Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness: Transcending the Legacy of Separation in Our Individual Lives
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Do you carry within you a longing for an entirely different world?
One which is aligned with our human needs, in which we collaborate with each other and the natural world, in which scarcity, separation, and powerlessness are a thing of the past?
If so, this book will give you an extraordinary gift by serving as a blueprint for how you can become a one-person model of what life could be like.
The key to this path is to radically change your relationship with your human needs, so that you can accept, even embrace them, and use them as guides for all your actions.
Making needs central entirely reshapes how we relate to others.
Resolving conflicts, supporting each other, knowing how to love, offering each other feedback when our needs are not met, and just about every aspect of relationship take on a new light when filtered through the lens of human needs.
We shift from evaluating, judging, and the either/or way of living into an open-hearted commitment to make things work for everyone involved in any situation. This is no small task, since any social reality has mechanisms that make it resistant to change and that will continue to put pressure on each of us to adapt back into it.
This book can serve as an inspiration for staying the course of this journey, an invitation to find or recover your individual ability to choose nonviolence in the face of difficult circumstances.
By challenging some core assumptions about the nature of being human and what is possible for humanity, and by inviting you into a luminous vision of a livable future, this book invites you on a new journey, one that can profoundly alter how you live, relate, and work.
For a sample chapter of memoir, read My Mother’s Diary of Me, and for one of teaching and experience on mastering difficult emotions, read Transforming the Experience of Anger.
To grasp the wide range of topics Miki covers in this book, check out the Full Table of Contents.
Praise for Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness
(Shortened versions. View full endorsements.)
“A wonderful book that invites us to change the way we change ourselves, and thereby also the way we change the world.”
— Victor Lee Lewis, Radical Resilience Institute
“A moving account of a life’s journey that is simultaneously personal, spiritual, moral, and political. It is remarkable for its depth of revelation, its intelligence, and its honesty.”
— Neil J. Smelser, University Prof of Sociology Emeritus, UC Berkeley
“May it feed the fire of your heart as it has mine.”
— Talli Jackson, dancer, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company
“More than a personal memoir, this book describes one woman’s countercultural journey of self-awareness and interpersonal empowerment. Miki Kashtan presents an urgent challenge to connect personal growth with social justice.”
— Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary
“Miki Kashtan’s work is prophetic, passionate, precisely argued, and original. She is an authentic voice with a great deal to contribute to our urgent contemporary discussion on how to change our world. Read her.”
— Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: a Guide to Sacred Activism
“When I finished the book, I immediately started reading the book again. The book gives me hope for a future in which more needs of more people can be met more often, hope for a society in which there will be less violence and more love. It awakened enthusiasm and power in me to contribute, to explore what is possible with dialogue.”
— Lennie Stappers, a young woman in the Netherlands
“The depth of [Miki’s] humanity will inspire you as well as her ability to bridge her vision for a collaborative, nonviolent society with radical choices we can all make in our personal and professional lives.”
— Vérène Nicolas facilitates individual and organizational renewal in Scotland, Papua (Indonesia) and South Africa.
“I want everyone I know to read this book, not only to find a new path to personal freedom, but also to be inspired to step courageously and powerfully into the role of change agent.”
— Cindy Mercer, Co-Founder Planet Heritage Foundation
“Reading “Spinning Threads” provokes, and challenges me to deeply examine my stories I hold about the world — what it means to be a human living and sharing this world with everyone. After the examination, Miki offers clear, practical guide on how to move forward. Brilliant, heartful, personal, inspirational!”
— Kanya Likanasudh, compassionate communication trainer in Thailand
“Miki continues to teach us to honor our emotions and the universal human needs from which they arise as goal, process, and practice—thus aligning with our inner truth and helping us to live a life of inner freedom and service.”
— Marlene Carlos Laurendeau, LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker), Maine, USA
“Miki Kashtan is one of our most precious teachers, with a message sorely needed for healing, survival, and deeply meaningful living. The awesome thing we begin to realize is that if we all believed in ourselves and each other with as much empathy and depth as Miki Kashtan does, our world would start healing and transforming itself in short order.”
— Tom Attlee, founder, The Co-Intelligence Institute, author, The Tao of Democracy.
“This book provides information that could lead to a more whole self and society, and I recommend it to anyone who desires to create change in the world.”
— Leo Proechel, student at Warren Wilson College, North Carolina.
“This is a book that inspires hope about what is possible and provides a set of tools and concrete ideas that individuals can use to make that possibility a reality. Read it – you will not be untouched.”
— Jane Marantz Connor, Associate Professor Emerita of Human Development, State University of New York at Binghamton
“If you believe in and want to put into action Gandhi’s understanding about being the example of the change you want to see in this world, this book is a wonderful guide to start.”
— Mrs. Ozgur Gelbal, psychologist, Turkey
“This book challenges us to re-examine everything we have been conditioned to believe. It challenges us to dare to understand how the world works, how to transform ourselves and how we can play a part in shaping the world we want to live in. It gives us the blueprints to living a nonviolent life.”
— Eddie Zacapa, Domestic Violence Facilitator/Program Coordinator, The Center for Violence-Free Relationships, Placerville, CA
“This book demands courage and rewards it with passion, aliveness, and joy. It is crucial reading for love warriors.”
— Nichola Torbett, Director of Seminary of the Street
“Reading this book recharged my longing and commitment to practices that cultivate a meaningful, nonviolent and joyful existence.”
— Betty Burkes, Life-long educator and activist.
“In this provocative and visionary work, Miki Kashtan challenges the very foundations and assumptions we have inherited in our western society about the truth of human nature. This book is both radical and practical. Highly recommended for those seeking pathways toward a livable future.”
— Sarah Proechel, midwife, co-founder of Midwife International
“Guided by a compass made from the beautiful Vision implicit in our humanity, Miki’s words trailblaze an empowering image of what the interdependent human spirit is capable of. As every master teacher does, Miki shows us both the principles and the practices so we can concretely apply the teachings directly to our lives and thus liberate the gift that we all are.”
— Thomas Meli, NVC trainer/ coach and CNVC candidate
“I challenge anyone to read Spinning Threads and not be filled with hope for the future of humanity and the planet. This is a book that nourishes my soul, renews my courage and restores my hope.”
— Rev. Cathleen Cox, M.A.T., M.Div., Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
“In this book, Miki synthesizes years of work — on herself, with colleagues and with thousands of people around the world in learning settings. I celebrate that this book will serve as a powerful resource for the vital work of internal, interpersonal and social change.”
— Kit Miller, Director, MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
“This book of inspiration from Miki will be a refuge for me. Through empathy we can begin to cultivate, individually and collectively, the hope and belief that our needs can be met, hope that may well be a key foundation for creating change.”
— Shulamit Berlevtov, MA, CCC, CFP, RYT, Canadian counsellor, coach, yoga teacher, and CNVC-certified trainer living in rural Ontario.
“Hers is the bravest heart I have ever been so fortunate to encounter. This is a story I love.”
-- Merijane Block, Longtime member of the cancer community, former program manager, Breast Cancer Fund
“Filled with deeply thoughtful analysis, vibrant, illustrative personal anecdote, and concrete, specific steps each of us can implement today, Spinning the Threads of Radical Aliveness shows us the way: a new world is possible and we can achieve it!”
— Bonnie Burstein, PhD, Training Director, Life Skills Central & Building Healthy Communities Initiative, Los Angeles Community College District
