BOOK REVIEWS
Soul Medicine: A physician’s reflections on life, love, death and healing
I made it to page 28 only, having already cried about 5 times, before I decided that, as much as I wished to read it straight through, this was a book meant to be savored, very very slowly.
David Cavagnaro, photographer and author of This Living Earth, Living Water, and The Luna Moth Papers
I LOVED your book. Holy cow—-couldn’t put it down—-read it on a 5-hour flight two weekends ago! Beautiful writings made me hunger for just stopping for a moment to reflect.
Dr. Nasha Winters, ND, LAc, FABNO
“This book is an incredibly personal sharing from the ‘mental terrain’ of a natural medicine doctor and mother. Some of it is poetic, some haunting, and much of it fascinating and insightful.”
Dr. Rick Kirshner, Dealing with People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst
Dr. Judith Boice’s book “Soul Medicine” is aptly named as it touches and soothes the spirit. She writes with the heart of a philosopher and the voice of a poet. Every chapter is like a bite of a delicious meal, to be savored. Take your time and let her words nourish you.
Louise Edwards, ND, Faculty, National University of Health Sciences
Dr. Boice shares much wisdom beyond her years on this Earth. Judith writes from the heart, with clarity, passion and lyrical prose. It’s a real treat with which to read, reflect and soar. The insights Dr. Boice conveys are profoundly moving and recognizable in all the cycles of life. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to drink deeply of spirit-centered, grounded words that will deeply nourish the reader’s soul.
Dr. Beverly Yates, ND Author, Speaker, Naturopathic Physician DrBeverlyYates.com
Healing for the soul, my Judith (we worked together, fellow Physicians), creates a calm harbor in the pandemonium of daily life. She shares with us the wonderment, mystery, and awe of her vision of our earth, as well as the spirit/spiritual world that surrounds us, constantly, silently begging for recognition with signs and premonitions, and grace.
Her candle gives a lovely light as she explores her universe.
This collection of Essays, metaphorically separated into the seasons of the year, and of life, will bring you joy,
L. River, MD, FACP, Medical Oncologist, Tulsa, OK
“Judith’s book is the essence of story-telling as medicine. Each vignette evokes in us something that calls out to be healed. The reader will be carried down the stream of their own past with the assurance that they are not alone. Her vulnerable and open-hearted narrative reminds us what it is to be human and to aspire towards wholeness. I want to read it slowly…again and again.”
Dr. Yvonne Farrell, DAOM, Psycho-Emotional Pain and the Eight Extraordinary Vessels
In this honest and tender collection of reflections and stories, Dr. Boice inspires our own consideration of life’s gifts, challenges and discoveries. These essays, and the stories that they envelope, evoke emotion and contemplation, and, in so doing, are an offering of healing, hope and compassion. Soul Medicine is indeed sustenance for all those seeking to live lives with greater meaning, understanding and love.
Lise Alschuler, ND, FABNO, Co-Author, Definitive Guide to Cancer and Definitive Guide to Thriving After Cancer
Menopause with Science and Soul
STARRED REVIEW in Library Journal
On the continuum of menopause books, this title lies somewhere between Susun Weed’s New Menopausal Years and Christiane Northrup’s The Wisdom of Menopause with its blend of spirituality, holistic health, and user-friendly women’s health advice.
Defining menopause as a journey rather than a phase, or, worse yet, a crisis, naturopathic physician Boice outlines strategies to help women develop healthful habits and make informed choices that will enrich every aspect of their lives. Whether discussing phytoestrogens, hormone-replacement therapy, or nutrition, Boice maintains her spiritual focus by emphasizing transformation and including personal reflections that reveal diverse menopausal experiences. In the chapter on bone health, Boice compares the physical support provided by the skeletal system to the moral support provided by our belief systems, still succeeding in delivery an especially lucid explanation of how high-protein diets affect calcium levels. Moreover, this book has the power to motivate even the most skeptical read to meditate and practice creative visualization. Recommended for large public libraries and health collections.
Blanche Angelo, Livermore P.L., CA
I found this book on the “menopause” shelf at the library. It was the only menopause book that called me. The others were so technical, medical. This one has poetry, story, ritual, depth. EXACTLY what I need. I’m going to buy myself, my dear little ravaged self, my changing self, my aching self, my sad suffering self…a little copy of this book.
Sara Bryan
Your book gave me so much practical and spiritual understanding … so much gained from hearing other women’s experiences. I now feel affirmed, with a much better understanding and appreciation for the process I am going through and a much deeper acceptance of myself. Several books I read on the subject covered possibly physical symptoms and possible cures …and a few touched on changing emotions and lifestyle…but overall they were generally depressing.
I didn’t realize how hungry I was to hear about this in a positive, enlightening way and to hear the experiences of other women. We are so isolated when it comes to women’s personal, yet universal passages through life in this culture. I loved that you included stories from women of different cultures and spiritual paths! And I loved the way that the stories were woven into the ways we can take care of ourselves, and the value we still have. Somehow your book made me FEEL valuable…not just the buzz words that say we are now “wise crones,” and that that has value. Being a “crone” isn’t at the top of the list for me in terms of how I want to see myself! So again, Thank you!
Ami Linden
At One with All Life May 12, 2004 (this book was published in 1990)
Dear Judith, This is Regina from Germany.Last summer, during my first trip to the States after 17 years, I found your book, “At One With All Life” and bought it. It’s been on my shelves since then. This week I’m not feeling well, stayed in bed a bit and got your book out of the shelves. Fascinating. It doesn’t seem like a book, it is more like the personal sharing of a close friend. It must all seem very long ago to you now. I just had to check a search engine for your name this morning and was delighted to find that you “still exist,” that obviously, yes, you’ve fulfilled the professional career you’d considered back then…
I had been interested in intentional communities myself quite a bit and visited some of them in the Eighties (Findhorn, Camphill, l’Arche, Innisfree, Taize). I got pregnant in 1988, my first child was born just when your book was published. At that time, my now husband still lived in a religious (ecumenical) community, which he left then to join me and the baby. We have four children now.
And, though they say that everyday life and chores is supposed to be the best teacher, I have discovered (especially since turning forty last year) that so many “sides of me” have been half-dead these past 14 years and I’m on my way of living more in touch with “what’s deep inside me” once again.
Why am I writing all of this? You probably have a busy life even without reading total strangers’ long e-mails!
It’s just this sense of closeness, of deep connection, that I’ve been feeling these days while reading your notes from 20 years ago . . . so, though I’m a stranger to you, I can’t feel you’re a stranger to me, at least not the Judith you were when writing this book.
I hope life has been treating you well. You’re a very observant and intelligent and committed person and on your way must have been an inspiration to many.
Love and very best wishes from Germany, Regina
The Green Medicine Chest® Training
I had to write you immediately after I finished taking your course, “The Green Medicine Chest.” What an amazing education you deliver in just two DVDs! This is by far the best source I have found for understanding how to apply natural medicine in my daily life.
Thank you for further awakening my own natural healer and for teaching me how to respond to a wide range of illnesses and injuries by using “green” medicine.
Kathleen Luiten, Medical Intuitive and Healer, Kauai, Hawaii
The experience is just what I wanted…an opportunity to learn from a master who has years of clinical training under her belt and a wide range of life experiences that bring deep meaning to her knowledge. I am so grateful for this opportunity to awaken knowledge that will make a significant contribution to my life and the communities I serve.
Tina Beneman, Practitioner Resonance Repatterning®, Baltimore, MD
The Green Medicine Chest: Healthy Treasures for the Whole Family
I’ve started reading your book and it’s so intelligent and so profound. I want to read it just for the corroboration it brings in terms of my own intuitive path of health and health. It’s just SO SENSIBLE, like yourself. Wildly innovative, radical and absolutely sensible.
Vicki Noble, author of Motherpeace Tarot, Shakti Woman, The Double Goddess and more)
“But My Doctor Never Told Me That!”: Secrets for Creating Lifelong Health
Through a great love of life, which shines on every page, you motivate the reader to seek healthy functioning, to honor this marvelous body we have, to experience actually feeling good! And to support health rather than “fight” disease/trauma. Both for ourselves and for our amazing planet.
Lively, clear, easy to understand and relate to. You are not “on a pedestal, looking down.” You are on eye level. Above all you empower the reader to take responsibility for her own health and life.
Elizabeth Robinson, Springfield, Oregon
Mother Earth: Through the eyes of women photographers and writers (now out of print) 1992; 2002 (10th anniversary edition)
I finished a slow and lovely reading of Mother Earth last night and went to sleep smiling. What a beautiful job of choosing quotes and what marvelous pictures – but the result is still more than the sum of the parts…Your belief in beauty shines through your face as well as your words. If we could bottle and dispense that mein, we could cure the world of most of its ills. You make beauty where you walk.
Ann Zwinger, naturalist and author of Run, River, Run and Land Above the Tree
