And Dwells Among Us
Transformation
Kairos
Communion
Conclusion: An Incarnational Aesthetic of Interpretation
Creation
Incarnation
Transformation
Notes, Bibliography, Index
Reader's Review
The Word’s Body: An Incarnational Aesthetic of Interpretation
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
Sparrow Songs: A Father-Daughter Anthology Poems by Alla Bozarth-Campbell and René Bozarth Wisdom House Press 1982
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
A few hard cover and soft cover books can be purchased
from Alla at Wisdom House. To order type "Book Order"
in the Subject line and write Alla at~
allabearheart@yahoo.com
Audiocassette only
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
Read more:
Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello:Grieving Well through All Kinds of Loss and
A Journey through Grief by Alla Renée Bozarth
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
Life is Goodbye/Life
is Hello is the larger book covering common and hurtful taboos against
grieving, loss of self-image in grief, losses related to physical death but
also infertility, loss of job, home, friendship, identity, work, a beloved
landscape, divorce, illness and aging and other specific types of loss. A Journey through Grief is a smaller
book meant to help anchor the soul during times of raw grief when concentration
is difficult. It fits into a good-sized pocket or purse to keep handy and open
at random for a moment’s strength and grounding. In print since their
publication in 1982 and 1989, hundreds of
readers have written to tell me about their stories and how invaluable
they have found the books to be over the years, books to keep on the shelf as
First Aid for the next grievous loss and bring down and absorb again and again.
It is often the poetry that speaks most directly to the heart in ways that go
beyond words in their pure expression of the soul’s outcry of longing and love.
One young man used Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello as an anchor for sanity when his mother died 20 years ago, then took it with him for his years working in Europe and recently began reading it again while undergoing the loss of his life partner and his long-time professional identity as he prepared to move back to the United States and reinvent himself in a new career without the cherished companionship he had relied on for so long. This letter from a woman who has used the book similarly over the years came in just a few weeks ago:
“I had bought your book Life is Goodbye Life is Hello in 1989 when my husband was in seminary. At that time, I was still grieving the death of my mother and your book helped tremendously.
“My husband was an Episcopal priest. He had Alzheimer’s for the last 6 years and I took care of him at home until I could no longer do that and he went to a nursing home. Even though he existed in the prison of a body that no longer worked for him, I continued to love him, visit him, and I felt a real heart to heart connection until he died of February of this year.
“I recently rediscovered your book on my bookshelf and re-read it. I cannot begin to tell you how much hope and comfort it gave me, especially when you described your experience of pure grief [when your young husband died suddenly]. You spoke to my soul.
“I hope you get to read my email. I don’t expect a response, but it was important for me to write this. . . . Blessings to you!”
Years ago a teacher came to do soul healing work with me. She had been one of those gifted long-term teachers forced into earlier retirement by arbitrary regulations. The unfairness and injustice had outraged her. On top of that, the family of a child who had made enormous progress abruptly moved oversees without saying Goodbye, and with no word of thanks or recognition for the positive impact her labor of love had made in the life of their daughter. The shock was devastating. She wrote to me that while pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store one day and weeping, through the blur of tears she saw a shelf of books placed in her field of vision and the title that met her eyes was Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello. She bought the book and as she read, she began to feel her way through the situation with some of her old strength and wisdom returning to her. Included with her letter was the gift of an ancient oil lamp from the Holy Land to thank me for offering a light for her journey.
A social worker in Dublin who helped abused children was feeling overwhelmed by an especially tragic situation when he went into a book store for a copy of The English Patient and found my book in his hands and life as well. . . . It had such a profound impact on him that he called from Ireland to thank me, and later, on his way home from a family wedding in Australia, came to visit me.
After the Oklahoma City bombing, a nurse who was traumatized by being among first responders used A Journey through Grief to keep herself breathing for the first weeks, and then opened Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello as she began to work with traumatized families and reflect on her own trauma. She was simultaneously grieving the death of her husband after more than thirty years of rich and fulfilling marriage.
A young woman in Israel read the larger book after she realized she couldn’t say Yes to a marriage proposal from the man she loved because her first husband had been killed in the 1982 war in Lebanon, and growing up as the child of Holocaust survivors with their message, “You will lose Everything,” had paralyzed her into believing another marriage would mean another terrible loss. The book expanded her perspective and helped her take the risk with faith, a small thread of hope pulling her through into the future.
One young man used Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello as an anchor for sanity when his mother died 20 years ago, then took it with him for his years working in Europe and recently began reading it again while undergoing the loss of his life partner and his long-time professional identity as he prepared to move back to the United States and reinvent himself in a new career without the cherished companionship he had relied on for so long. This letter from a woman who has used the book similarly over the years came in just a few weeks ago:
“I had bought your book Life is Goodbye Life is Hello in 1989 when my husband was in seminary. At that time, I was still grieving the death of my mother and your book helped tremendously.
“My husband was an Episcopal priest. He had Alzheimer’s for the last 6 years and I took care of him at home until I could no longer do that and he went to a nursing home. Even though he existed in the prison of a body that no longer worked for him, I continued to love him, visit him, and I felt a real heart to heart connection until he died of February of this year.
“I recently rediscovered your book on my bookshelf and re-read it. I cannot begin to tell you how much hope and comfort it gave me, especially when you described your experience of pure grief [when your young husband died suddenly]. You spoke to my soul.
“I hope you get to read my email. I don’t expect a response, but it was important for me to write this. . . . Blessings to you!”
Years ago a teacher came to do soul healing work with me. She had been one of those gifted long-term teachers forced into earlier retirement by arbitrary regulations. The unfairness and injustice had outraged her. On top of that, the family of a child who had made enormous progress abruptly moved oversees without saying Goodbye, and with no word of thanks or recognition for the positive impact her labor of love had made in the life of their daughter. The shock was devastating. She wrote to me that while pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store one day and weeping, through the blur of tears she saw a shelf of books placed in her field of vision and the title that met her eyes was Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello. She bought the book and as she read, she began to feel her way through the situation with some of her old strength and wisdom returning to her. Included with her letter was the gift of an ancient oil lamp from the Holy Land to thank me for offering a light for her journey.
A social worker in Dublin who helped abused children was feeling overwhelmed by an especially tragic situation when he went into a book store for a copy of The English Patient and found my book in his hands and life as well. . . . It had such a profound impact on him that he called from Ireland to thank me, and later, on his way home from a family wedding in Australia, came to visit me.
After the Oklahoma City bombing, a nurse who was traumatized by being among first responders used A Journey through Grief to keep herself breathing for the first weeks, and then opened Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello as she began to work with traumatized families and reflect on her own trauma. She was simultaneously grieving the death of her husband after more than thirty years of rich and fulfilling marriage.
A young woman in Israel read the larger book after she realized she couldn’t say Yes to a marriage proposal from the man she loved because her first husband had been killed in the 1982 war in Lebanon, and growing up as the child of Holocaust survivors with their message, “You will lose Everything,” had paralyzed her into believing another marriage would mean another terrible loss. The book expanded her perspective and helped her take the risk with faith, a small thread of hope pulling her through into the future.
A young man wrote to tell me that his minister father would
preach frightening sermons on hell and punishment on Sundays then go home and
sexually abuse his wife and children after church. After reading Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello, he was moved to
write to tell me about his and his siblings’ horrifying childhood, and what
relief they found in the book's message of acceptance and hope. He sent me a
lovely needlepoint showing a group of small animals standing together on a
limb, and the words with it were, “Encourage one another and pray.” He had
found encouragement, self-acceptance and a way to pray from the truth of his
heart through the touch of understanding which he felt coming off the page
toward him as he read.
The books have been proven true and powerful healers for
well over thirty years. I read Life is Goodbye/Life
is Hello myself after my husband’s sudden death at the age of 37, and it
helped me, both practically and spiritually. Then I wrote the epilog, This is My Beloved, for the book, about
my own experience following his death, and the smaller book, A Journey through Grief, and I still
read it when the bottom falls out in my life, these days from the blows of
financial disaster and lost health. Healing words that were given to the person
I was nearly forty years ago when I wrote them come to me again as a reader and
help me to endure and see through the heavy fog into a clearing. It often happens in our human lives that the person we were in the past reaches out for us through writing, dreams or memories and helps us now. I hold to
that.
See this page for other books along themes of finding one’s way back to life after feeling portions of one’s soul ripped out of the body and trampled . . . and know that for each of us the way is different, but all shall be well again, and those are not hollow words. You will find poems, prayers, and information about related titles: Lifelines: Threads of Grace through Seasons of Change, This Mortal Marriage: Poems of Love, Lament and Praise, and Wisdom and Wonderment: 31 Feasts to Nourish Your Soul.
See this page for other books along themes of finding one’s way back to life after feeling portions of one’s soul ripped out of the body and trampled . . . and know that for each of us the way is different, but all shall be well again, and those are not hollow words. You will find poems, prayers, and information about related titles: Lifelines: Threads of Grace through Seasons of Change, This Mortal Marriage: Poems of Love, Lament and Praise, and Wisdom and Wonderment: 31 Feasts to Nourish Your Soul.
griefandgrievingwellresources.blogspot.com
Zigzagging the Grief Terrains
No matter what you read
or what the experts tell you,
there are no stages of grief.
There is only the landscape
of the soul and its varied terrains.
Navigating hard rock to ocean froth
through the surreal days, weeks, years or decades—
believe me that will be a far more impressive feat
than merely walking on water.
Some say, Grieve hard and be done.
Some say, Grieve hard and long.
Some say, Grieve gently for as long as you must.
Some say, Grieve quickly and privately, or not at all.
Only this can be authentically and generally said~
Grieve in your own true way.
Riding the ruling currents of the moments and hours
will be all that some can manage, more than others can
imagine,
and unnecessary to others while essential to a few.
Though the raw pain of grief will not last forever,
it can return from time to time, even many years later,
as some loss is, from the beginning, nearly past bearing.
You need not anticipate its return,
but neither be overly dismayed by
the crack and bleed of old scars.
Like a virus that sleeps in the spinal fluid for a lifetime
and may or may not awaken to sicken the body all over again,
it could happen to anyone or anyone’s body, spirit or mind.
In the beginning of grief it can seem
as though the world has broken apart, and
most of it will be out of synch with your fragile heart.
Out the window it may be springtime sunny
and breaking into bloom,
but still be bitter winter inside the soul.
This will confuse and anger you.
You will want the world to be in a state of suspension
and wait for you, for your world will still be inside its deep
winter.
You will say to the sun, How dare you shine? Stop it right
now!
And to the garden, How dare you burst into bloom? And to the
green,
Go back into gray. For living color and most music will
shock and insult you.
You may be like Crow and live in two worlds, back and forth
in rapid succession between them— the outer world, which
will now
seem a foreign country whose language you dimly remember but
must
make every effort to use in order to talk to the grocer, the
lawyer,
the child or the dog, though you hear yourself
as from the end of a long narrow tunnel or underneath water.
The other more dominant world will be the ethereal,
the broken open and shattered world within psyche,
where you will simultaneously do anything to escape,
and also do anything to roam homelessly, endlessly there~
to serve, protect and preserve the sacred story.
If memories rush up to flood through the mists, they will likely
be non-linear and ghostly fragments~ or vivid as blood.
Things will get better and then get worse, up, down
and every which way. Over time things will change,
but some will take more than years to heal.
More energy than usual will be required to move, to speak.
From now on the stories you tell may lack sequence,
and you will often leave out the middle, end or beginning.
Don’t worry. Whatever is true
for you is your truth~
a spiral path, a labyrinthine
terrain, a mountain goat’s climb
on precarious rocks, a
solitary place to sit by a body of water
or beneath a tree, a dolphin’s blue ocean deep
or a salmon’s
leaping up rivers against all currents and odds
to come again
to true home~ it will be your journey,
and the home of rebirth
that you alone come to, though you may find
and love
kindred hearts along the way and there also
at journey’s rest.
Others similarly injured may take very little time
to heal and will have little understanding of those
who need long or recurrent mourning.
Simply this, then~
Blessed are those who are as fine as they say.
And blessed are those who are not, though they will be.
Blessed Be.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Diamonds in a Stony Field
Copyright 2012.
When Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was an instructor at the University of Chicago Medical School, she undertook a study based on her interviews with dying people. Through these conversations, she learned that people respond in a variety of ways upon being told that they are terminally ill. She outlined five emotional responses as examples of the variations experienced among those who told her certain aspects of their processes. Dr. Kübler-Ross did not intend that her transcription of these accounts be interpreted as a formula for how to grieve, and certainly not as chronological rules for grieving, but rather that they be received as specific examples of some of the emotional responses persons had when confronted with their own deaths. Nor did she intend that they be extrapolated to describe the grief one feels after someone has died or when one has lost something precious, which is a different experience altogether. Sadly, her intentions have not been honored.
The sacred stories entrusted to her were given to the world to sensitize readers to the delicate and unique experience of first learning that one is going to die. These processes are not the same as what those same people would have experienced in after-loss situations. In the spirit of respect, the following resources describe various deeply human responses as individual people experience loss, and in most cases ultimately integrate meaning for themselves, after they have lost someone or something dear to them, including the absence of something or someone longed for but never attained. Always, what is honored and supported is the unique experience of the individual person.
When Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was an instructor at the University of Chicago Medical School, she undertook a study based on her interviews with dying people. Through these conversations, she learned that people respond in a variety of ways upon being told that they are terminally ill. She outlined five emotional responses as examples of the variations experienced among those who told her certain aspects of their processes. Dr. Kübler-Ross did not intend that her transcription of these accounts be interpreted as a formula for how to grieve, and certainly not as chronological rules for grieving, but rather that they be received as specific examples of some of the emotional responses persons had when confronted with their own deaths. Nor did she intend that they be extrapolated to describe the grief one feels after someone has died or when one has lost something precious, which is a different experience altogether. Sadly, her intentions have not been honored.
The sacred stories entrusted to her were given to the world to sensitize readers to the delicate and unique experience of first learning that one is going to die. These processes are not the same as what those same people would have experienced in after-loss situations. In the spirit of respect, the following resources describe various deeply human responses as individual people experience loss, and in most cases ultimately integrate meaning for themselves, after they have lost someone or something dear to them, including the absence of something or someone longed for but never attained. Always, what is honored and supported is the unique experience of the individual person.
The grieving process is on
some levels lifelong, as we continuously interweave new threads into the entire tapestry and rearrange or eliminate old threads,
linking them all together with past, present and future in the everpresent Now. It is not a linear
process, not even a neat spiral, but more of an ever-changing labyrinth or
irregular and uneven, multi-level zigzag. It is complex and simple, it is
paradoxical and poetic and as ordinary, commonplace and colloquial as getting
up, cleaning up and changing clothes from night to day every day. Working it
through is the living process that enriches our lives.
Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello: Grieving Well through All Kinds of Loss
Alla Renée Bozarth
(First Edition CompCare 1982,
Revised Edition 1986)
(First Edition CompCare 1982,
Revised Edition 1986)
Hazelden 1993
Chapter Headings
Attitudes about Grieving
Loss of Part of Oneself
Grieving: How It Feels, What It Does, What You Can Do about It
Four Styles of Grieving
Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello
Death
Birth and Parenting
Change
Separation
Sickness
Success
Essentials of the Art of Grieving
Epilogue
Readers' Responses
Life is Goodbye/Life is Hello: Grieving Well through All Kinds of Loss
Best
book ever on grieving over anything! This book has helped me so much
during a very rough time in my life where I’ve split from my husband,
lost my house that I dearly loved, and move to a place that I hate. It
helps you understand what you're going through, and it gives you things
to do that can help. An amazingly good book!
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
Alla Renée Bozarth is an excellent resource for anyone experiencing grief. This book is a profound mingling of sound psychological education and the emotional depth of one acquainted with grief. While she does not focus on the details of her story, I enjoyed the personal element of her personal grief poetry being interspersed throughout the book. Bozarth is both a priest and a therapist, yet she says her own grief journey was taken as only a broken human being.
The book is very thorough in its coverage of the various aspects of grief. She addresses cultural aspects of grief and how the loss of a significant person in our lives causes us to grieve other losses related to one’s self. She talks about how grief feels, its symptoms, and what you can do about it.
She also includes chapters on the grief caused through other losses in life such as change, separation, sickness, and even things we normally consider good such as the birth of a child and success.
One
of the best things about the book is her reminder that suffering in
and of itself has no value, yet we have the choice to teach ourselves
and grow through our suffering. Bozarth shows her reader how, in the
midst of their loss, they can teach themselves to have a new kind of
joy and wholeness.
Anonymous reader
Five stars—An excellent guide for all kinds of grief journeys! I read this book in 1994 to help me with the loss of my grandmother to cancer. As I was reading the book, I began to understand how many other ways I had experienced grief in my life and never even knew it because “we don't talk about things like that.”
I understood how changing jobs, moving to a new state, and giving birth are all moments in my life when I experienced change, and as a result, grief. I learned/understood that my emotional responses to each of these situations were not crazy but normal, and that awareness allowed me to work through the grief process much better.
I was also better able to support myself in healthy ways. Because of the chapter on personal illness or the illness of a loved one, I have been sharing this information with the patients at my hospital ever since. The patients (and their loved ones) are experiencing grief as they learn to cope with a temporary or permanent disability as the result of illness, accident, or surgery. I am truly grateful that I found this book so that I can heal through my own grief, as well as support the people I meet on a daily basis.
Many
of the patients and their loved ones have thanked me for sharing this
information with them and commented on how much the information has
helped them to begin healing through their changes.
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
I discovered this book in the early 90's after my Father passed away from cancer. There had been many deaths in my small family—a sister at 19 (auto crash) and 3 weeks later my first husband committed suicide several years ago. This book enabled me to work through the grief that had been unresolved for a long time and regain self-esteem which tragedy destroys.
I
was so impressed that she didn’t “preach”—she shared her own
experience. I have used this book through the years for reference and
have passed it on to friends. I have bought 3 copies just for myself
because no one wants to give it up after they read it. My present copy
is dog-eared and highlighted throughout.
My husband and soul-mate died almost 2 years ago—also from cancer. Once again, this book is helping me, especially when I learned that Bozarth . . . had lost her husband after writing it. She had added an epilogue describing the additional grief she suffered. I am now ordering a copy for a friend who is also going through grief.
I highly recommend Life is Goodbye for anyone experiencing grief of any kind. It doesn’t have to be a death. Thank you Dr. Bozarth . . . for saving the sanity of many.
Carolyn G. Wright
Bozarth walks you through all kinds of loss. Loss is of a friendship, a job, an age, or a beloved person or pet. This book is conclusive evidence that we will encounter many deaths within our lifetime, and as long as we have faith, we will survive intact.
The
trick is to acknowledge the loss, allow the grieving and looking ahead
once again with trust. This book is a great restorative. I bought it
first for a sociology class, then bought four more copies to give.
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
My husband of 46 years committed suicide 3 months ago. While reaching out to every resource available to me, I came across this book. After reading it, I went back through and highlighted it everywhere it hit the mark. It took two days.
This is the most astoundingly helpful book I’ve seen and I've read a lot of them. I’ve also recommended it to my therapists as a wonderful source of wisdom, insight, and understanding for those who are dealing with all kinds of grief: death, divorce, job loss, giving birth and many other events.
What a lot of helpful insights Dr. Bozarth offers! I recommend it unreservedly to all who are traveling down this road. God be with you.
Elizabeth J. Riney, M.D.
I read this book after my mother died 16 years ago and I still recommend it when someone I know has lost a loved one. It really explains the grief process and lets you know that no matter how you feel and how you respond, you’re not losing your mind. I found it very comforting. I also pulled it out and reread it after having a miscarriage. This book is full of wisdom that will help with any loss. I highly recommend it!
Carleen Brice
I purchased this book after the sudden death of a friend. I was at a complete loss as to how to deal with it, and had never experienced this type of loss before. I was shaken.
I can’t believe my good fortune to have this book. It taught me so much about the role Grief plays in our lives, as well as it's not just limited to the loss of a person or relationship. Grief can come in all forms from all things. I found it very comforting to discover this and it actually helped me to embrace grief as a natural precursor to healing.
This is definitely a great book to have around, and it did give me some tremendous insights. I highly recommend this book for anyone having experience a loss or a feeling of loss that you can’t seem to attach to anything. I really feel like this book was a sanity saver in a sense, as it helped me identify something I would have never recognized as ‘grief-worthy.’
C.K. Ogi
amazon.com
At a time when I had lost 3 people that I loved very much over a period of only 6 months, I was not sure where to turn. Friends, family and co-workers said, “just take it one day at a time.” Although this is a very true statement, understanding the emotions you are feeling and why can really, really help after a loss.
This book doesn’t just touch on death, it encompasses all losses from a job or divorce to the loss of a loved one. There are so many different things to consider and this book helps to drill down to your connect to the job or person and why the loss is effecting you in the way it is. I highly recommend this book, it does have a bit of a religious spin but not as a turn off, as a warm welcoming feeling that someone else understands.
K. Haynes
A guide to help you through life's rough spots.
This book was an excellent guide for me when my husband came out of the closet. I felt like I was lost, floating in space. I was so scared to face what was happening to me.
This book gave me the courage to face my worst fears and continue on. This book helped me at the worst time of my life by giving me a map to follow to get through. Thank you Alla writing such a readable book.
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
I marvel as I
read your books that you reveal yourself in such a bare-bones fashion.
There are your feelings, your desires, your wishes and your actions, your joys
and your disappointments and your struggles – right there on the page, in
printed words that can’t be taken back or obliterated or recanted if you
have second thoughts about making such revelations about your deepest
self. I am most deeply touched when I read about your marriage.
Your love for Phil, your struggle to remain true to yourself within the
marriage, your courage to move to Oregon, your ability to withstand the wonderings of others about the
choices you made. And finally, as the two of you connect in love and joy within
each of your own comfort zones – poof – he is gone and grief is the
new path to travel.
Powerful stuff!
Powerful stuff!
Marlys Collom San Diego, California
Love's Prism: Reflections
from the Heart of a Woman
by Alla Renée Bozarth
Sheed and Ward 1987.
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
Chapter Headings
Loving Myself~ Dear Stranger, Dear Self
Loving Women~ Dear Mother, Dear Sister
Loving Men~ Dear Other, Dear Brother
Loving Children~ Dear Daughters, Dear Sons
The Other Side of Love~ Dear Flesh of My Flesh and Soul of My Soul
A Journey through Grief
by Alla Renée Bozarth
(First Edition CompCare 1990) 
Here with Death Begins~
On the Death of a Cherished Companion
here with death begins
the long trail of tears,
traversed up and down
on your knees
for grief is a wet journey
where the soul is stripped bare
and chafed, where, through rips
in the core, blood mingles
with the ocean that overflows
from the heart through solo eyes
Alla Renée Bozarth
The Frequency of Light, copyright 2012
__________________________________
The Audiotape is distributed by Wisdom House.
To order audiotape (or book with inscription),
To order audiotape (or book with inscription),
type "Book Order" in the Subject line
and write Alla at allabearheart@yahoo.com
Readers' Reviews
A Journey through Grief
This book was the most helpful I found when dealing with deep grief. It’s short, to the point, and hits the key heart strings with great simplicity and clarity. The idea that tears are what you do when you can’t do anything else was such a relief to me—knowing I could cry for as long as I needed and it would pass. And the idea to be gentle with myself allowed me to go through all the stages of grief undisturbed. I recommend this to every person who goes through a significant death such as the death of a parent.
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
A Journey through Grief—5.0 out of 5 stars.
A wonderful book to share with anyone who has had a loss.
I
found this book quite by accident, but the timing could not have been
better. After reading this book I felt as though I’d received a much
needed hug. It is short, to the point, very gentle, and beautifully
written. The author is a true poet. I have given several copies to
friends and relatives. I could not give a higher recommendation.
Anonymous reader
amazon.com
A Journey through Grief— 51 pages says it all! 5.0 out of 5 stars.
As much as I can't stand to cry, I have learned it is as important a
release as is laughter. Unfortunately and especially for the male sex,
we are, still to this day, taught that this act of crying is unbecoming
to children, adolescents, and adults who "have their act together." And
this misnomer taught by the very folks who do not have their act
together.
As a reader you would never know that this book is written by a Doctor. All that is needed is to know that this person speaks of what she herself has been through. That is what makes the book valuable. The publishing industry is grossly mistaken by the belief that credibility goes hand in hand with a scholarly degree. It does not. Experience is the only true credibility. This author has real experience. The only way to know this is to be in the process of grieving and read this book, which proves to us through its compassion and understanding, that this is the way it is done.
I am disappointed by the plethora of published authors who think that we, the reading public, need to be exposed to endless pages of type in order to get something out of the work we are reading. For me, the opposite is true. There are many books I do not purchase because all too often I find the author has severe difficulty getting to the point of the matter. You will find this book to be a refreshing change.
If you have ever felt sad and more importantly if you have ever been depressed, my advise is to get your hands on this book. It will not take too much of your time and I believe you will benefit tremendously. This book is most valuable to those of us who have suffered from bouts of depression, as we all do in varying degrees from time to time. This book will help you to move through the emotion of grief so that your life is not a repeated adventure in something you are unable to overcome. I cannot recommend this book enough.
Paul Fucich
Dance for Me When I Die~
Death as a Rite of Passage (Audiotape only)
Death as a Rite of Passage (Audiotape only)
Dance for Me When I Die is Alla’s address to the Minnesota Coalition on Terminal Care, November 1985, three weeks before her own husband Phil’s sudden death.
Water Women (audiotape only)
by Alla Renée Bozarth
Wisdom House 1990
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
Poems Included:
Bakerwoman God
Blackberry Zen
Blessings of the Stew Pot
Call
Chambered Nautilus
Cosmic Child
Cosmic Circus
Country Life
Family Reunion
God is a Verb
Gynergy
Hunter
In the End When Life Begins Again
In the Name of the Bee & the Bear & the Butterfly
Livey
Loving in the Open
Mame Sea and Mama Rock
My Solitude Means Plenitude
Nobel Woman
Passover Remembered
Pearls
Prayer to the Holy One
Religious Manifesto of a Grown Woman
Shekinah
Stroll
Sunday Memory
Tending
The Elements are In Charge
This is How Women Get Lost
Transfiguration
Water Women
Where Did You Go?
Women at Play
Poems by Alla Renée Bozarth
Poems Included:
A Poem Heard
Arctic Quest
At the End of this Road
Be
Belonging [Stars in Your Bones]
Biodance
Burning Bush
Celebration
Christ
Chrysalis
Conscientious Objection
Country Cousins
Coyote
Creature Coveneant
Cygnus X-1
Dinner at the Alexis Esplanade
Easter Wisdom Rite
Fire
For Adults Only
Grandfather Lover
Heresies
Hymn to Gaea
I AM
I Am Your Poem
Imagine
Imminence
Inanna in Hell
Loving the Body
Medicine Bear
My Yoga Teacher
No Failed Magician
Novaya Zemlya
Photography
Pure Lust, Perfect Bliss— Holy Communion
Sabbath Light
Smart Luck
That’s Life
The Flower that Sees
The Night I Sang at the Paris Opera
The Shamantool
To One Whose Sacred Map Was Stolen
What Jesus Really Said
Where Life Begins
Stars in Your Bones~ Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys
Poems, Paintings and Commentary
by Alla Renée Bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne
North Star Press of St. Cloud 1990
Out of print. Please search the Internet.
At the Foot of the Mountain:
Nature and the Art of Soul Healing
by Alla Renée Bozarth
(First Edition with subtitle: "Discovering Images for Emotional Healing" by Alla Bozarth-Campbell CompCare 1990). Current Edition iUniverse 2000
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
(First Edition with subtitle: "Discovering Images for Emotional Healing" by Alla Bozarth-Campbell CompCare 1990). Current Edition iUniverse 2000
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
From the Introduction:
"This book catches me on the wing. It is a book of Between.
So it is a true-to-life book, a soul-making book. But unlike
tidy fiction, it has no plot. My life and soul have no plot~
only themes. Here are themes of flights, as in music, as in
a fugue.
"When I wrote these themes into form some years ago, I was
on the way. I was up in the air. My only map was faith. I had
embarked on a destiny journey with no idea of my destination.
I was telling a true story, but I was in the dark about its plot,
its details, and its resolution. Now some of these things have been
revealed because I have lived through them. . . . The light breaks
through into what is essential for me~ the sweet and stinging
divine Mystery. . . . [It] includes the limitless importance of people
in my life. The themes of my sense of exile and homecoming are
present in this book, but locked inside them are deeper themes . . . "
Of Nature as teacher and healer, death as utmost transformation~ of Grace, of courage, of willingness, surrender, wonder, of breath-taking moments of splendor in the lives of Creation around me . . . the salmon's steadfast swim out to sea and heroic return at life's end to the finger lakes where it was born, diving up waterfalls on the way and trying not to be eaten by bears or ripped in human machinery . . . then love and rebirth at the end.
Chapter Headings
Before the Beginning and After the End
The Mountain
Neighbors
My Eye
Emmaus
The White Deer
Humus
The Salmon
The Well
The Great Bear
Chambered Nautilus
Phoenix
Biopoetics
Marigold
Seven-petaled Lotus
Invisible Wings
A Happy Childhood
Reader's Review
At the Foot of the Mountain: Nature and the Art of Soul Healing
At the Foot of the Mountain: Nature and the Art of Soul Healing
This remarkable work proves that a time of devastating change can result
in magnificent growth and illumination. In these intensely personal—
and universal— ponderings, Episcopal priest, author-poet and therapist,
Alla Renée Bozarth, relates the wrenching decisions that caused her move
from her “exile” I the Midwest back to Oregon, to her place “at the foot
of the mountain.” She takes us through her grief at the death of her father
and of her young husband, then shares her gradual healing through the
creative process of writing this book. At the end, nature and art and the
human spirit make a union with the whole.
Anonymous Reader
Amazon.com
________________________________________
All Shall Be Well, All Shall Be One (audiotape only)
Alla Renée Bozarth
Lecture delivered to the Womanspirit Conference
in Los Angeles, 1991
Wisdom House 1992
Out of print. Unavailable.
___________________________
Six Days in St. Petersburg—
A Chronicle of Return
A Chronicle of Return
Poems by Alla Renée Bozarth
Purple Iris Press 1993
Out of print. Search the Internet.
Out of print. Search the Internet.
At the Ballet
In Petersburg
at the Little Ballet
a large while angel flies
in each corner of the state,
blessing the wings
of the theatre and all
who lap and exult there,
all who fall weary
into the wild ovations
of entranced audiences
like me, unable to move
or acknowledge it's over,
refusing to go home,
at dawn still sitting there,
throwing roses at the dancers' feet.
Dialectic
Olga, Tanya and Vladimir
entertain us expansively
in their two-room flat.
The children, Vasya and Irina
are out taking music lessons
and studying.
We eat potatoes from the country
and cucumbers from town.
Red tulips we have carried
through the deep Underground
open in full glory, yellow
stamen against the gold wallpaper.
Iced cake and samovar tea.
Apples and currants in tall glasses
with fresh sugar just purchased dearly.
On the way back in the taxi,
Olga whispers when we pass
a medium-sized grey building, "KGB."
I look up as we turn the corner,
see a green plant growing
in a fifth floor window,
white curtains.
The old functions change.
What oppressed now seeks
to protect.
Sometime soon, let freedom
and security breathe as one.
Misha
The affable
young man
who speaks
for his country
and teaches
strangers its ways
gives us a link:
there are no natives
anywhere.
He, after all, is
a true Russian:
half Tartar, a quarter
Kurd, a quarter Jewish.
Naturally, he mixes
his religions also.
He is an honest citizen
of the world.
Wisdom and Wonderment—
Thirty-one Feasts to Nourish Your Soul
Thirty-one Feasts to Nourish Your Soul
Alla Renée Bozarth
Sheed and Ward 1993
A Reader's Response:
Wisdom and Wonderment was, I’m convinced, written especially for me.
Page after page are now marked with post-it-notes for me to reread as the
lessons penetrate and reveal themselves. I discovered parts of myself
within these pages. Wonderings about myself and some of my interactions
with other people have been illuminated. I have looked into a mirror and
seen myself more clearly as the fog is dispersed from the glass by your words
and insights. Thank you for your gifts of writing and wisdom and
self-revelation in honesty~ I am thankful that you are a part of my life.
Marlys Collom San Diego, California
Meditations for every day of the month:
Thirty-One Commandments or Flavors of Grace
Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Native American Saying
Thou shalt not insult thy Creator by hating, abusing or
disrespecting thy Self.
Thou shalt not insult thy Creator by hating, abusing or
disrespecting any Other Child of God.
Thou shalt not bore thy Creator – by reading from a script
to converse with Same– unless it be to share good literature,
for the Creator loves a good read.
Thou shalt not grovel.
Thou shalt not whine.
Thou shalt not repeat thy sins and irritating habits
over and over again in word or deed.
Thou shalt relinquish thine addiction to perfection,
for it will only harm thee.
Thou shalt not cling falsely to any other of thy delusions,
nor to thy tedious disbeliefs for safety or stubbornness’ sake.
But thou shalt not be afraid to ask questions.
And thou shalt learn to ask the truly helpful questions, and
to live them patiently.
And thou shalt remember that it is all right to be wrong and
to admit it.
Thou shalt not be afraid to be foolish, for Wisdom loves
the honest risk taker, and thou shalt laugh gently with her.
Thou shalt not, however, keep doing the same dumb things
without learning gratefully from the gift of thy mistakes.
Thou shalt relinquish thy rage after listening to thy hurt
child within, and learning what thou needest to feel safe.
And thou shalt focus and use thy righteous anger against
injustice well, to change reality for the greater well being
of all.
Thou shalt raise hell, from time to time, for heaven’s sake.
Thou shalt not be afraid to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive.
Thou shalt remember the obvious, and not belabor it.
Thou shalt not underestimate thy power nor minimize
thy pain, but learn to use both compassionately.
Thou shalt not insult thy Creator by hating, abusing or
disrespecting thy Self.
Thou shalt not insult thy Creator by hating, abusing or
disrespecting any Other Child of God.
Thou shalt not bore thy Creator – by reading from a script
to converse with Same– unless it be to share good literature,
for the Creator loves a good read.
Thou shalt not grovel.
Thou shalt not whine.
Thou shalt not repeat thy sins and irritating habits
over and over again in word or deed.
Thou shalt relinquish thine addiction to perfection,
for it will only harm thee.
Thou shalt not cling falsely to any other of thy delusions,
nor to thy tedious disbeliefs for safety or stubbornness’ sake.
But thou shalt not be afraid to ask questions.
And thou shalt learn to ask the truly helpful questions, and
to live them patiently.
And thou shalt remember that it is all right to be wrong and
to admit it.
Thou shalt not be afraid to be foolish, for Wisdom loves
the honest risk taker, and thou shalt laugh gently with her.
Thou shalt not, however, keep doing the same dumb things
without learning gratefully from the gift of thy mistakes.
Thou shalt relinquish thy rage after listening to thy hurt
child within, and learning what thou needest to feel safe.
And thou shalt focus and use thy righteous anger against
injustice well, to change reality for the greater well being
of all.
Thou shalt raise hell, from time to time, for heaven’s sake.
Thou shalt not be afraid to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive.
Thou shalt remember the obvious, and not belabor it.
Thou shalt not underestimate thy power nor minimize
thy pain, but learn to use both compassionately.
Thou shalt fret not thy gizzard.
Thou shalt not forget to celebrate and practice happiness
and breathe in and out with a grateful heart every day, for
all God’s gifts to thee and in thee.
Thou shalt remember to take long walks out of doors and
to listen to the birds and smell the flowers and trees and
to touch the Earth and sing to her, and to have picnics
whenever possible.
Thou shalt not literalize thy metaphors, nor shalt thou
absolutize them into idols, for they merely attempt to
describe the indescribable.
Thou shalt not hold thy brokenness against thyself,
nor others’ against themselves.
Thou shalt be creative and playful in thine own special
idiom, and delight thy Creator with thine ingenuity,
which comes naturally and needs little cultivation.
Thou shalt trust in thy Self as God trusts in thee,
to fulfill thy destiny and live thine experiment
with life lovingly.
Thou shalt trust in God in thee and in all creatures.
Thou shalt be tenderly kind to thy Self and to Others.
And thou shalt remember to rejoice in thine intellect,
senses, and holy emotions, and to make mutually
beneficial contact with all holy creation through them,
Thou shalt trust in thy Self as God trusts in thee,
to fulfill thy destiny and live thine experiment
with life lovingly.
Thou shalt trust in God in thee and in all creatures.
Thou shalt be tenderly kind to thy Self and to Others.
And thou shalt remember to rejoice in thine intellect,
senses, and holy emotions, and to make mutually
beneficial contact with all holy creation through them,
relying always on thy creative power to heal thy Self
from within, which is God’s birth gift to thee.
And thou shalt remember to ask for help in thy healing,
and thou shalt not be afraid to fulfill thy heart’s desire;
and thou shalt in all things be willing for the divine
from within, which is God’s birth gift to thee.
And thou shalt remember to ask for help in thy healing,
and thou shalt not be afraid to fulfill thy heart’s desire;
and thou shalt in all things be willing for the divine
reality to be born in thee and to move through thee, forever.
Mantras as Needed—
Pace yourself lovingly.
Make merciful revisions of everything.
Find the hidden gift in frustration.
Find the hidden gift in pain.
Find the hidden gift in despair.
Celebrate the hidden gifts in everything.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Accidental Wisdom
iUniverse 2003.
All rights reserved.
iUniverse 2003.
All rights reserved.
Though the entire piece is not printed in Wisdom and Wonderment,
the thirty-one meditations in that book are based on the individual
commandments or flavors, shown here as a unified text.
the thirty-one meditations in that book are based on the individual
commandments or flavors, shown here as a unified text.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Sheed and Ward 1995
Chapter Headings:
Transition~ A Time of Trust and Grace
Make Friends with Your Fear
Praying Your Way through Pain
Meeting Your Inner Healer
Healing Addiction to Perfection
When Good People Do Bad Things
When Love Means Letting Go
Meeting Death Can Mean Living More Deeply
Soulfire: Love Poems in Black and Gold
Alla Renée Bozarth
Yes International Publishers 1997
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
Read Review >
This is a rare and wonderful gift of love. Poems of wonder
and longing, loss and pain, desire and inestimable joy flow
from the pen of a priest and psychotherapist who helps heal
the rift between religion and the erotic.
Anonymous reader~ Amazon.com
Wings
Turn your face
to the firelight,
Beloved, and rest
your head against
my breast.
How perfectly we fit
when I stand, you sit,
your ear leaning
on my heart.
When you listen,
do you hear
my whole life
singing to you?
My body's breath
carries your mind
like waves, up and
home again.
You are the waterbird
riding my rhythm.
When you listen,
do you hear
the winds of all
the oceans, and within,
the drumming wings
of all the birds
that fly them?
The Night Gardener
This is my bliss time.
I water under the moon
while the world sleeps.
Awake with owls and bats,
moths and cats and
the worker bee who never sleeps
I give grasses their drink,
kiss the night-blooming flowers
whose moon-drenched yellow scent
surrounds the garden, whose round
blossoms glow in the the dark, dancing
like drunkard angels.
Reader's Review
The Book of Bliss
These 220 poems are mystic chalices,
each filled to the brim with practical elixirs for improving one’s
daily engaging of “ordinary” life. Drink deeply with this poet’s deft
assistance. Whether you begin your “inner adventure” by consulting the
stars or the flowers, you will spend many delightful hours returning
to these luscious words of wisdom from the founder of Wisdom House. (I
have.)
Alla’s own life story (her early
widowhood, priestly duties, piano playing) weaves in and out of these
prayerlike poems, touching time and again upon our universal and cosmic
encounters with imperfection, blessing, loving and letting go, and
daily bliss. For those who are guided by the Word, it is here in
abundance and for every flower you pick in this garden, two will
blossom in your heart.
Ann Knight White Rock, British Columbia
Moving to the Edge of the World
Volcano
You blow yourself up
to nurture your children,
to draw attention
to a larger reality
than human history,
to teach us
that Earth is alive
and every day of bearable
light is a gift.
Accidental Wisdom
Reader's Response:
I have been spending time with you as I read Wisdom and Wonderment and Accidental Wisdom. A few days ago I read a news article about the plight of the Catholic nuns who live in the real world as they minister to people who also live and function in today’s world. Yet they are being censured by Bishops who live in their own little make believe world/ivory tower of their own construct and are berating the nuns for their lack of obedience and acquiesce to their male domination which they present as “God’s will”. That evening I read your poem The Annunciation which in two pages addresses this issue with precision. “And Christ will live again in every woman’s resurrection.” I marvel at your wisdom. Your books are aptly titled. I can’t begin to imagine what you endured as one of the Philadelphia Eleven . . .
Marlys Collom San Diego, California
Dancing the Labyrinth
There is a way
to begin —
meaningful movement
is the child of stillness.
See where you are.
You do not have to be
anywhere else
or better
than you are.
Feel the Grace
of the Earth and God
through your soles.
This is the pathway
of soul.
And it is
a constant
turning!
Let your feet find the ways
to Oneness and lead
your dancing heart.
It is play.
The way allows
wings and those
who lumber.
The way allows
the bleeding
and broken as well
as the fit and strong.
You may be feeble
and frightened or
you may feel
invincible.
Either way
your inner angel
will be the one
to carry you.
The way is black
and white and also
living colors —
all suggesting
change.
It is paper.
It is words.
It is silence
and snow.
The way is
stone
from the mountain’s
heart.
It is desert floor
and water.
It is body
and spirit.
The way is
mindfulness.
It is the soul’s
unbinding
and the body’s
healing.
It is the cleansing
of the mind’s eye.
Simply begin.
At the center
you will find
your truest self
and your birthplace
at the heart of the rose.
In the phoenix nest
at the center
you will die and
be touched by fire.
When you return
we will know you
truly for the first time.
We will welcome news
you bring from home.
Food you bring
will ready us to follow.
Songs you sing
will call us into Mystery.
The only reason
for going into
the open heart
of the labyrinth
rose
is to let your heart break
open
so that you can hear
the first cry
of creation
when God birthed
the universe,
and you can
become
large enough
to respond,
let your whole
life unfurl
in all
its magnificence
and purity,
and cry back
to the Holy One
with the beauty
that will rise
within you.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Accidental Wisdom
iUniverse 2003
I have been spending time with you as I read Wisdom and Wonderment and Accidental Wisdom. A few days ago I read a news article about the plight of the Catholic nuns who live in the real world as they minister to people who also live and function in today’s world. Yet they are being censured by Bishops who live in their own little make believe world/ivory tower of their own construct and are berating the nuns for their lack of obedience and acquiesce to their male domination which they present as “God’s will”. That evening I read your poem The Annunciation which in two pages addresses this issue with precision. “And Christ will live again in every woman’s resurrection.” I marvel at your wisdom. Your books are aptly titled. I can’t begin to imagine what you endured as one of the Philadelphia Eleven . . .
I marvel as I
read your books that you reveal yourself in such a bare-bones fashion.
There are your feelings, your desires, your wishes and your actions, your joys
and your disappointments and your struggles – right there on the page, in
printed words that can’t be taken back or obliterated or recanted if you
have second thoughts about making such revelations about your deepest
self. I am most deeply touched when I read about your marriage.
Your love for Phil, your struggle to remain true to yourself within the
marriage, your courage to move to Oregon, your ability to withstand the wonderings of others about the
choices you made. And finally, as the two of you connect in love and joy within
each of your own comfort zones – poof – he is gone and grief is the
new path to travel. Powerful stuff!
Marlys Collom San Diego, California
Dancing the Labyrinth
There is a way
to begin —
meaningful movement
is the child of stillness.
See where you are.
You do not have to be
anywhere else
or better
than you are.
Feel the Grace
of the Earth and God
through your soles.
This is the pathway
of soul.
And it is
a constant
turning!
Let your feet find the ways
to Oneness and lead
your dancing heart.
It is play.
The way allows
wings and those
who lumber.
The way allows
the bleeding
and broken as well
as the fit and strong.
You may be feeble
and frightened or
you may feel
invincible.
Either way
your inner angel
will be the one
to carry you.
The way is black
and white and also
living colors —
all suggesting
change.
It is paper.
It is words.
It is silence
and snow.
The way is
stone
from the mountain’s
heart.
It is desert floor
and water.
It is body
and spirit.
The way is
mindfulness.
It is the soul’s
unbinding
and the body’s
healing.
It is the cleansing
of the mind’s eye.
Simply begin.
At the center
you will find
your truest self
and your birthplace
at the heart of the rose.
In the phoenix nest
at the center
you will die and
be touched by fire.
When you return
we will know you
truly for the first time.
We will welcome news
you bring from home.
Food you bring
will ready us to follow.
Songs you sing
will call us into Mystery.
The only reason
for going into
the open heart
of the labyrinth
rose
is to let your heart break
open
so that you can hear
the first cry
of creation
when God birthed
the universe,
and you can
become
large enough
to respond,
let your whole
life unfurl
in all
its magnificence
and purity,
and cry back
to the Holy One
with the beauty
that will rise
within you.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Accidental Wisdom
iUniverse 2003
This Mortal Marriage~ Poems of Love, Lament and Praise
Twilight
. . . A star seems
to slip secretly
over the mountain.
A river sings
a new song of never-before
and always.
You look into the eye
of a deer and see
the whole forest,
a star on each tree.
It could be morning.
It could be night.
The push is over.
At last
you remember
whose you are.
This is My Body— Praying for Earth,
Prayers from the Heart
Poems with prose by Alla Renée Bozarth
iUniverse 2004
iUniverse 2004
Order at http://bearblessings.com/
O Earth, Wrap Me in Your Leaves
O Earth, wrap me in your leaves~
heal me.
Let me fall
on your Earthbresat~
feed me.
Sing to me
under the round nests
in your cedar trees . . .
Let my wounds
open
and empty
Into your wonderful
compost heap . . .
Let my wounds
become fertile
gardens and
Let me be.
Let me live
again.
Perspective 2018 ~ by Alla Renée Bozarth
This is a new, revised and streamlined edition at lower cost than previous editions. Through the link below, you can preview and order the entire book in softcover, linen hardcover with dust jacket, or a smooth surface hardcover image wrap, with dust jacket graphics printed directly on the front and back along with the spine. In an extended prose poem, you will find a complete chronology of significant events of the war in Vietnam sourced by two veterans' websites, with moving stories about unexpected healing and surprising redemption in encounters that become friendships and acts that become saving graces. The second half of the book focuses on these, becoming ultimately a tribute to the veterans themselves and their families, for dedicated effort toward reconciliation and recovery.
The work makes its way in 84 pages, from a long cry of despair to a powerful realization of hope, flowering from the very ground of that despair. A worthy read for survivors of the Vietnam Era, whether veterans and their families, refugees who have made new lives for themselves, peace and justice activists, humanitarians, or those interested in an overview that makes sense of a chaotic time in our shared histories.
To preview and order the revised and expanded Vietnam Docupoem:
https://www.blurb.com/b/9498355-vietnam-docupoem]
To view the book Online for free go here:
http://vietnamdocupoembyallabozarth.blogspot.com/
__________________________________________
New poetry collections to be published in the future~
Protected by copyright, 2011—All rights reserved.
Winterfire: The Rebirth of Love
Love’s Alchemy
My Passion for Art
Purgatory Papers
Paradise
Falling in Love with Fire
Falling in Love with Light
Kissed by Lightning and Left for Dead
Learning to Dance in Limbo
Quartet
My Blessed Misfortunes
Diamonds in a Stony Field
The Frequencies of Sound
The Frequency of Light
Also to be published over the next few years~
Two children’s stories with CD~
Cookie Moon
Herald Wiggins & the Christmas Twins
A third edition of: Womanpriest
A reprint of: Six Days in St. Petersburg
with a CD of Alla reading the book
A reprint of Stars in Your Bones
*********************************************************************************
Whatever I write~ funny, sad,
didactic, conversational, historical, biographical or reportage with events and facts woven together intuitively, hoping to link or describe them in a way that goes inside or beyond them~ it always seems to be about the
relentless Grace of redemption, in any form.
Photo by Kyle Koep
Burning Bush
Ascend the high regions
of the body, seek out
its mystery steadfastly,
become prophet in your own
desert, enter the narrow
vault and refine your sight
to its shimmering darkness.
Ride out the corpus callosum,
dark red against gray,
riverborne, cross over, enter
the sparkling cave downward,
descend to the blood source,
marrowstone.
It floods over itself,
darkly radiant, blinding.
Tell no one.
Bow low, humble yourself
before the burning bush
at the center where
brainsteam hums, ganglia
enter and extend—
flames shot forth in longing
to transform each thought
with fire no light or darkness
dare extinguish.
Here, deep and hidden
like a dear danger
within you,
speaks God.
Alla
Renée Bozarth
Moving
to the Edge of the World
iUniverse 2003. All rights reserved.
Contribute to Wisdom House
whenever you shop at amazon.com
by selecting the Smile program option
at the link below to begin your shopping experience:
http://smile.amazon.com/ch/41-1322680
Direct tax deductible contributions can be made
to support the ministries of
Wisdom House where Alla Bozarth is resident priest
by sending a check to
Wisdom House
43222 SE Tapp Rd.
Sandy, OR 97055
Thank You!
whenever you shop at amazon.com
by selecting the Smile program option
at the link below to begin your shopping experience:
http://smile.amazon.com/ch/41-1322680
Direct tax deductible contributions can be made
to support the ministries of
Wisdom House where Alla Bozarth is resident priest
by sending a check to
Wisdom House
43222 SE Tapp Rd.
Sandy, OR 97055
Thank You!
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