If you have a book or a product you would like to see sold here, e-mail me for information on submitting your items for consideration and/or review.

Products I make myself through my company, Tree. (see also Moonwave Sea Glass for jewelry made from sea glass that my husband and I make.)
	Sleep Pillow Mist contains lavender, rose and other pure essential oils to help you get a good, calm sleep. Just spray on your pillow or bedding. If you have trouble tolerating scents (though many with this issue do tolerate pure essential oils only), spray one hour before you crawl into bed.
4 ounce bottle (lasts for months) $13.95 ($1.95 ship)

Products I recommend - available through amazon.com

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books for your health
	My Own Medicine: the Process of Recovery from Chronic Illness by Diane Kerner expands on the concepts presented on this Web site and includes my personal story of evolution through CFS and fibromyalgia. My Own Medicine asks that you remain open to the way your life is in the moment, rather than struggling to make it different, better, less painful, more like it used to be. As you process and integrate the insights in My Own Medicine, your quality of life expands, discomfort eases a bit more into the background and you become more keenly creative and inspired to re-invent your life today in the bold colors of self-empowerment. You can at last leave the edge of your seat and settle in more comfortably knowing that a lot of how you experience your illness is really up to you. Also available as an e-book from Amazon.com.
	Alternative Treatments for Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Mari Skelly and Helen Walker is a must-have book with a permanent space on the bookshelves of many of us old-timers. This is a newly revised edition which includes updates on the original patient interviews and again offers a wealth of information on the many healing approaches people have undertaken to find relief. It is especially helpful to those who are not familiar with the natural healing modalities we have at our disposal in this 21st century. Health care practitioners representing a comprehensive spectrum of healing modalities describe how they treat patients with CFS and/or FM while the patients, in turn, speak about their own trials and errors in their medical explorations. This book is an invaluable guide (the hitchhikers guide to chronic illness?) for those seeking medically-mediated quality of life.
	The Alchemy of Illness by Kat Duff is a classic read, beloved by all. Kat Duff was one of the first to write about the internal aspects of chronic fatigue syndrome. Her writing is a poetry of things felt inside us all and we revel in her candid, honest expression. We find ourselves living her words and this validates our experience. I love this book because it encourages us to examine the internal aspects of our illness. It's a side effect of the book, really, but in no way in the negative sense. This is a side effect we can all benefit from. As Kat "explores the transforming - and, paradoxically, healing - experience of being ill," we are able to find some bravery in ourselves. This is one of the first books I read after getting ill myself. It's been on my bookshelf many years and has returned to me after much lending out to others. I think I'll read it again.
	The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things by Larry Dossey, MD is such a delightful visit with this extraordinary, engaging and thoughtful man. Dr. Dossey gives us science and tales of healing found in 14 "teasures in plain sight." He expertly draws us into his stories and we don't want to leave. From having a good cry to the power of classical music - from napping and hanging about to getting down with dirt, we are reminded of the miracles that are always available in such ordinary things. This book creates a keen sense of connection with the ancient and the ordinary and with the kind soul of Dr. Dossey.
	Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky is a blessing of a book that teaches us cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). When I first learned about CBT I checked out a lot of books on the subject. This, in my opinion, was the most helpful. CBT is an invaluable process that trains our internal voice to be supportive rather than self-defeating. It's much more than positive thinking. Doing this work on myself, I realized that when I felt overwhelmed (which was often), I had this vision of myself as the caboose of a runaway train, my hands waving wildly in the air while shouting, "I can't handle it! Stop the train!" CBT quides us to recognize what we say to ourselves and how to manifest more happiness by spinning a more supportive tale. Bad thoughts can cause bad moods can cause bad health. Tame your brain.
just good reads - watch for updates
	Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin is another wonderful book by Temple Grandin, a woman with autism and a PhD who understands animals, genetics, autism and brain chemistry and helps us to understand them, too. Myself? I love animals, autism fascinates me, genetics and brain chemisty not-so-much - yet Temple Grandin manages to keep me riveted all the way through this book with her easy nature and writing style. You can trust her to be honest in all things. Through her distinguished career as an animal scientist and her personal experience as a woman with autism, she educates us while we think we're just reading a good book. I saw Temple speak many years ago when I was still teaching. If you have a loved one with autism you cannot possibly serve them wholly without reading Temple Grandin.
	Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison by Joshua M. Greene is a book long overdue. I am always curious about other people's spirituality - what sustains them - and have admired the courage and soft, intense devotion of George Harrison for decades. There is more writing about the Beatles than one could ever read. This book is not about George, the Beatle. Instead we follow the evolution of George's spiritual life and the metamorphosis of his music in kind. We tag along as he explores Eastern mysticism at a time when the West had barely heard of yoga - let alone Indian sprituality - and all anyone seemed to want from George was for him to continue to be a Beatle. His struggles with his past, his humble devotion and conviction are breathtakingly conveyed in Greene's book. Thank you Joshua for writing this book and thank you, once again, George.
	Lopsided: How having breast cancer can be really distracting. A memoir by Meredith Norton is a dear read, one of those rare books you don't want to put down. Written with brilliant humor, skill and intelligence, I honestly love this woman's thinking, which is open and exposed as she navigates a territory we hope we never know as intimately as she does. Here's one example: with a urologist father and friends in the medical field she finds herself incapable of blind faith in her doctors and goes searching for it on the internet - "Why couldn't my father have been a stockbroker and my friends professional skateboarders so I could still have the appropriate awe to feel really confident?"
	Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, is subtitled, "Stories that heal." Written in a warm and soothing style, these personal tales reconnect us with the heart that underscores all of life. And in that place of heart we thrive. Kitchen Table Wisdom is filled with powerful insights. The reader is prone to pause after many passages, allowing the words to settle and nestle near the heart. I savored this book, along with her other book, My Grandfather's Blessings. As aptly stated by Natural Health: the only problem with this book is that it ends. "Broken may be only a stage in a process. "A bud is not a broken rose. Only lifeless things are broken."
fun stuff - for the joy of it
	Fairy Flower Press is for when you notice those tiny flowers popping up in your lawn or you are inclined to pluck a dogwood bloom off the tree. This flower press salivates in anticipation of transforming your pickings into perpetual slices of beauty. Your flowers are layered in the different sections of the press and later removed for use in art projects, to paste or tape into a letter or card, to frame under glass or to place in small transparent zipped bags to give away or clip somewhere you'll see them often. I love revealing what's been cooking in my flower press. Often, I open the press having forgotten what I had put in it and I am happily delighted at the beautiful, vibrant bits of nature I have preserved. Everyone has room for more fun and joy - your flower press is a key to open up some wonder.
	Coloring Mandalas by Susanne F. Fincher is a beautiful book with page after page of glorious mandalas for us to color in. Choices range from the extremely intricate to relatively simple design. Mandalas are considered sacred and meditative in some cultures. Tibetan monks make incredibly intricate mandalas with colored sand, spending days scraping the sand in tiny bits from special implements they use. I offer this book here because coloring is a, well, colorful thing to do. The repetitive pattern of the mandala puts us in a meditative state of mind. It's all good, right? This book is spiral bound for ease of use. You can use colored pens or pencils. You can do it in bed! You can do it in your pj's. It will last you a long time so you get a lot of bang for your buck. Bravo!
	Wee Enchanted Garden Kit is for growing a teensy habitat for sweet, invisible creatures like faeries and nature spirits. I can't give a better endorsement than the words of my neice, Charlotte: "I love it a lot. Yesterday I built it and put it all together. The company was very generous. They gave us a lot of soil and beans to put together. Also there was a miniature wooden house. Shawn (my nephew) said that it was so cute that he wanted to shrink himself and live in it. I said, 'I wish that was possible.'
smarty pants - portable brain gym
	Subscribe to Mental_Floss magazine and feel smart again. This magazine claims to be "where knowledge junkies get their fix." Learn about the con man who convinced a scrap metal dealer to pay him big bucks for the Eiffel Tower and how yellow fever slowed the building of the Panama Canal. The May/June 2006 issue has articles titled Tales from the Dork Side: A Short History of Hacking and 10 Modes of Transportation that Never Got into Gear. The information is presented in short bites, so as not to overwhelm the sensitivities of people with "brain fog," and some are even labeled right or left brain so you can be sure to stay on an even keel. You can't read this and be bored or keep a straight-face and you can't possibly feel disconnected from life or stupid. It's something to look forward to in your mailbox.
soothing sounds that heal
	There's No Place Like Ohm is a sound bath of medicinal music. "Listen to the heralding of the Armenian duduk, the haunting voice of the didgeridoo, the whisper of the Native American Flute, the whale's song." A banjo plays delicious notes, but doesn't stay long. After it's come and gone a few times, I am happy to hear it, like an old freind come 'round to visit. This is so amazingly relaxing and healing and like nothing you have heard before. When I listen to this CD, I close my eyes and lose myself in sound. Just me and this beautiful sound. The didgeridoo is heavenly - my only complaint is that there isn't more of it. The crickets call me to my core. I've never felt so comfortable in my skin, so at home in this world, so aware that I am one of its creatures - I belong here. I am transported and notice that I am smiling, I want to stretch like a cat - all loungey-like (is 'loungey' a word?- it should be!). This is good medicine for you and me!
dvd's that please
	Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides is a Scottish-German documentary on the artistic work of - who else? - Andy Goldsworthy. This is so far from the realm of ordinary viewing - we really get to live in the miracle that happens when nature meets creative human genius. This film moves at a soft, relaxing pace as we are exposed to Goldworthy's increasingly stunning works of art. We meander with the artist as he creates sculptures using elements taken from nature and are awed by his sensitivity to the fragile, impermanent nature of things. His curious approach and the delightful results make us look at the nature around us in a different way - and this way of looking is as potent as any prescritption we might take to heal ourselves. Everyone should go to another country in their lifetime and everyone should see this film.
	Winged Migration is such a visually stunning film it can change any sour, bored, tired or depressed mood into one of awe as it reminds us just how miraculous life on this planet is. I saw this movie for the second time while in my dentist's chair. Honestly - all I remember from that visit is miles and miles of beautiful sky, beautiful earth, beautiful birds. The tenderness as the adult birds fed their babies led me to think, for the first time ever, of the dentist as nurturing me in a similar way by caring about my oral health. Well, maybe that's a stretch. As is true of every carefully selected product in this shopping mecca, you cannot watch this film and not feel healed, satisfied and spiritualized. A good quality of life we're after, right? This film brings it home to you and delivers big in the "I live in a miracle" department. This is meditation for the restless.
	"I now believe in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was one of many who somehow absorbed the notion that it was an imaginary illness. I am ashamed of myself.... Kim A. Snyder contracted CFS in 1995. While still battling the disease, she directed I Remember Me, a documentary which does what the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta shamefully failed to do: connects the dots." Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times An absorbing account of how lives are impacted by CFS, this film educates all of us, even if we ourselves have CFS. After making the film festival circuit - and winning many awards - it's finally available on dvd.

© 2006 Diane Kerner All materials on this site, including images, are protected by copyright law and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written consent of Diane Kerner

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