Valerie Albrecht
Author Biographer Story Healer & Speaker Yoga Practitioner Speech Pathologist
“speaking writing moving – truths stories voices”.
UPCOMING EVENT
Words of Love, Words of Grief
Sunday 8 October 2023 from 4pm to 6pm
Emma Grey, Barbara Baikie and Valerie Albrecht
None of us is immune to loss and grief. Each of these women has experienced loss and the grief it brings. Each has faced and managed this grief in remarkable ways that can inspire and comfort others.
Join three local authors – internationally published Emma Grey (The Last Love Note, Michael Joseph imprint, Penguin Australia, 2023), Terroux’s owner Barbara Baikie OAM (Altitude, self-published, with Delores Cummins, 2013) and Canberra based speech pathologist Valerie Albrecht (Thirty Days, (selfpublished, 2019) as they explore love, loss and the process of grieving.
Facilitated by Barbie Robinson, Canberra arts journalist, author and coprincipal of Living Arts Canberra.
Our author sunset soiree will include refreshments, a rich discussion of books and life.
Emma Grey https://www.emmagrey.com.au/
Barbara Baikie https://terroux.com.au/
Valerie Albrecht https://www.theoceansofenergy.com/
Books will be available for purchase and signing by the authors on the day.
Tickets $20
Bookings essential: https://www.trybooking.com/CLIMF
All proceeds from Terroux events in 2023 go to BIGhART https://www.bighart.org/
The whole Terroux team is made up of passionate and committed volunteers.
BOOKS
One Voice Medicine
Conversations with First People Healers, Australia
by Valerie Albrecht
Published by The Oceans of Energy
Australia 2022
Reprinted 2023
Thirty Days
by Valerie Albrecht
Published by The Oceans of Energy
Australia 2019
The Story Behind The Story
by Valerie Albrecht
Austin Macauley Publishers
UK 2017
Search for Mother Journaling
by Valerie Albrecht
BalboaPress
Publishers 2015
Search for Mother
by Valerie Albrecht
Inkwell Productions
Arizona 2010
STOCKISTS:
(Books also available directly through theoceansofenergy@gmail.com)
NATIONAL LIBRARY AUSTRALIA Canberra
NATIONAL PETER PAL LIBRARY SUPPLIERS
ACT:
MUSE BOOKS Kingston ACT
THE HIEROPHANT Griffiths ACT
BOOK COW Kingston ACT
VICTORIA:
VERSO BOOKS Healesville VIC
SUN BOOK STORE Yarraville VIC
NEW SOUTH WALES:
BLUE KINGDOM BOOKSTORE Braidwood NSW
MICALAGO GENERAL STORE Micalago NSW
QUEENSLAND:
STATE LIBRARY BRISBANE Stanley Place South Brisbane
WESTERN AUSTRALIA:
KARRATHA LIBRARY Karratha WA
CALENDAR
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Best launch I’ve ever been to – around the yarning fire with Country all around.
This is what I need for my patients from other cultures.
I’ll think about that when I go walking in the mountains.
Your book launch was fantastic and so peaceful outdoors around the fire-pit.
It was lovely to be there – I loved sitting around the fire, being ‘on country’ as your book was celebrated. It’s an amazing thing to have brought to fruition, and I really honour the integrity of the whole journey of the book.
One Voice Medicine on the Canberra RiotAct Bookshelf
featured in Change, renewal and healing help sort out the world.
Ancient wisdom is to be found in Valerie Albrecht’s One Voice Medicine. Valerie Albrecht has conducted conversations across country with traditional healers and brings them to us more or less as transcribed into this photograph-rich text.
Her purpose is to inform western practitioners of ways to approach Australia’s First Peoples in order to provide effective health care, especially in remote regions. It encourages respectful professional listening and mutual learning between traditional and modern western health providers.
The author’s meticulous approach to this field research work and her multiple consultations with Australia’s First Peoples have resulted in a work of great practical value and of refined visual beauty.
6th May 2023
Photo credit Geoff Vivien Ngaarda Radio.
Synchronicity: A Personal Experience with Input from Jung and Science” at the Canberra Jung Society 7h July.
Sydney Book Launch at Green Door Health 10th June – a warm gathering of old yoga friends and new readers.
From the Blue Mountains NSW “The Story Behind The Story” event on May 26.
One attendee, now a happy new reader, spent many years on a Hopi reservation next to where I was with Elroy on his Navajo reservation!
The Story Behind The Story at The Hierophant Bookstore Canberra May 7
The Story Behind The Story book launch Bungendore Festival
Tilba Festival April 15
At Miss Rubys Bookstore Braidwood March 5th Q & A. “What are Elroy’s daily ceremonial practices?” How do the Navajos live as one with their land?” “How did you write the story with the language challenges?” Fabulous discussion! Thank you Jenny Boyes fellow author for hosting.
Here’s What Happened at Tilba on the 17th March with The Story Behind The Story… Thank you to Martin at Radio Ear FM Moruya, Robin for helping make a fabulous space and hosting, Merryn for having her Creations Gallery in Tilba and to all those who purchased and now hold The Story Behind The Story – welcome to the growing network of The Story’s wisdoms. Thank you also to Noi for sharing about Indigenous healers from her country – Cambodia.
Australian Book Launch: The Story Behind The Story: Biography of A Navajo Medicine Man. Smiths Alternative Book Store Canberra 20th February 2017
Introduction by Rita
Metzenath Australian Institute Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Studies friend.
Geraldton WA Streeties Aboriginal Corporation
Search for Mother INkwell Productions Pathways to Wholeness Presentation April 2011
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Search for Meaning Conference
Pacific Northwest Spirituality Book Festival
Saturday, February 5, 2011 – 9:00am–5:00pm
Seattle University Campus
Free and Open to the Public
Valerie will speak at 1pm on Mother – A Reflection of Gods’ Love.
KTVL Ch 10 Oregon March 26 2010
BIO
Valerie Albrecht has brought together her professional qualifications, skills and experience in writing, public speaking, speech pathology, yoga and natural therapies to the work of biography, story writing and story telling. She is passionate about offering a voice for those aspiring to tell and write their stories and also about promoting and educating toward inclusion of all health care philosophies in health care.
Valerie has a Bachelor of Speech Pathology and has worked for over 40 years for optimal communication and quality of life across demographics and their life spans. Her aspirations for holistic health care lead her to study yoga teaching, yoga birthing, massage, reiki and hypno-therapy. ln her role as Yoga and Massage Educator for North Coast Area Health, New South Wales Australia, between 2002-2007, Valerie introduced Yoga Birthing and Natural Therapies in maternity hospitals and conducted Honored Birth Retreats for women and their partners in many locations on the east coast of Australia.
She has taught yoga in Portugal, India and America, worked with obstetricians in rural Rajestan India, and trained pre-natal yoga teachers in India. Valerie presented for Birth India at their 2008 international conference for Indian Caesarian Awareness Week. This work became her first book Search for Mother, released in February 2010 by Inkwell Productions Arizona.
2023
This year excitingly sees the publication, launch and distribution of One Voice Medicine: Conversations with Traditional Aboriginal Healers. One Voice Medicine is a culmination of nine years of conversations, learning, listening to and working with community accepted Aboriginal healers around Australia. The conversations are about why it is vital for practitioners across sectors to embrace First People’s healing knowledge.
My upcoming book in progress concerns the concept of ‘homed’.
Canberra Heart Stories and From A Dream to a Book writing workshops are both happily ongoing.
Yoga on offer is: weekly Hatha based seniors seated and wheelchair classes at Canberra Aged care facilities and home based individually tailored sessions.
Well-being focused speech pathology continues at my one day a week practice.
Please see the calendar for events and classes and do contact me if my services can support you!
2022
This year I am excited and proud to launch Heart Stories in Canberra at Rise Sanctuary. Heart Stories is a curated story telling space for people to connect and explore the ‘heart story way’ of being with themselves and being together in community. Heart Stories are personal stories told from people’s own experience that usually shed light on bigger themes and offer connection with the story teller on an emotional level. Heart Stories invite the listener to draw meaning from the story into their own lives, thus the ‘heart story way’ can enrich, offer purpose, wisdom, hope, and perhaps lead us to new and inspiring personal and community directions and actions.
Restorative and seated yoga continues at Aged Care facilities in Canberra, at Rise Sanctuary and home based by referral.
Look up Eremos Australian Journal of Spirituality April 2022 for my article Food and Spirituality and watch this space for upcoming 2022 book launches!
2020/2021
Valerie continues to write, now having four published books, to practice Speech Pathology as a Clinical Supervisor and to teach Yoga in many locations in Canberra where she currently resides.
2019
Valerie continues her work teaching yoga in Aged Care Facilities in Canberra, at the Australian Institute Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies, as Clinical Manager and Speech Pathologist at Horizon Therapy Services Canberra and with her involvement with ANTaR ACT a NFP for Justice, Rights and Recognition for Australia’s First Peoples. The year also saw her complete a new book “Thirty Days” concerning the passing of an elder which is her fourth published book.
2018
Yoga classes continued at Aged Care Facilities in Canberra and at the Australian Institute Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Studies. Valerie is also Clinical Manager at Horizon Therapy Services Canberra where she supports Speech Pathology and Occupational Therapy clinicians in their practice as well as delivering therapy to clients challenged by communication. “The Story Behind The Story – biography of a Navajo Medicine Man” was released in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.
2017
Valerie taught Yoga at Mura Pathway to Wellness, Canberra, various Canberra Aged Care Homes and the Australian Institute Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Studies. Her writing course “From A Dream to A Book” was on the curriculum at Canberra University Evening College. Story Healing sessions continued through Canberra RSL facilities where she mentored and crafted the life stories of many inspiring people. Most excitingly, “The Story Behind the Story – biography of a Navajo Medicine Man”, her third book found a UK publisher Austin MacCauley to be released in Australia in January 2018 and in the US in July 2018.
2016 – University West Australia Centre for Rural Health expanded into the Pilbara and offered Valerie the position of Pilbara Development Officer – sourcing, developing and establishing student placements and research opportunities in the Pilbara to be delivered from a new clinic in Karratha. As well more remarkable traditional healers spoke in “One Voice Medicine” bringing the book to close. Valerie also works with ANTaR a NFP for Rights, justice and recognition of Australia’s First Peoples.
2015 – 2014 – Valerie’s speech pathology work and writing for “One Voice Medicine” took her to Broken Hill NSW, the Pilbara WA, Maroochydore QLD and to Guatemala Central America from where she also worked with an Ohio based NFP: Free Smile, in the repair of cleft lips and palates with children and adults from Highland traditional villages; to a project with the Poche Center of Indigenous Health in Dubbo NSW; to Roma and Mitchell with Queensland Health and to Geraldton West Australia where she worked as an Academic Clinical Speech Pathology Supervisor for West Australia University Centre for Rural Health.
2013
Saw Valerie moving from her “Honored Birth” course teaching as she was invited by a Navajo Medicine Man to live and write his biography – life and medicine – in the American North West. This became “The Story Behind The Story – biography of a Navajo medicine Man” leading her to her subsequent project “One Voice Medicine -Conversations with Traditional Aboriginal Healers.”
2012
Saw Valerie’s “Honored Birth” course at the Australian College of Midwifery Conference Melbourne, Coffs Health Campus NSW, the Bellingen Writers Festival, Southern Cross University Tweed Campus, and the QLD Australian College Midwifery Conference Gold Coast. Honored Birth was also at Macksville Hospital NSW Parent Education Classes.
2011
In 2011 Valerie wrote her first book “Search for Mother” (published in 2010) into a course “Honored Birth” which she presented and taught in Seattle at Washington University at the Labor Support Conference, Bastyr Midwifery College, in San Antonio Texas at the American College of Nursing and Midwifery Conference and in Sydney at the International Natural Medicine Summit.
