Preface
For twenty years I rummaged around bookstores expecting to unearth an international new age directory. As I left empty-handed, I always wondered why no one had compiled such a book.
Spiritual networking is the path of my heart and I readily confess that I am addicted to collecting directories, magazines and newsletters from around the world. The closest I ever came to finding the directory I yearned for was in 1981 when I discovered A Pilgrim's Guide to Planet Earth, a useful directory of spiritual communities grouped by countries. But I hungered for a book with more categories to satisfy my eclectic appetite.When I meditated, I often asked what direction my spiritual work would take next. As often happens with Divine Guidance, I can look back now and see that the answers I got clearly led me to create the New Age Directory of Planet Earth. However, the path I chose to get to this moment took fifteen years and required countless baby steps. In a self-created maze, I took many false turns. Each time I completed a spiritual networking project I presumed I had satisfied the directive of my Higher Self to create a spiritual publication to help bring people together. But ultimately, the voice always urged me on, gently reminding me that my mission was not fulfilled.
After publishing a new age newspaper for a year (New Age Gainesville) and getting my first book published by a real publisher (Metaphysical Florida: A Spiritual Traveler's Directory, Pineapple Press, 1991), I arrogantly proclaimed that my "assignment" was finally done. The discerning voice of my inner guidance disagreed. I discovered that the reason I couldn't locate the international directory that eluded me for two decades was that I needed to learn not to wait for someone to do something but to do it myself! I feebly resisted, knowing full well that when I ask for guidance, I had better listen to the answer. I grumbled awhile (You want me to do WHAT?) then surrendered and went to work on the New Age Directory of Planet Earth. The enormity of the task was challenging and exhilarating and not at all overwhelming as one might think. I became a hermit, focused like a laser beam for years--my friends patiently waiting for me to surface again.
This book is a frozen moment in time, a snapshot of a subculture, once esoteric, now embraced more and more by the mainstream as it emerges into the light. The day it is released, it will be outdated, like any other directory or phone book. This is how things were on Planet Earth in 1997. My fantasy is that it could become a collector's item, like the original Whole Earth Catalog which still occupies a treasured spot in my bookcase. Maybe it will find its way into a time capsule to be opened in fifty years by people who will be shocked that there was ever a time when people needed a book like this at all, people living in a peaceful future-world of cooperation and love where the interrelatedness of the body, mind and spirit is a given.
My wish is that this book will encourage you to try new ways of connecting with the Great Spirit within you. May you find your peace as you realize that this movement toward holism and loving one another is a planetary phenomenon, unfolding all over our beautiful Earth-home simultaneously as we finally enter the longed-for Age of Aquarius.
At last, four years after beginning this adventure, I witness myself completing the one-of-a-kind sourcebook that I have searched for forever. Today, from that place where you and I are One, I offer this book to you with all of the love with which it was created. I thank All-That-Is for the inspiration and guidance.
Loving you in the Light
Patti Normandy Greenwood
What This Book Is About
This directory is a snapshot of an extraordinary movement on Planet Earth recorded at a most auspicious time in humankind's history.
As we approach the millennium, the days are filled with anticipation and wonder, pregnant with the probability that the prophesy of a new era of cooperation and love is indeed manifesting right before our eyes.Part of the wonder for me is humbly witnessing the move toward holism everywhere I turn. When letters started coming from Croatia and Cuba, from Nairobi and Namibia, asking me to include their organization, I got the clear message that this is a global movement. In the seventies, many of us shared a collective dream of a new age of expanded consciousness. Today our vision is materializing in a much more integrated form than many of us imagined. It is exhilarating to have been co-creators of this divine new reality.
Today we are one with like-minded people inside and outside of the mainstream, as we explore new alternatives for the health of our bodies, our minds and our spirits. This directory is a map to help you discover these holistic hidden treasures in cities all over the world as well as the fellow travelers who offer us their services and products. I hope it responds to the need to find the wholeness in our lives which is our natural state of being, that of perfect balance and integration of our total being.
The words we use to define our explorations keep changing. The term "holism" is more acceptable today than the charged expression "new age." It's easier to understand the meaning of wholeness, while New Age resists definition because it is constantly changing, continually being created as it expands to embrace the cooperative networks that form to facilitate the shifting paradigms as our consciousness changes.
This directory is just a beginning, a sample of what is available out there. It does not presume to encompass all the organizations and groups who offer holistic services or products. It barely hints at possibilities with the hope and expectation that one contact will lead to another. New groups of people blend into the holistic community every day while others add new talents and skills to the services they offer as they change and grow.
This directory includes more than 7000 entries in 128 countries from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. It covers around 300 categories of holistic, spiritual, metaphysical, new age and environmental groups, services and products you won't find in the Yellow Pages. In the printed version, Chapter 2 explains how easy it is to use. That's where you will find lists of all the categories in the book and all the nations that are represented by entries.
Chapter 4, Internet Resources, touches on how to use the Internet to find what you want. If only it had blossomed before I began! Holistic, metaphysical and spiritual websites flourish on the World Wide Web. They also constantly change addresses, so rather than chance giving you an outdated address, I have given you addresses of Search Engines, those powerful tools that help you find anything, anywhere.
Chapter 5, Using Other Resources, suggests some other ways to quickly find what you are looking for when you arrive in a strange city. I've found lots of good restaurants this way and met the local people.
The Afterword was added at the last minute, almost tongue-in-cheek, because so many people call me to ask for help in making decisions about their life's work. It oversimplifies the process that works for me.
The paperback directory is a book of organizations, businesses, schools and other large groups rather than individual practitioners. To include that wealth of information would require an encyclopedia. For one fleeting moment I thought, "Hmm, a new age encyclopedia. Why not?" - but I quickly came to my senses and hope someone else will choose that project. The New Age Dictionary and Suggested Reading List are excerpted from Wholistic Gainesville, a local directory I published in Gainesville, Florida, where I have lived for 40 years.
Please understand that inclusion in this directory does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement for any particular organization, modality, or product. Nor is this book intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. I encourage you to consult a physician when there are symptoms that may require diagnosis and treatment. And most of all, I hope you will trust your inner guidance to take you to the next step of your own unique journey.
How to Use This Directory
Welcome to the first international body-mind-spirit sourcebook, a guide to alternatives you won't find in the yellow pages. The two-volume paperback book is intentionally organized geographically, making it the only directory of its kind in the world today. Other outstanding holistic guides are available with their information sorted by categories. My home office overflows with them and I treasure each one. But when I travel, or when I am just curious about what's happening somewhere, I want the instant gratification of looking up the country or city to see what's happening there. If you do, too, this directory is for you.
The directory is arranged alphabetically by countries. Volume One includes every country except the USA, and Volume Two is only the USA. First you find the country you are interested in, then go to the city. Next you look for the categories you want. Within each category the entries are alphabetical. (A few countries are further subdivided by state or province, such as Australia, Canada, England and the United States. In those cases, you will find the country, then the state or province and then the city, category and listing.)For example, you might wonder if there is a massage school in Gainesville, Florida, USA. You would turn to the United States of America, then Florida, then Gainesville, and finally "Massage Schools" to find out which schools are located there. If you were looking for Friends of the Earth in Copenhagen, you would first go to Denmark, then Copenhagen, then the category "Environmental" and there you would find Friends of the Earth.
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