Paths to Wholeness: Selections

By David J. Bookbinder

Most of us try to be fully present to this amazing existence we were born into, and often we can be. But sometimes, we look for help. 

In these selections from Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas, psychotherapist, photographer, and near-death survivor David J. Bookbinder brings his capacity for inspiring personal transformation to his readers.

In this stunning collection of Flower Mandala images and their accompanying meditative essays and inspirational quotes, Bookbinder shows us how to find balance, build resilience, overcome fear, grant forgiveness, and love more fully.

Described by one reader as "the best self-help book I've ever read" and by another as "like having a therapist in a book," Paths to Wholeness serves as a guide for successfully traversing the hills and valleys of our existence. 

Keep it by your bedside, thumb through it as you drift off to sleep, knowing you are not alone on your journey.

TIP: For a more vivid experience of the images, try setting the background to Black.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Transformations Press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9780984699452

David J. Bookbinder

My path to wholeness began with a brush with death that altered, physically, emotionally, and intellectually, who I am. In this book, I worked hard to distill the best of what I’ve learned on the two-decade quest since then, from my career as a psychotherapist, and in the many years I have been on the planet. Most of my major shifts in perspective began in a single moment, but it has taken a lifetime to turn insights into lasting alterations of thought, feeling, and action. This process is reflected in the structure of Paths to Wholeness. The instantaneity of clicking a shutter, represented here by the Flower Mandala images, reflects the felt experience of insight. The linear flow of reading and writing, represented here by the quotations and essays, reflects the necessity of walking through time in order to fully enact new ways of being. As a therapist, I accompany my clients on the sometimes smooth, sometimes rocky journeys of their own paths to wholeness. We form a bond, and I serve as both companion and guide. They trust me because they know, as the late Leonard Cohen put it, “I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see where you’re pinned.” In this book, I hope to engender a similar sense of accompaniment. Many of the people who have most influenced me I encountered in the pages of their books or in exhibitions of their work, but as I took in their thoughts, ideas, experiences, and imaginings, my interactions with them felt like a personal relationship. Here you will find the outline of my own path to wholeness, the teachings that have guided me, and insights I’ve gained along the way. I offer them to you in the same spirit that authors and artists from the past have shared their teachings and experiences with me.

Book preview

Praise for

Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas

David Bookbinder is one of those awakened souls whose near-death experience gave him fresh and timeless eyes. He has taken that gift and poured it into Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas, using innovative photography and heartfelt reflection to surface and praise the mysteries of the inner world.

– Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening and The Endless Practice

David Bookbinder’s Flower Mandalas contain both the shock of recognition and the delight and surprise of originality. They are flowers and jewels at the same time. They will enrich anyone’s feelings about what a flower is.

– Harold Feinstein, One Hundred Flowers and The Infinite Rose

More than just an arresting coffee table book, Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas also serves as a guide for successfully traversing the hills and valleys of our existence. The photography is stunning and the short essays that accompany each image are drawn from David’s considerable life experience, spiritual and therapeutic training, and innate and accumulated wisdom.

– Lama Marut, A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life and Be Nobody

A fascinating body of work. Absolutely mesmerizing.

– Brooks Jensen, LensWork magazine and Looking at Images

Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas is itself a mandala – a symbol of wholeness. I experience David’s nurturing each time I read it, feeling his presence as a fellow traveler and seasoned counselor. He encourages our growth as we move forward in our own journeys, healing our wounds and loving more deeply.

– Lori Bailey Cunningham, The Mandala Book: Patterns of the Universe

David Bookbinder’s Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas is an invitation to join him on a journey of exploration into the deepest levels of being.

– Barry M. Panter, MD, Creativity & Madness Conferences

The words compelling, engaging, moving, and powerful only hint at the profound gifts contained in this beautifully written, authentic and unusual memoir / photography / mandala book. It is almost too rich to take it all in, in one or two sittings. Savor each essay and take time to absorb the richness of this collection.

– Joan Klagsbrun, The Focusing Institute

PATHS TO WHOLENESS

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SELECTIONS

David J. Bookbinder

TRANSFORMATIONS PRESS

Paths to Wholeness: Selections

Copyright © 2016, David J. Bookbinder

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner now known or hereafter invented without prior written permission of the author.

ISBN: 9780984699452

Contact

David J. Bookbinder

Transformations Press

85 Constitution Lane

Danvers, MA 01923

978-395-1292

[e-mail]

Websites

transformationspress.org

flowermandalas.org

davidbookbinder.com

Social media

facebook.com/groups/pathstowholeness

facebook.com/flowermandalas

instagram.com/flowermandalas

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

– Jack Kornfield

What does seeing clearly mean? It doesn’t mean that you look at something and analyze it, noting all its composite parts; no. When you see clearly, when you look at a flower and really see it, the flower sees you. It’s not that the flower has eyes, of course. It’s that the flower is no longer just a flower, and you are no longer just you.

– Maurine Stuart

A flower blossoms for its own joy.

– Oscar Wilde

Contents

Front Matter

A Note on This Edition

1. Acceptance

6. Balance

8. Change

15. Dreams