Caren Goldman has written articles on spirituality, health, psychology, religion, and the arts for many publications. During a particular harrowing period in her life when she battled cancer and others in her family faced severe hardships, she felt a call to put together this resource to help others experience the healing process. She focuses on 101 words that are rich with medicinal powers and spiritual potencies.

In a chapter on "beauty," for example, she calls it "a delightful quality associated with harmony of form or color: a quality or feature that is most effective, gratifying or telling." She adds supportive quotations by Anne Frank, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and Pierre August Renoir plus an Egyptian proverb and a line from Ecclesiastes. A story from her own experience is followed by an appropriate affirmation: "The beauty I see in the world is a reflection of the beauty hidden inside me." This format is carried throughout the book.

Check out the curative powers of laughter, hope, play, Sabbath, silence, and tears. Gather these talisman words and use them as a garland to protect you from the various dis-eases of our times. Let the affirmations lift your spirit in the presence of pain, suffering, and loss. And remember what Margiad Evans once said: "Our health is a voyage and every illness is an adventure story." With this paperback as a guide, you'll be better able to navigate that voyage.