Traditional folk tales and multicultural myths can be used as powerful tools in the treatment of eating disorders because they are repositories of ancient wisdom about the human condition and because they teach the language of symbolism, imagery, and metaphor. These...
I told her the story of Persephone, the teenage goddess, who one day was in a beautiful meadow picking narcissus flowers with her mother, Demeter, and the next day found herself in the deep, dark underworld. The earth had suddenly parted on that spring day and she had...
Anita Johnston uses the art of storytelling to connect women to their innermost feelings. Here is a condensed version of one of the stories she tells along with a condensed version of her interpretation: There is an old African folktale about a girl who lived in a...
Dr. Anita Johnston here. I’m in Boulder, Colorado, at the time of the eclipse. It’s so interesting, because all the warnings are out: Don’t look directly at the sun without special glasses. We know that if you look directly at the sun you can...
In Hawaii, the eel lives in a hole in the reef in the ocean. The lobster often makes its home at the mouth of this hole. This is a great arrangement for the eel – since it has a lobster at its doorstep with an antenna pointed outward, watching for predators....
One of my favorite memories from my childhood growing up on the island of Guam was reef walking with my mother, siblings, and assorted friends. Guam is surrounded by a coral reef that is quite a distance from shore. The water is usually shallow from the shoreline all...