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WORK TITLE: A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Wisdom, and Courage
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.springwasham.com/
CITY: Oakland
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
http://www.springwasham.com/blog/; Call (510) 891-1609
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Has studied under numerous spiritual teachers, including Jack Kornfield.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Spiritual teacher and writer. East Bay Meditation Center, Oakland, CA, founding member and core teacher; Lotus Vine Journeys (travel organization), founder; Communities Rising (nonprofit organization), cofounder. Member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center Teachers Council.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to publications and websites, including Tricycle, Lions Roar, and Belief.net.
SIDELIGHTS
Spring Washam is a spiritual teacher and writer, who holds workshops, retreats, and classes for students around the world. She is one of the founders of Oakland, CA’s East Bay Meditation Center. Washam also teaches at the center. She founded a travel organization called Lotus Vine Journeys, through which she takes clients on trips to Peru. On these trips, travelers experience indigenous spiritual ceremonies, including ayahuasca rituals. Organizers of the trips also include Buddhist teachings in the itinerary. Washam is affiliated with the Spirit Rock Meditation Center and serves on the organization’s teacher’s council. She helped to found Communities Rizing, an organization aiming to bring programs that offer meditation and yoga teacher training in communities of color. Washam has studied Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness-based healing practices for over two decades. She has taken courses in two types of Buddhism, Tibetan and Theravada. Among her teachers is Jack Kornfield. In addition to teaching meditation and spiritual practices, Washam is a practitioner of shamanism and other indigenous healing methods. She has written articles that have appeared in publications, including Tricycle, Lions Roar, and Belief.net, and she has been a guest on numerous radio shows and podcasts.
In 2017, Washam released her first book, A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Wisdom, and Courage in Any Moment. She uses stories from her own life and from Buddhist texts to illustrate who readers can obtain a fierce heart. Washam explains that she had a difficult childhood. As a person with African American and white heritage, she had trouble finding her place in the world. Washam had conflicts with members of her family and decided to move out of her home when she was just fifteen years old. She endured violence and saw other people being harmed. Finally, she discovered meditation, which helped her to develop compassion for others and to cultivate peace. Washam recalls key parts of her spiritual journey, including attending solitary retreats, traveling to India to experience the tradition of prostration under the Bodhi tree, and traveling to Peru to study under shamans. Her experiences helped her to discover her inner strength and to recognize the goodness in herself and all others. Washam includes Buddhist teachings and shamanic teachings in the book.
A critic in Publishers Weekly offered a favorable assessment of A Fierce Heart. The critic noted that Washam wrote with “energy and passion.” The same critic concluded: “Washam brings considerable gifts for conveying her vision of personal change and offers vivid, inspiring testimony.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, September 11, 2017, review of A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Wisdom, and Courage in Any Moment, p. 60.
ONLINE
Spring Washam Website, http://www.springwasham.com (May 8, 2018).
Spring Washam is a well-known meditation and dharma teacher based in Oakland, California. She is a founding member and core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center located in downtown Oakland. She is the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys an organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom. She was trained by Jack Kornfield and has studied numerous meditation practices and Buddhist philosophy since 1997. She is a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council. In addition to being a teacher, she is also a healer, facilitator, spiritual activist, and writer. Spring is considered a pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based healing practices into diverse communities. She has studied indigenous healing practices and shamanic practices for over a decade. She has practiced and studied under some of the most preeminent meditation masters in both the Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism. She currently travels and teaches workshops, classes, and retreats worldwide.
For more information on Spring Washam, or to follow her social media for event updates, inspiring quotes, and images:
Website: http://www.springwasham.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spring.washam
FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/teacher.springwasham/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvoIv70jZKKXT2-ctKGhr7A
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpringWasham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/springwasham/
Spring Washam is a well-known meditation teacher, author and visionary leader based in Oakland, California. She is the author of A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment. Spring is considered a pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based healing practices to diverse communities. She is one of the founders and core teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center, located in downtown Oakland, CA. She is also the co-founder of a new organization called Communities Rizing, which is dedicated to providing yoga and meditation teacher training programs for communities of color. She received extensive training by Jack Kornfield, is a member of the teacher’s council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California, and has practiced and studied Buddhist philosophy in both the Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism for the last 20 years. In addition to being a teacher, she is also a shamanic practitioner and has studied indigenous healing practices for over a decade. She is the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys, an organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom. Her writing and teachings have appeared in many online journals and publications such as Lions Roar, Tricycle, and Belief.net. She has been a guest on many popular podcasts and radio shows. She currently travels and teaches meditation retreats, workshops and classes worldwide.
QUOTED: "energy and passion."
"Washam brings considerable gifts for conveying her vision of personal change and offers vivid, inspiring testimony."
A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Wisdom, and Courage in Any Moment
Publishers Weekly. 264.37 (Sept. 11, 2017): p60+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Wisdom, and Courage in Any Moment
Spring Washam. Parallax, $16.95 trade paper
(208p) ISBN 978-1937006-76-1
Washam, cofounder of Oakland, Calif.'s East Bay Meditation Center, blends personal stories with Buddhist wisdom and a range of other traditions (particularly shamanism) in this forceful invitation to "Cultivating a fierce heart is about learning to embrace it all, even the most painful aspects of our lives," the author writes, and chapters explore such aspects of the spiritual path as leaving the prison of the mind, accepting impermanence, and learning forgiveness. Throughout, Washam shares her struggles to find inner peace and feel compassion for others. Her personal difficulties included growing up biracial in a troubled family, leaving home at age 15, and suffering and witnessing violence before discovering Buddhist meditation. Washam brings energy and passion to the often-staid genre of writing by contemporary American Buddhist teachers. Given the intensity of Washam's sometimes-extreme spiritual experiences (she often goes on solitary retreats, which she recommends), a few guidelines about when to seek help from expert teachers or mental health professionals would have been helpful for readers. Despite this, Washam brings considerable gifts for conveying her vision of personal change and offers vivid, inspiring testimony to the power of Buddhism (and other wisdom traditions) to help heal suffering. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Wisdom, and Courage in Any Moment." Publishers Weekly, 11 Sept. 2017, p. 60+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A505634956/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c765af6a. Accessed 13 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A505634956