Designed as a guide for inner awareness and healing, A Trail of Breadcrumbs - a Poetic Memoir of Survival, Healing and Spiritual Growth is a unique pairing of poetic memoir and a psychologist's insights.
Catherine Wilson tells her story through poetry, prose, and song lyrics with uncompromising honesty and heart. Psychologist Lyndall Johnson provides a Guide for Going Deeper through insights and questions following each of Wilson's pieces, offering guidance for the reader's own inner inquiry.
The book sheds light on many aspects of Wilson's life as the child of a mother with mental illness, as a mother and grandmother, and as a caretaker for her mother during her final years. Through the entire arc of the story, we experience Catherine's desire to live in congruence with her true self, to deepen her relationship with the sacred, and to find comfort in the refuge that nature provides.
Lyndall accompanies the reader every step of the way, offering tools they can use to illuminate the layers of these same themes and experiences in their own lives.
Catherine Wilson's creative voice has taken many forms over the past forty years. Her writing voice has appeared in published poetry, in her original one-woman shows, and in keynote presentations for conferences, retreats, and spiritual and community events. Her musical voice has rung out on stages internationally and on numerous albums and singles. Catherine's writing and artistic offerings weave through many of Aslan Institute's classes and pilgrimages, and she also leads online and in-person workshops and retreats through her organization Grounded Visions. See GroundedVisions.com for her offerings, and a link to her YouTube channel.
Lyndall Johnson, MA, LP, is the founder and president of Aslan Institute, an integrative mental health center where she practices as a licensed psychologist, specializing in transpersonal psychology. The focus of her work is to help people turn inward instead of seeking external answers for life, to learn to be in relationship with every aspect of their experience, including suffering and old trauma, integrating it all into a much broader awareness of self. Lyndall runs transpersonal groups with consciousness expert Charisse Lyons. She is also a writer, poet, artist, teacher, and pilgrimage and retreat leader, traveling widely both nationally and internationally. The evolution of consciousness on our planet is her passion and her purpose. See AslanInst.com and AslanTherapyNotes.com for her offerings.
"Catherine Wilson transmutes the wounds of a robbed childhood into song and poetry that celebrates her resilient spirit. Her accompanist in these pages is a gentle therapeutic harmony that invites deeper reflection. Read it. Sing it. Write it. Savor your time with these words." — Christina Baldwin, author of The Beekeeper's Question, Calling the Circle, and other titles
"In A Trail of Breadcrumbs we are being taken on a journey of transformation. Through her words as a poet and songwriter Catherine testifies to her personal path through the childhood nightmare of living with parental mental illness and its legacy. Lyndall tracks Catherine's every step, inviting us to look at our places of comfort and sanctuary. She invites us to look honestly at our own internalized inheritances. Through all the processes, both writers are clear that the goal is to be self-actualized as we grow into remembering and claiming the first and true identity for all of us as spiritual beings." — Gloria Karpinski, author of Barefoot on Holy Ground, and Midnight Rainbows - A Memoir
"Need an example of embracing vulnerability, telling the truth, and transforming trauma from the inside out? Look no further. A Trail of Breadcrumbs is an invaluable resource for trauma survivors and the professionals who help them. Wilson's stories, poems, and lyrics are moving, inspiring, and heart-opening. Johnson's insightful commentary prompts readers to go deeper and use the material for their own healing." — Tom Glaser, MS, psychologist and Full Heart Living author
"It's a genuine joy for me to wholeheartedly recommend A Trail of Breadcrumbs to anyone and everyone. Catherine Wilson and Lyndall Johnson are both long-term teachers and exemplars of the deep path of awakening in a human life. The potent combination of courageous vulnerability and probing, loving inquiry is a welcome companion to, and example for, all of us who are engaged in committed inner work of transformation. This book is at once an easy-to-enter-and-access invitation and an opportunity for a deep dive into the kind of self-exploration that changes individuals, families, communities, and the world. Read this book and spend lots of intentional time with it. Don't pass up this opportunity to have these two dear souls as companions on your way." — Rev. Bussho Lahn, author of Singing and Dancing is the Voice of the Law
"A Trail of Breadcrumbs is a book filled with experiences, pains, struggles, and joys. Lyndall's thoughtful and deepening questions, along with the words of Catherine's experiences are sure to deepen the reader to the experiences and poems of their own life." — Charisse Lyons, SpiritLife Consultant, teacher, writer, musician, composer, MA in Communication Sciences
