No Endings Only Beginnings

Dr. Bernie Siegel--revered thought-leader, retired surgeon, and prolific author--offers meaningful life-lessons inspired by the significant quotes pulled from his notebooks. "Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet." - Ralph Waldo Emerson We have all come across a sentence in a book or a line of poetry that seems to jump off the page as if it has been patiently waiting for you to discover it in this precise instant. At times, the lyrics of a song or words spoken in a play can feel as if God is speaking directly to you, guiding you on your quest for truth and authenticity in this weird and wonderful life. From the words of great thinkers and quiet moments with God, to snippets of conversation with patients, and moments shared with his late-wife, Bobbie, Dr. Bernie Siegel has curated his most meaningful stories, lessons, and quotes from a lifetime of journals in No Endings, Only Beginnings. With this book, he encourages you not just to learn from his advice and experience, but to create your own book of collected wisdom-your life manual for growing, loving, and healing-as you continue to shape your personal understanding of the answers to life's big questions.

Dr. Bernie Siegel--revered thought-leader, retired surgeon, and prolific author--offers meaningful life-lessons inspired by the significant quotes pulled from his notebooks. "Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet." - Ralph Waldo Emerson We have all come across a sentence in a book or a line of poetry that seems to jump off the page as if it has been patiently waiting for you to discover it in this precise instant. At times, the lyrics of a song or words spoken in a play can feel as if God is speaking directly to you, guiding you on your quest for truth and authenticity in this weird and wonderful life. From the words of great thinkers and quiet moments with God, to snippets of conversation with patients, and moments shared with his late-wife, Bobbie, Dr. Bernie Siegel has curated his most meaningful stories, lessons, and quotes from a lifetime of journals in No Endings, Only Beginnings. With this book, he encourages you not just to learn from his advice and experience, but to create your own book of collected wisdom-your life manual for growing, loving, and healing-as you continue to shape your personal understanding of the answers to life's big questions.

In 1979, Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, a successful surgeon, took a class from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross that focused on crayon drawing for healing, especially with patients facing life-threatening disease. Siegel incorporated into his practice these techniques — many of which were laughed at by others in the medical community. But his Exceptional Cancer Patients “carefrontation” protocol facilitated healings, often deemed miraculous, and attracted attention. “Dr. Bernie” discovered and shared the fact that while patients might need antibiotics, surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, their bodies also want to heal. He found that this innate propensity could be aided by unconventional practices, including drawing. Why? Drawing produces symbols often representing the subconscious. Siegel shows how to interpret drawings to help with everything from understanding why we are sick to making treatment decisions and communicating with loved ones. All those facing ill health, and those caring for them, personally and professionally, will welcome the hands-on, patient-proven practices offered here.

"When Redi Tlhabi is eleven years old, two years after her father's death, she meets the handsome, charming and smooth, Mabegzo. A rumoured gangster, murderer and rapist, he is a veritable 'jack roller' of the neighbourhood. Against her family's wishes, she develops a strong connection to him. Tlhabi herself doesn't understand why she is drawn to Mabegzo and why, at eleven, she feels a brokenness that only Mabegzo can fix. 'Endings & Beginnings' is Tlhabi's emotional journey back into her past to finally humanise this man whose hollowness mirrored her own and who was hated and abhorred by so many when he was alive. Through interviews and deep emotional conversations with his family, friends and those who knew him, Redi finally gets to fit together the pieces of the puzzle that was Mabegzo. Her revelations do not in any way excuse who and what he was, but they go a long way in shedding light on the scourge that is violence in our societies and why young black men are consumed by anger." -- Back cover.

Explains life and death for all living things with illustrations about plants, animals and people.

"I remember the day I lost my spirit." So begins the story of Gertrude Simmons, also known as Zitkala-Ša, which means Red Bird. Born in 1876 on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota, Zitkala-Ša willingly left her home at age eight to go to a boarding school in Indiana. But she soon found herself caught between two worlds—white and Native American. At school she missed her mother and her traditional life, but Zitkala-Ša found joy in music classes. "My wounded spirit soared like a bird as I practiced the piano and violin," she wrote. Her talent grew, and when she graduated, she became a music teacher, composer, and performer. Zitkala-Ša found she could also "sing" to help her people by writing stories and giving speeches. As an adult, she worked as an activist for Native American rights, seeking to build a bridge between cultures. The coauthors tell Zitkala-Ša’s life by weaving together pieces from her own stories. The artist's acrylic illustrations and collages of photos and primary source documents round out the vivid portrait of Zitkala-Ša, a frightened child whose spirit "would rise again, stronger and wiser for the wounds it had suffered."

"Offers mystery, adventure, and fantasy, as well as reflections on family, time travel, and stories. . . . Many readers will find something here to their liking." – Booklist Oscar Martin was fourteen when he mysteriously disappeared from his Iowa farmhouse in 1914. His sister claimed Oscar had rowed out to sea – but how was that possible? Nearly a century later, when Lucy Martin moves with her parents to that same Iowa farmhouse, she discovers the strange and dangerous Book of Story Beginnings, and soon Oscar himself reappears in a bizarre turn of events that sends the two distant relatives on a perilous journey. From a first-time author comes an intricate, spellbinding fantasy that lures you in and won’t let go.

Heartwarming and Heart-Opening Stories Gathered from Decades of Medical Practice Bernie Siegel first wrote about miracles when he was a practicing surgeon and founded Exceptional Cancer Patients, a groundbreaking synthesis of group, individual, dream, and art therapy that provided patients with a “carefrontation.” Compiled during his more than thirty years of practice, speaking, and teaching, the stories in these pages are riveting, warm, and belief expanding. Their subjects include a girl whose baby brother helped her overcome anorexia, a woman whose cancer helped her heal by teaching her to stand up for herself, and a family that was saved from a burning house by bats. Without diminishing the reality of pain and hardship, the stories show real people turning crisis into blessing by responding to adversity in ways that empower and heal. They demonstrate what we are capable of and show us that we can achieve miracles as we confront life’s difficulties.