MEDITATION SECRETS FOR WOMEN
Discovering
Your Passion, Pleasure, and Inner Peace
by Camille Maurine & Lorin Roche, Ph.D.
HarperSanFrancisco,
2001. ISBN: 0062516973
EDITORIAL REVIEWS
Publishers Weekly -
*starred* review (rare)
"This
is an excellent, empowering resource for novices, as well
as for those who have spent a lifetime
meditating."
"In this powerful book, the husband-wife team of Maurine
and Roche explore the particular needs women have in
meditation. They point out that most ancient meditation
texts were meant for cloistered male monks living a
celibate life, with meditation techniques used to
"eradicate passion, emotion, and sexuality." Maurine and
Roche find that women require precisely the opposite
approach: an ability to use meditation to embrace their
psyches including passion, emotion and sexuality. Maurine
(who comes from an eclectic background of Transcendental
Meditation, Zen, esoteric yoga, dance and Tibetan Buddhism)
and Roche (who teaches Himalayan meditation and is the
author of Meditation Made Easy) employ the various
components of their backgrounds to argue that women should
custom-tailor their meditation practice to suit their
individual needs and circumstances. With tips, exercises,
meditations, reflections and other women's stories, Maurine
and Roche share enthusiastically and thoroughly what they
have found works for women, leaving the dry legalisms
behind. If one's mind rambles, they say, that's all right,
flow with it and turn it into meditation. If one is nursing
a baby, she should become a nursing meditator. The book
conveys a strong sense that both Maurine and Roche delight
in women and their gifts. This is an excellent, empowering
resource for novices, as well as for those who have spent a
lifetime meditating." (Publishers Weekly,
February 2001. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business
Information.)
Library
Journal
"...Broadly
appealing yet never condescending or less than
intelligent."
"Husband and wife...Maurine and Roche have written a
commodious, busy, entertaining book on meditation for
women. They use advice, examples, exercises, and
life-stories to show women how to relax and then reclaim
their power. Peppered with interesting ideas and filled
with tempting section headings such as "Hecate's Knife" or
"The Right to Swoon," this is broadly appealing yet never
condescending or less than intelligent. It should appeal to
many women readers. Highly recommended."
(Copyright
2001 Reed Business Information,
Inc.)
Amazon.com
"...A
nurturing book, filled with acceptance, warmth, and
encouragement."
"The field of meditation has been not just a man's world
but a monk's world," write Camille Maurine and Lorin Roche,
Ph.D., who assert that the techniques that worked for
"reclusive and celibate males" need updating for
contemporary women. In Meditation Secrets for Women, they
introduce a refreshingly modern, female-oriented approach
to meditation that encourages 'luxuriating in the sensory
world, resting in the simplicity of your own being,
enjoying yourself shamelessly."
Meditation fills a need that women crave: to carve out time
for themselves "to rest, to restore, to settle in." Rather
than impose rules and strict discipline, however, the
authors encourage women to rejuvenate themselves, open up,
and affirm their "womanness" through meditation.
Meditation Secrets for Women presents 12 "secrets" in 12
chapters. Each secret is a theme, such as "celebrate your
senses," "claim your inner authority," "ride your rhythms,"
or "love your body." Each chapter starts with a poem and
includes explorations (questions for you to ponder), skill
circle (practical tips for skill building), meditations,
and reflections. This is a nurturing book, filled with
acceptance, warmth, and encouragement. If you've tried to
meditate but found it too restrictive, dull, or difficult,
this book will give you a different, distinctly womanly,
approach.
The authors are a married couple who have been teaching
meditation to women for 50 combined years. Maurine is also
a dancer and healing practitioner. Roche is the author of
Meditation Made Easy. --Joan
Price
More Praise for
MEDITATION SECRETS FOR WOMEN:
"I
first learned to meditate when I was 20. I sat with my
mantra for 20 minutes, twice a day, for seven years. During
my ob/gyn residency, I had to stop. My rigid approach no
longer worked. Unbeknownst to me, I had discovered one of
the meditation secrets so beautifully described in this
book: Women's mediation insights and needs are often very
different from the traditional methods used for centuries
by men in monasteries; though our need to connect with the
Divine is as strong as a man's, we need not deny our bodies
and instincts to do so. Meditation Secrets for Women
teaches you how to meditate with full access to the
emotions and body wisdom that are also a part of the
Divine." -
Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies,
Women's Wisdom
"Thanks for giving me the opportunity
to praise such a fine work! Your book is wise and
wonderful. Its perspective integrates matter and nature and
all the sensuosity and simplicity into their rightful
places in an individualized, balanced, meditative practice.
It is revolutionary--returning the whole human being to the
joy, restorative serenity, and embodied, psychological and
spiritual expansiveness that you beautifully show us can be
within the reach of women. And men, too. Unlike many
meditative sourcebooks, this book deals well with
psychological and physical issues that can stress daily
life, and unlike many psych texts, it shows the reader ways
to accept and work with "problems" to enhance and ripen
spiritual practice." -
Sylvia Perera, author of Descent to the Goddess
"How refreshing! A sensible
meditation guide that honors and enhances our natural way
of being. Bound to be sacrilege in some circles, the
information herein is a welcome change from the anti-matter
nihilism of many spiritual systems."
-
Anodea Judith, PhD, author of Eastern Body, Western Mind
and Wheels of Life,
www.sacredcenters.com
"In reading this provocative book
we can almost hear the relieved sigh of the many-armed
goddess as these talented authors bring embodied
meditation into the 21st Century. At last!"
-
Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum
"Camille's
writings encourage us to welcome all aspects of our
experience as an embrace of life. Her various songs of
"yes" open portals into a deep field of
acceptance." - Susan Harper,
Continuum Montage
"This
is a book I am using and can recommend. The authors
systematically and poetically enable women to go beyond
constricted attitudes toward meditation practices in order
to discover their own sensuous, intuitive and passionate
relationship to meditation as a life support
system." -
Mary
Dougherty, President, C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago
You can buy the book
now from
(click on icon)
MORE REVIEWS
“I would just
like you to know that your book has made a wonderful
difference in my life…Between being a busy wife,
mother and owner of a flourishing graphic design business,
I have found time to reclaim myself. Meditation has made a
tremendous difference and it is now something I really look
forward to when life challenges me… I relate to all
that you say and use your meditations religiously. I never
leave home without your book. It goes everywhere with me.
Thank you for writing this for all women.”
– Ainslie in British
Columbia
An
encyclopedia for a woman's sovereignty. Reviewer: Pamela
Preston from France:
'Meditation
Secrets for Women' transcends the popular genre of
self-help and how-to books to an unprecedented approach of
wisdom applicable to the woman of the 21st century. This
book is an encyclopedia of solutions that a woman can refer
to. Here she will find her own passion, pleasure, and inner
peace. This is a revolutionary concept in an age of quickly
accelerating technology that pulls the woman away from her
source of being - namely the body. Camille guides us to our
inner sanctuaries through her lifetime experience of
bodywork, indepth psychology, and the dance. Through her
gentle voice, she assures us we shall find our sacred
gifts. Through meditation and movement techniques, to the
identifiable stories of other women, to her own personal
meditations and prayers; not to say a distilled overview of
spiritual teaching from East to West and back again, this
most wonderful book points the way for a woman to 'claim
her inner authority.' This is precisely what the woman of
today needs to do. This book is a first and a last resource
of meditation for the woman of the 21st century. In
Camille's words: 'Amazing. The power floods back into my
body. Like a transfusion of my own blood. This is my body.
This is my life. Oh. I see....No one else can give me
power. And no one can take it away. Nobody else knows what
I should do or be. Someday I will simply rest in this
truth. Someday all women will remember their sovereignty...
Now there's a prayer.' And there's a
book.
A wonderful tool for evalution! Reviewer: Tally from
Providenciales, T&C Islands, BWI:
A saying I have
always found a good reminder, is: "If you keep doing what
you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always
got" If we are to evolve as a species, making valuable and
powerful changes in the way we function is certainly
something to look into as we find our best and authentic
selves. Meditation Secrets for Woman is not only one of
those tools for valuable and powerful change, it is itself
a unique and authentic creation of the authors. No where
else have I ever read such "new thinking" re meditation and
self growth. Thank you Camille and Lorin. Get this book, do
not pass up on the chance at, and do not deprive yourself
of, this new paradigm of experience!
It's about time. Reviewer: A reader from Santa
Barbara:
I always sensed something was off as I explored and
practiced a multitude of meditation techniques. I felt I
was being asked to cut off a huge part of my zest, passion,
and basic instincts. I never could identify what was
wrong...was it me? At last a book that speaks directly to
the heart of the beast---I am a woman meditating in a man's
sensibility. Yes there is a difference between our basic
energetics and how delighted and relieved I am to discover
there are a set of very female ways to enter into the flow
of meditative peace and truth. I know the apparent
distinctions between male/female is not ultimately the
answer...inclusivity is love and all that...but as we
practice in daily real life yin/yang defines the world of
duality and so THANK YOU CAMILLE AND LORIN for allowing me
to enter the realm of the sacred via my present form...as
woman. No more cutting off my nose to spite my face. Hooray
for the celebration of the me-ness juiciness that will lead
me into the wholeness of meditative bliss and joy!
Speaks to my Heart!
Reviewer: Sally C. Smith from Wales, Ma United States:
I love this
book. It really speaks to my heart. I like the picture on
the cover too. I smile when I look at her form. It says,
I'm not a man! This book is so rich that I can dip into it
at anytime and get something I need. I took the books that
made me feel bad to the goodwill. It has a different
message than women usually get in this culture. I need all
the help I can get when it comes to accepting and
cherishing myself as I am. What is in this book I have not
found anywhere else. It is helping me get to know myself.
Nitty Gritty Fun and
Wisdom. Reviewer: yogabaca:
Being a
meditator since the age of 13, you'd think I'd been there
and done all of that, yet the authors Maurine and Roche
still managed to offer page after page of sweet surprises.
They give ways to navigate through every wild urge, desire,
mood, thought habits, negativity, restlessness, and make it
a fun adventure, so that you can actually be at peace with
the way you are in the moment. Their approach(es)is indeed
a roadmap to passion, pleasure and inner peace, just as the
title suggests.
I
feel relief in the way they encourage the reader to embrace
the full spectrum of their humanity, rather than denying,
suppressing, or pushing away our very common quirks. With
their ideas I am able to see the humor and feel compassion
for myself.
I keep their book bedside, like a bible, and open randomly
to try out some of their ideas for a day or a week. It is
written with an extraordinary combination of poetry,
intellect, and with a nitty gritty earthiness making it
very practical. As a woman meditator the ideas in this book
spark facets that most "meditation techniques" left
dormant,if not dulled. This book is for any one who wants
to flourish in their aliveness, men included. I offer my
heartfelt thanks to these authors, who so courageously
share techniques "contrary to popular meditation beliefs"
and bring us back to our senses.
BEAUTIFUL AND UNIQUE.
Reviewer: Andy Todes from Philadelphia, PA United States:
Some books are
so brilliant you could easily give 100 reasons why you love
them, and how they've improved, enriched, and deepened your
life. So here, then, without much headscratching are my top
10 reasons for loving "Meditation Secrets for Women" with
all my heart:
1. "Meditation Secrets for Women" is supremely easy
reading. Its 292 pages (much meatier - and juicier! - than
most meditation books) fly. Now this may not be important
to some people, but, heck, who wants to battle through a
dry, arid wasteland of intellectual ramblings? Fortunately,
you'll find no such thing here. The writing is by turns
funny, serious, sensuous, electrifying, and poetic, but
never less than wise.
2. "Meditation Secrets for Women" is carefully broken down
into 12 easily digestible chapters, with each chapter
covering exactly one secret.
3. Secret. That's the key word. "Are they really
'secrets'," you may wonder, "or is this just some hokey
scam to get me to fork over my hard-earned dough?" No,
they're secrets, all right. Not the kind of hush-hush
secrets that have been passed down from master to pupil for
thousands of years (far from it, in fact, as you will soon
see), but the kinds of secrets that have been denied women
too long.
4. You see the sad fact is that many contemporary women
(and men!) have been taught meditation techniques designed
for monks over a thousand years ago. And as the authors
quite rightly point out, these techniques aren't just plain
irrelevant to life in the 21st century, they're highly
dangerous as well. If you've ever tried meditating to "kill
your ego," "block your desires," "blunt your instincts," or
"purge your mind of all thoughts," (to name just a few
toxic objectives) you know how devitalizing and
dehumanizing this type of meditation can be.
5. I'm delighted to say the authors Camille Maurine and
Lorin Roche espouse a completely different kind of
meditation. At last, here is approach full of love, joy,
spontaneity, movement, sensuality, sexuality, daring,
honesty, tenderness, instinct, passion, pleasure,
adventure, and - last but certainly not least - FUN! I know
this for a fact because I have been meditating under
Lorin's tutelage for over a year, ever since reading his
truly wonderful, "Meditation Made Easy," a beautiful and
indispensible companion to "Secrets."
6. "Meditation Secrets for Women" provides not just one or
two or even three meditations, but quite literally dozens,
so you can pick and choose what suits your mood or
temperament at any given time. I happen to stick to my
favorite "Do Nothing" meditation, but occasionally switch
to some other technique (or make up my own, which the
authors heartily encourage) if the mood calls for it. And
naturally all the meditations in the book are based on the
same simple premise: meditation is fun and natural.
7. Also provided is a superb reference list (organized by
chapter) for those who wish to delve even deeper into
special areas of interest. Plus there's an invaluable
listing of musical recommendations.
8. "Meditation Secrets for Women" is IDEAL for women AND
men, beginners AND advanced meditators. There really is
something here for everyone. And like all classic books
(and this book will become a classic) it grows with you.
Meaning, the more you explore your meditation, the more
jewels the book reveals. A small aside: As a teenager I was
poisoned by a couple of meditation books still available on
the shelves today. Among many of their deflating techniques
was this godawful drudgery: staring at an object for long
periods of time while trying to banish all thoughts from
your head. Try it. I guarantee you'll make yourself
miserable!
9. So if you get just one thing out of this book it's that
thoughts are good! Your brain, your body, your desires,
your instincts, your universe, and yes, even your fears are
good. "Meditation Secrets for Women" will give you the
tools to observe these things from a position of great
safety and serenity so that you can learn from them and
experience more joy and peace and beauty and insight than
you imagined possible. So that life itself can become your
greatest teacher, and that you yourself can become the
blazer of your own wonderful trails.
10. If you read this book today, chances are you'll be
happily meditating a year from now and loving it. What else
can you ask for?
The Female Voice
Proclaims her Presence, February 13, 2001 Reviewer: A
reader from Santa Monica, CA United States:
Finally, a
thoughtful and illuminating look at the female psyche and
her need to use meditation as a tool to explore our
sensitivities, creativity and sensuality. Meditation has
been taught for centuries as an ascetic, rigorous
discipline by a spiritual patriarchy uninformed about and
often alienated from female passions. This book expands the
horizons of meditation to allow women to adapt it to their
contemporary needs, emotions and lifestyles. It is a well
researched and poetic guide that revels in the female
spirit and soul. Women will use these secrets to find
sustenance instead of denial in the practice of meditation.
Click here for more
about "MEDITATION SECRETS FOR WOMEN" workshops with
Camille
You can buy
the book now from
(click on icon)