Book Announcement: She Shape Shifts: A Healing Woman's Bond with the Animate World
Artwork for book cover by Liza Hyatt
Through practicing Natural Dreamwork, I have experienced my creative life grow both deeper and more playful. Dreams assure me that I belong within the life-energy of Creation and that this life-energy is intimately responsive to me. I have also learned that, by staying in contact with the sacred encounters that arise in dreams, I am revitalized. Old numbing layers of self-protection soften and I connect with soulfulness as innate and natural - an original and enduring aliveness that I share with the children, singers, teachers, healers, whales, cranes, snakes, trees, storms, and seas on this Earth and in my dreams.
Nourished in this way by Natural Dreamwork for the past 9 years, I have found that my other essential spiritual practice of creative writing is more able to flow with courage, depth, and playfulness. I feel the energy of dreaming buoying me along me as I write. And in my dreams, I receive encouragement and invitations to keep writing.
As a creative spirit, I agree with the wisdom of author Alice Walker, who tells us “Hard Times Require Furious Dancing.” Over the past few years, I have felt a palpable increase in the Earth-destroying and soul-crushing oppression that infects human society. I am not alone in sensing how hard these times are or in fearing where we are heading. In response, I write – furiously, boldly, enthusiastically, and abundantly – so that my lament and my love can pour out the stories, questions, and longing that needs to flow through me.
Sometimes over the past few years, friends who are struggling with today’s unsettledness, have asked me, “What are you doing to stay hopeful and strong ? And I have said, “I am listening to dreams. And I am writing poems and stories about shape-shifting women and about my bond with animals and the Earth.” This writing project has been so compelling, that it took on a life of its own, and this summer a book was born!
She Shape Shifts: A Healing Bond Woman’s Bond with the Animate World celebrates how a woman’s creative spirit grows from her connection to life itself. Alive with shapeshifting energy, this book blends memoir, nature writing, poetry, folktale, myth, doodles, paintings, and drawings in a restless fusion that honors the numinous wild feminine as it frees us to live more courageously. Tending the stories in this collection during a time of personal change provided me, as author, with an extremely revitalizing creative experience. The stories and poems in this book describe sacred encounters with animals, trees, and heroines in beloved folktales and myths. Throughout this book, I entered into dialogues with cranes, bears, vultures, oak trees, selkies, wolf-women, dryads, and goddesses. Our stories became woven together, rewilding me and bonding me more fully with the living Earth.
I invite readers within the Natural Dreamwork community and beyond to come shapeshift with me as we respond to our current era, find strength, heal, grieve, and grow.
VIRTUAL BOOK LAUNCH
August 8, 2026 1-3pm ET by Zoom
In this virtual Zoom gathering, I will share passages from my new book, She Shape Shifts. This genre-blending book explores myths and stories of shapeshifting women who align themselves with nature in order to live more freely. In this gathering, we will discuss why the shapeshifting woman archetype is so needed in our current era. I will also guide participants in a brief creative practice to explore their own bonds with the animate world and the wild feminine. Bring your favorite writing materials and art supplies. We will gather from 1-3pm ET. Zoom link is provided below.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87604202408?pwd=SGdoYTBoNzZ6bk5JaEVGK3JFRGUrZz09