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THE MYRRH BEARERS | Judith Crispin
The Myrrh-Bearers is a book of love poems, describing real events and real people as the poet has experienced them. The worlds evoked in these poems are suffused with faerie tales, myth and philosophy. The genesis of this collection lies in a diverse engagement with different poetries: the influence of the Polish poets Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz is discernible, along with that of the French poets Henri Michaux, Rene Char, Rene Daumal and Alfred Jarry; there is also the sure presence of Gwen Harwood and Judith Wright as well as, more esoterically, William Blake and G. I. Gurdjieff. The pataphysical influence of Jarry, in particular, leads to a poetry which attempts to describe a universe supplementary to the one which we inhabit. The presence of music as a subject stems from the poet's close engagement with her musical mentors, Larry Sitsky in Australia, Emmanuel Nunes in France and Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany.
This is a rich and unusual collection which will reward readers interested in the way poetry can suggest new ways of looking at the world.
The Myrrh-Bearers is a book of love poems, describing real events and real people as the poet has experienced them. The worlds evoked in these poems are suffused with faerie tales, myth and philosophy. The genesis of this collection lies in a diverse engagement with different poetries: the influence of the Polish poets Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz is discernible, along with that of the French poets Henri Michaux, Rene Char, Rene Daumal and Alfred Jarry; there is also the sure presence of Gwen Harwood and Judith Wright as well as, more esoterically, William Blake and G. I. Gurdjieff. The pataphysical influence of Jarry, in particular, leads to a poetry which attempts to describe a universe supplementary to the one which we inhabit. The presence of music as a subject stems from the poet's close engagement with her musical mentors, Larry Sitsky in Australia, Emmanuel Nunes in France and Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany.
This is a rich and unusual collection which will reward readers interested in the way poetry can suggest new ways of looking at the world.
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DIE WISE | Stephen Jenkinson
Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever. Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our capacity for a village-mindedness, or breaks it. |
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PAINTING ENLIGHTENMENT | Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra | Paula Arai
Little known during his lifetime, the Japanese biologist and artist Iwasaki Tsuneo (1917-2002) created a strikingly original and exquisitely intricate body of modern Buddhist artwork. His paintings depict themes ranging from classical Buddhist iconography to majestic views of our universe as revealed by science--all created with the use of painstakingly rendered miniature calligraphies of the Heart Sutra, one of the most important scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism. Paula Arai presents over fifty of Iwasaki's paintings, elucidating their Buddhist contexts and meanings as well as their intimate connections to Iwasaki's life as a war survivor, teacher, scientist, and devout Buddhist practitioner. Having been posthumously recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Iwasaki's paintings are sure to be regarded as an innovative and heartfelt contribution to the artistic legacy of twentieth-century Buddhism. |
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WORLD RECEIVERS | Karin Althaus
Abstract paintings were being produced even before Kandinsky. Completely independently from each other, Georgiana Houghton (1814 - 1884) in England, Hilma af Klint (1862 - 1944) in Sweden and Emma Kunz (1892 - 1963) in Switzerland each developed an individual abstract pictorial language. What they had in common was a desire to make visible the laws of nature, the intellect and the supernatural. Their works are being presented side by side for the first time in an exhibition. The three women artists all found their artistic language within the context of the spiritual movements of their times: Houghton in spiritism, af Klint in theosophy and Kunz in naturopathy. Their artworks bear witness to a "mediumistic" praxis |
THE SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN | Thomas Merton
The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders--the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, "the four walls of my new freedom," Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time.
The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders--the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, "the four walls of my new freedom," Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time.
ENTANGLED LIFE | Martin Sheldrake
The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi.
These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. Their ability to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the 'Wood Wide Web', is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.
Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.
The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi.
These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. Their ability to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the 'Wood Wide Web', is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.
Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.
IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
At thirty-six years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being.
He immediately discovered that a lifetime of Buddhist education and practice had not prepared him to deal with dirty fellow travelers or the screeching of a railway car. He found he was too attached to his identity as a monk to remove his robes right away or to sleep on the Varanasi station floor, and instead paid for a bed in a cheap hostel. But when he ran out of money, he began his life as an itinerant beggar in earnest. Soon he became deathly ill from food poisoning—and his journey took a startling turn. His meditation practice had prepared him to face death, and now he had the opportunity to test the strength of his training.
In this powerful and unusually candid account of the inner life of a Buddhist master, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche offers us the invaluable lessons he learned from his near-death experience. By sharing with readers the meditation practices that sustain him, he shows us how we can transform our fear of dying into joyful living.
At thirty-six years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being.
He immediately discovered that a lifetime of Buddhist education and practice had not prepared him to deal with dirty fellow travelers or the screeching of a railway car. He found he was too attached to his identity as a monk to remove his robes right away or to sleep on the Varanasi station floor, and instead paid for a bed in a cheap hostel. But when he ran out of money, he began his life as an itinerant beggar in earnest. Soon he became deathly ill from food poisoning—and his journey took a startling turn. His meditation practice had prepared him to face death, and now he had the opportunity to test the strength of his training.
In this powerful and unusually candid account of the inner life of a Buddhist master, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche offers us the invaluable lessons he learned from his near-death experience. By sharing with readers the meditation practices that sustain him, he shows us how we can transform our fear of dying into joyful living.
SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT | Matthew B. Crawford
"Straight out of graduate school Crawford got a job as the executive director of an unnamed Washington 'think tank,' which he soon realized was being financed by oil companies to issue scientific studies questioning global warming. 'I landed a job at the think tank because I had a prestigious education in the liberal arts, yet the job itself felt illiberal: coming up with the best arguments money could buy. This wasn’t work befitting a free man, and the tie I wore started to feel like the mark of a slave.'
... Crawford argues that the ideologists of the knowledge economy have posited a false dichotomy between knowing and doing. The fact of the matter is that most forms of real knowledge, including self-knowledge, come from the effort to struggle with and master the brute reality of material objects... All these activities, if done well, require knowledge both about the world as it is and about yourself, and your own limitations. They can’t be learned simply by following rules, as a computer does; they require intuitive knowledge that comes from long experience and repeated encounters with difficulty & failure."
"Straight out of graduate school Crawford got a job as the executive director of an unnamed Washington 'think tank,' which he soon realized was being financed by oil companies to issue scientific studies questioning global warming. 'I landed a job at the think tank because I had a prestigious education in the liberal arts, yet the job itself felt illiberal: coming up with the best arguments money could buy. This wasn’t work befitting a free man, and the tie I wore started to feel like the mark of a slave.'
... Crawford argues that the ideologists of the knowledge economy have posited a false dichotomy between knowing and doing. The fact of the matter is that most forms of real knowledge, including self-knowledge, come from the effort to struggle with and master the brute reality of material objects... All these activities, if done well, require knowledge both about the world as it is and about yourself, and your own limitations. They can’t be learned simply by following rules, as a computer does; they require intuitive knowledge that comes from long experience and repeated encounters with difficulty & failure."
THE TREES IN MY FOREST | Bernd Heinrich
"The soaring majesty of a virgin forest and the intertwined relationships of plant, animal and man are the subject of Bernd Heinrich's lyrical elegy. Heinrich has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, and now he shares his vast knowledge and reflections on the trees of the Northeast woods and the rhythms of their seasons. From the DNA contained in an apple seed to the great choiring branches far beyond a young boy's reach, Heinrich explores a natural world in scientific and personal terms. Heinrich is a scientist, but his words speak with the power and subtle grace of a poet."
"The soaring majesty of a virgin forest and the intertwined relationships of plant, animal and man are the subject of Bernd Heinrich's lyrical elegy. Heinrich has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, and now he shares his vast knowledge and reflections on the trees of the Northeast woods and the rhythms of their seasons. From the DNA contained in an apple seed to the great choiring branches far beyond a young boy's reach, Heinrich explores a natural world in scientific and personal terms. Heinrich is a scientist, but his words speak with the power and subtle grace of a poet."
THE SOUND OF A SILVER HORN - Reclaiming the Heroism in Contemporary Women's Lives
Kathleen Noble, PhD
"The women whose quests are described here are young and old, rich and poor, of all races and faiths. They set forth on their heroic journeys in circumstances as different as a stifling marriage, single parenthood, and an alcoholic family, and from places as diverse as a conventional African-American household, a Catholic convent, and a lesbian community." "The Sound of a Silver Horn highlights the heroic dimensions in every woman's life. It shows how the call to adventure, to a leap across the chasm of personal and social change, can lead us to new creativity, spirituality, and achievement."
Kathleen Noble, PhD
"The women whose quests are described here are young and old, rich and poor, of all races and faiths. They set forth on their heroic journeys in circumstances as different as a stifling marriage, single parenthood, and an alcoholic family, and from places as diverse as a conventional African-American household, a Catholic convent, and a lesbian community." "The Sound of a Silver Horn highlights the heroic dimensions in every woman's life. It shows how the call to adventure, to a leap across the chasm of personal and social change, can lead us to new creativity, spirituality, and achievement."
THE ASCENT OF HUMANITY - Civilization and the Human Sense of Self | Charles Eisenstein
"Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. In this landmark book, Eisenstein explains how a disconnection from the natural world and one another is built into the foundations of civilization: into science, religion, money, technology, medicine, and education as we know them. As a result, each of these institutions faces a grave and growing crisis, fueling our near-pathological pursuit of technological fixes even as we push our planet to the brink of collapse.
... As our old constructs of self and world dissolve in crisis, we are entering a new narrative of interbeing, a more expansive sense of self, and a more ecological relationship to nature. Our darkest hour bears the possibility of a more beautiful world—not through the extension of millennia-old methods of management and control but by fundamentally reimagining ourselves and our systems."
"Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. In this landmark book, Eisenstein explains how a disconnection from the natural world and one another is built into the foundations of civilization: into science, religion, money, technology, medicine, and education as we know them. As a result, each of these institutions faces a grave and growing crisis, fueling our near-pathological pursuit of technological fixes even as we push our planet to the brink of collapse.
... As our old constructs of self and world dissolve in crisis, we are entering a new narrative of interbeing, a more expansive sense of self, and a more ecological relationship to nature. Our darkest hour bears the possibility of a more beautiful world—not through the extension of millennia-old methods of management and control but by fundamentally reimagining ourselves and our systems."
"RADICAL WHOLENESS | Philip Shepherd
"There are qualities we all yearn to experience in our lives — peace, simplicity, grace, connection, clarity. Yet these qualities evade us because each of them arises from an experience of wholeness, and we live in a culture that enforces divisions within each of us. In Radical Wholeness, Philip Shepherd shows the countless ways in which we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head. Disconnected from the body’s intelligence, we also disconnect from the wholeness of the present. This schism within us is the primary source of stress not just in our personal lives, but for the systems of the planet.
Drawing from neuroscience, anthropology, physics, the arts, myth, personal stories and his experiences helping people around the world to experience wholeness, Philip illuminates what true wholeness means and offers practices designed to help readers soften into the intelligence of the body. Radical Wholeness is a call to action: to recover wholeness and experience a new way of being."
"There are qualities we all yearn to experience in our lives — peace, simplicity, grace, connection, clarity. Yet these qualities evade us because each of them arises from an experience of wholeness, and we live in a culture that enforces divisions within each of us. In Radical Wholeness, Philip Shepherd shows the countless ways in which we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head. Disconnected from the body’s intelligence, we also disconnect from the wholeness of the present. This schism within us is the primary source of stress not just in our personal lives, but for the systems of the planet.
Drawing from neuroscience, anthropology, physics, the arts, myth, personal stories and his experiences helping people around the world to experience wholeness, Philip illuminates what true wholeness means and offers practices designed to help readers soften into the intelligence of the body. Radical Wholeness is a call to action: to recover wholeness and experience a new way of being."
NEW SELF NEW WORLD | Philip Shepherd
"New Self, New World challenges the primary story of what it means to be human, the random and materialistic lifestyle that author Philip Shepherd calls our “shattered reality.” This reality encourages us to live in our heads, self-absorbed in our own anxieties. Drawing on diverse sources and inspiration, New Self, New World reveals that our state of head-consciousness falsely teaches us to see the body as something we possess and to try to take care of it without ever really learning how to inhabit it. Shepherd articulates his vision of a world in which each of us enjoys a direct, unmediated experience of being alive."
"New Self, New World challenges the primary story of what it means to be human, the random and materialistic lifestyle that author Philip Shepherd calls our “shattered reality.” This reality encourages us to live in our heads, self-absorbed in our own anxieties. Drawing on diverse sources and inspiration, New Self, New World reveals that our state of head-consciousness falsely teaches us to see the body as something we possess and to try to take care of it without ever really learning how to inhabit it. Shepherd articulates his vision of a world in which each of us enjoys a direct, unmediated experience of being alive."
THE WAY OF TENDERNESS | Zen Earthlyn Manuel
"In The Way of Tenderness, Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel brings Buddhist philosophies of emptiness and appearance to bear on race, sexuality, and gender, using wisdom forged through personal experience and practice to rethink problems of identity and privilege.
Manuel brings her own experiences as a lesbian black woman into conversation with Buddhism to square our ultimately empty nature with superficial perspectives of everyday life. Her hard-won insights reveal that dry wisdom alone is not sufficient to heal the wounds of the marginalized; an effective practice must embrace the tenderness found where conventional reality and emptiness intersect. Only warmth and compassion can cure hatred and heal the damage it wreaks within us."
"In The Way of Tenderness, Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel brings Buddhist philosophies of emptiness and appearance to bear on race, sexuality, and gender, using wisdom forged through personal experience and practice to rethink problems of identity and privilege.
Manuel brings her own experiences as a lesbian black woman into conversation with Buddhism to square our ultimately empty nature with superficial perspectives of everyday life. Her hard-won insights reveal that dry wisdom alone is not sufficient to heal the wounds of the marginalized; an effective practice must embrace the tenderness found where conventional reality and emptiness intersect. Only warmth and compassion can cure hatred and heal the damage it wreaks within us."
THE STARS | Vija Celmins & Eliot Weinberger
". . . For the text, Weinberger assembled a catalogue of descriptions of the stars drawn from around the world, and from an array of historical, literary, and anthropological sources. This mythopoetic charting of the night sky evokes the vastness of the human imagination's response to a space itself vast and unknowable. Appearing in English and also in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, and Maori, the text supplements Celmins's images visually as well as verbally. . . " Goodreads
". . . For the text, Weinberger assembled a catalogue of descriptions of the stars drawn from around the world, and from an array of historical, literary, and anthropological sources. This mythopoetic charting of the night sky evokes the vastness of the human imagination's response to a space itself vast and unknowable. Appearing in English and also in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, and Maori, the text supplements Celmins's images visually as well as verbally. . . " Goodreads
GOSSIP FROM THE FOREST: The Tangled Roots of Our Forests and Fairytales | Sara Maitland
"Maitland is concerned that children no longer play in woods, particularly without adult supervision. They don't know the names of trees and leave blackberries rotting in the hedgerows. This state of estrangement from the wild is troubling both for conservation reasons (it's hard to preserve what one doesn't know), and also for human health (the average child, she states, has already lost an hour a day of outdoor play this century). What's more, a lack of free, wild play means children are missing out one of the essential lessons of the fairytale: that harm and danger can be survived and make a person more robust. 'I seriously fear,' she writes, 'that we are failing to nourish the beautiful and precious quality of resilience in our children.'" Olivia Laing, The Guardian
"Maitland is concerned that children no longer play in woods, particularly without adult supervision. They don't know the names of trees and leave blackberries rotting in the hedgerows. This state of estrangement from the wild is troubling both for conservation reasons (it's hard to preserve what one doesn't know), and also for human health (the average child, she states, has already lost an hour a day of outdoor play this century). What's more, a lack of free, wild play means children are missing out one of the essential lessons of the fairytale: that harm and danger can be survived and make a person more robust. 'I seriously fear,' she writes, 'that we are failing to nourish the beautiful and precious quality of resilience in our children.'" Olivia Laing, The Guardian
MAGPIETY | Melissa Green
"Poetry is Melissa Green’s landbridge, her strongest connection to the wider world—though it would be more accurate to say that, through poetry, the rest of the world gains access to Green’s 'tremendous intensity and tremendous intelligence,' as Joseph Brodsky put it. Marie Howe has written that 'Melissa Green might well be a 21st century version of Emily Dickinson, poet of ecstatic states and extremity.' Like Dickinson, a careful repose allows Green to sustain the sensitivity that the machinery of modern life erodes." (from an interview with Daniel Evans Pritchard
"Poetry is Melissa Green’s landbridge, her strongest connection to the wider world—though it would be more accurate to say that, through poetry, the rest of the world gains access to Green’s 'tremendous intensity and tremendous intelligence,' as Joseph Brodsky put it. Marie Howe has written that 'Melissa Green might well be a 21st century version of Emily Dickinson, poet of ecstatic states and extremity.' Like Dickinson, a careful repose allows Green to sustain the sensitivity that the machinery of modern life erodes." (from an interview with Daniel Evans Pritchard
FOOLING WITH WORDS - A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft | Bill Moyers
This collection explores the vitality and diversity of contemporary poetry through intimate interviews and performance readings recorded durring the 1999 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Kunitz, Coleman Barks, Lucille Clifton, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Paul Muldoon, Marge Piercy, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Deborah Garrison, and other leading poets share the rhythm, spirit, and passion of their art.
This collection explores the vitality and diversity of contemporary poetry through intimate interviews and performance readings recorded durring the 1999 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Kunitz, Coleman Barks, Lucille Clifton, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Paul Muldoon, Marge Piercy, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Deborah Garrison, and other leading poets share the rhythm, spirit, and passion of their art.
LANDMARKS | Robert Macfarlane
“‘Those who wish to explain to politicians and others why landscape should be nurtured… face a daunting task where the necessary concepts and vocabulary are not to hand,’ wrote Finlay in a public essay, Macfarlane quotes. 'What is required is a new nomenclature of landscape and how we relate to it.'
This is the tone of Landmarks – generous, sensitive, yielding always to the words of others even while Macfarlane’s own exquisite feel for language and its inferences carry us along." Kirsty Gunn
“‘Those who wish to explain to politicians and others why landscape should be nurtured… face a daunting task where the necessary concepts and vocabulary are not to hand,’ wrote Finlay in a public essay, Macfarlane quotes. 'What is required is a new nomenclature of landscape and how we relate to it.'
This is the tone of Landmarks – generous, sensitive, yielding always to the words of others even while Macfarlane’s own exquisite feel for language and its inferences carry us along." Kirsty Gunn
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THE LIVING MOUNTAIN | Nan Shepherd
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ARCTIC DREAMS | Barry Lopez
"Lopez offers a thorough examination of this obscure world-its terrain, its wildlife, its history of Eskimo natives and intrepid explorers who have arrived on their icy shores. But what turns this marvelous work of natural history into a breathtaking study of profound originality is his unique meditation on how the landscape can shape our imagination, desires, and dreams. Its prose as hauntingly pure as the land it describes, Arctic Dreams is nothing less than an indelible classic of modern literature." Goodreads
"Lopez offers a thorough examination of this obscure world-its terrain, its wildlife, its history of Eskimo natives and intrepid explorers who have arrived on their icy shores. But what turns this marvelous work of natural history into a breathtaking study of profound originality is his unique meditation on how the landscape can shape our imagination, desires, and dreams. Its prose as hauntingly pure as the land it describes, Arctic Dreams is nothing less than an indelible classic of modern literature." Goodreads
POSITION DOUBTFUL | Kim Mahood
"Imagine the document you have before you is not a book but a map. It is well-used, creased, and folded, so that when you open it, no matter how carefully, something tears and a line that is neither latitude nor longitude opens in the hidden geography of the place you are about to enter."
Mahood is an artist of astonishing versatility. She works with words, with paint, with installations, and with performance art. Her writing about her own work and collaborations, and about the work of the [Australian] desert artists, is profoundly enlightening, making palpable the link between artist and country. (Penguin)
"Imagine the document you have before you is not a book but a map. It is well-used, creased, and folded, so that when you open it, no matter how carefully, something tears and a line that is neither latitude nor longitude opens in the hidden geography of the place you are about to enter."
Mahood is an artist of astonishing versatility. She works with words, with paint, with installations, and with performance art. Her writing about her own work and collaborations, and about the work of the [Australian] desert artists, is profoundly enlightening, making palpable the link between artist and country. (Penguin)
SILENT SPRING | Rachel Carson
Silent Spring inspired the modern environmental movement, which began in earnest a decade later. It is recognized as the environmental text that “changed the world.” She aimed at igniting a democratic activist movement that would not only question the direction of science and technology but would also demand answers and accountability. Rachel Carson was a prophetic voice and her “witness for nature” is even more relevant and needed if our planet is to survive into a 22nd century.
Silent Spring inspired the modern environmental movement, which began in earnest a decade later. It is recognized as the environmental text that “changed the world.” She aimed at igniting a democratic activist movement that would not only question the direction of science and technology but would also demand answers and accountability. Rachel Carson was a prophetic voice and her “witness for nature” is even more relevant and needed if our planet is to survive into a 22nd century.
ANASTASIA and THE RINGING CEDARS Series | Vladimir Megre
The first of nine books in the Ringing Cedars Series, Anastasia tells the story of entrepreneur Vladimir Megre's trade trip to the Siberian taiga in 1995, where he encountered an unusual woman, wise in the ways of nature, healing, spirituality, mathematics and more. . . During his three days with her he learned many things and was introduced to the region's sacred 'ringing cedar' trees.
The first of nine books in the Ringing Cedars Series, Anastasia tells the story of entrepreneur Vladimir Megre's trade trip to the Siberian taiga in 1995, where he encountered an unusual woman, wise in the ways of nature, healing, spirituality, mathematics and more. . . During his three days with her he learned many things and was introduced to the region's sacred 'ringing cedar' trees.
GATHERING MOSS - A Natural & Cultural History of Mosses | Robin Wall Kimmerer
Kimmerer clearly and artfully explains the biology of mosses, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.
Drawing on her diverse experiences as a scientist, mother, teacher, and writer of Native American heritage, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.
Kimmerer clearly and artfully explains the biology of mosses, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.
Drawing on her diverse experiences as a scientist, mother, teacher, and writer of Native American heritage, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.
THE WILD PLACES | Robert Macfarlane
Macfarlane "encourages his readers to feel that while many of our fundamental connections have been broken or lost, many remain - if only we have the sense and tuned senses to appreciate them. This may not seem a particularly striking conclusion but it's well worth saying. And the journeys to reach it are so vigorously animated, they are well worth taking with him." Andrew Motion, The Guardian
Macfarlane "encourages his readers to feel that while many of our fundamental connections have been broken or lost, many remain - if only we have the sense and tuned senses to appreciate them. This may not seem a particularly striking conclusion but it's well worth saying. And the journeys to reach it are so vigorously animated, they are well worth taking with him." Andrew Motion, The Guardian
THE ANTARCTIC DICTIONARY - A Complete Guide to Antarctic English | Bernadette Hince
"The world’s most isolated continent has spawned some of the most unusual words in the English language. In the space of a mere century, a remarkable vocabulary has evolved to deal with the extraordinary environment and living organisms of the Antarctic and subantarctic.
Here, for the first time, is a complete guide to the origin and definitions of Antarctic words. Like other historical dictionaries, The Antarctic Dictionary gives the reader quotations for each word. These quotations are the life-blood of the dictionary — more than 15 000 quotations from about 1000 different sources give the reader a unique insight into the way the language of Antarctica has evolved."
"The world’s most isolated continent has spawned some of the most unusual words in the English language. In the space of a mere century, a remarkable vocabulary has evolved to deal with the extraordinary environment and living organisms of the Antarctic and subantarctic.
Here, for the first time, is a complete guide to the origin and definitions of Antarctic words. Like other historical dictionaries, The Antarctic Dictionary gives the reader quotations for each word. These quotations are the life-blood of the dictionary — more than 15 000 quotations from about 1000 different sources give the reader a unique insight into the way the language of Antarctica has evolved."
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING - Capitalism vs The Climate | Naomi Klein
"To change economic norms and ethical perceptions in tandem is even more formidable than the technological battle to adapt to the heavy weather coming down the tubes. Yet This Changes Everything is, improbably, Klein’s most optimistic book. She braids together the science, psychology, geopolitics, economics, ethics and activism that shape the climate question. The result is the most momentous and contentious environmental book since Silent Spring."
(Rob Nixon | NY Times)
"To change economic norms and ethical perceptions in tandem is even more formidable than the technological battle to adapt to the heavy weather coming down the tubes. Yet This Changes Everything is, improbably, Klein’s most optimistic book. She braids together the science, psychology, geopolitics, economics, ethics and activism that shape the climate question. The result is the most momentous and contentious environmental book since Silent Spring."
(Rob Nixon | NY Times)
LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET | Rilke
“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.” Rilke
“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.” Rilke
THE FOUR WISE MEN | Michel Tournier (translated by Ralph Manheim)
"An ornate, tooled approach to Christian myth by the ever-elegant Tournier, who's especially well-served this time by translator Manheim. The star-following visitors to Baby Jesus in the manger--Gaspar, King of Meroë; Balthasar, King of Nippur; Melchior, Prince of Palmyra--are joined in Tournier's version by the apocryphal, peripheral, yet perhaps most crucial royal pilgrim of all: Taor, Prince of Mangalore. Son of an Indian maharajah, Taor has tasted a piece of pistachio rahat loukoum (Turkish delight); so exalted is he by the flavor, he sets out to recover the recipe, a fruitless quest that takes him across western Asia and finally lands him in Sodom, where he's imprisoned (the last of many misadventures) in a salt mine. There, ironically, where there is no sweetness, he learns from a fellow prisoner the recipe for the quested-after candy; he also learns of the existence of Jesus. And so Tournier's Christian parable is capped off with dualities and paradox--a mighty man brought low, finding the uttermost sweetness in a place of saltiness--as Taor comes to represent Faith (while the other wise men illustrate the fates of self-worth, art, and power)."
"An ornate, tooled approach to Christian myth by the ever-elegant Tournier, who's especially well-served this time by translator Manheim. The star-following visitors to Baby Jesus in the manger--Gaspar, King of Meroë; Balthasar, King of Nippur; Melchior, Prince of Palmyra--are joined in Tournier's version by the apocryphal, peripheral, yet perhaps most crucial royal pilgrim of all: Taor, Prince of Mangalore. Son of an Indian maharajah, Taor has tasted a piece of pistachio rahat loukoum (Turkish delight); so exalted is he by the flavor, he sets out to recover the recipe, a fruitless quest that takes him across western Asia and finally lands him in Sodom, where he's imprisoned (the last of many misadventures) in a salt mine. There, ironically, where there is no sweetness, he learns from a fellow prisoner the recipe for the quested-after candy; he also learns of the existence of Jesus. And so Tournier's Christian parable is capped off with dualities and paradox--a mighty man brought low, finding the uttermost sweetness in a place of saltiness--as Taor comes to represent Faith (while the other wise men illustrate the fates of self-worth, art, and power)."
THE FARAWAY NEARBY | Rebecca Solnit
“Georgia O’Keeffe moved to rural New Mexico, from which she would sign her letters to the people she loved, “from the faraway nearby.” It was a way to measure physical and psychic geography together. Emotion has its geography, affection is what is nearby, within the boundaries of the self. You can be a thousand miles from the person next to you in bed or deeply invested in the survival of a stranger on the other side of the world.” Rebecca Stolnit
“Georgia O’Keeffe moved to rural New Mexico, from which she would sign her letters to the people she loved, “from the faraway nearby.” It was a way to measure physical and psychic geography together. Emotion has its geography, affection is what is nearby, within the boundaries of the self. You can be a thousand miles from the person next to you in bed or deeply invested in the survival of a stranger on the other side of the world.” Rebecca Stolnit
MICROCOSMOS - Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution | Lynn Margulis & Dorion Sagan
Microcosmos brings together the remarkable discoveries of microbiology of the past two decades and the pioneering research of Dr. Margulis to create a vivid new picture of the world that is crucial to our understanding of the future of the planet. Addressed to general readers, the book provides a beautifully written view of evolution as a process based on interdependency and thei nterconnectedness of all life on the planet. (University of California Press)
Microcosmos brings together the remarkable discoveries of microbiology of the past two decades and the pioneering research of Dr. Margulis to create a vivid new picture of the world that is crucial to our understanding of the future of the planet. Addressed to general readers, the book provides a beautifully written view of evolution as a process based on interdependency and thei nterconnectedness of all life on the planet. (University of California Press)
CRACKING GEODES OPEN | Sherry O'Keefe
"In 'Cracking Geodes Open,' Sherry O'Keefe crystalizes moments of experience and memory gathered or chiseled from relationships. Her finds range from the mountains and plains of Montana, to the farms and villages of Ireland, and the streets of Manhattan. With a deft use of direct narrative and spare lyrical forms, O'Keefe turns over each stone, examining its weathered face, finding its one true seam. Once inside, we get a strong sense of place, a feeling of being at home in the world, among friends. These crystalline poems reminded me that, ultimately, we are part of a larger, more complex formation of relationships, a constellation of old and new friends, loves, acquaintances, and close or distant relations, some of whom we have not yet met." Scot Siegel, Untitled Country Review
"In 'Cracking Geodes Open,' Sherry O'Keefe crystalizes moments of experience and memory gathered or chiseled from relationships. Her finds range from the mountains and plains of Montana, to the farms and villages of Ireland, and the streets of Manhattan. With a deft use of direct narrative and spare lyrical forms, O'Keefe turns over each stone, examining its weathered face, finding its one true seam. Once inside, we get a strong sense of place, a feeling of being at home in the world, among friends. These crystalline poems reminded me that, ultimately, we are part of a larger, more complex formation of relationships, a constellation of old and new friends, loves, acquaintances, and close or distant relations, some of whom we have not yet met." Scot Siegel, Untitled Country Review
THE RED BOOK | Carl Jung
"The old expression 'When falling, dive!' might best express the sentiments of Carl Jung as he decided to turn a near psychotic breakdown he was experiencing in late 1913 into an opportunity for self-analysis and self-therapy. The result of this momentous decision is The Red Book, Jung’s record of his 'confrontation with the unconscious,' which he had bound in a custom-made red leather folio that measured approximately 12 X 15.5 inches and weighed nearly ten pounds. Like a massive, medieval folio reminiscent of the Book of Kells, The Red Book included over 400 pages of beautifully handwritten, calligraphic text and 53 startlingly brilliant full-page paintings." Mathew V. Spano, Ph.D
"The old expression 'When falling, dive!' might best express the sentiments of Carl Jung as he decided to turn a near psychotic breakdown he was experiencing in late 1913 into an opportunity for self-analysis and self-therapy. The result of this momentous decision is The Red Book, Jung’s record of his 'confrontation with the unconscious,' which he had bound in a custom-made red leather folio that measured approximately 12 X 15.5 inches and weighed nearly ten pounds. Like a massive, medieval folio reminiscent of the Book of Kells, The Red Book included over 400 pages of beautifully handwritten, calligraphic text and 53 startlingly brilliant full-page paintings." Mathew V. Spano, Ph.D
EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY | The Visual Art of John Cage
One of the twentieth century's most influential and iconoclastic protagonists, John Cage (1912-1992) may be described not so much as a composer, artist and author, as a thinker who applied his ideas equivalently to sound, visual art and writing. As with his music, the use of chance operations--in particular via the Chinese Book of Changes, or I Ching--was central to Cage's approach to visual art, determining technique, the placement of forms and even tonal values. Every Day is a Good Dayprovides the first broad assessment of Cage's art, and is fully illustrated with plates of his drawings, watercolors and prints, including series such as Where R=Ryoanji (1983-92).
One of the twentieth century's most influential and iconoclastic protagonists, John Cage (1912-1992) may be described not so much as a composer, artist and author, as a thinker who applied his ideas equivalently to sound, visual art and writing. As with his music, the use of chance operations--in particular via the Chinese Book of Changes, or I Ching--was central to Cage's approach to visual art, determining technique, the placement of forms and even tonal values. Every Day is a Good Dayprovides the first broad assessment of Cage's art, and is fully illustrated with plates of his drawings, watercolors and prints, including series such as Where R=Ryoanji (1983-92).
THE LINEN WAY | Melissa Green
"Here I am, standing on the tallest roof-top, bellowing into the largest megaphone I can find, to rave about The Linen Way by Melissa Green. What adjectives will do the job? I'll try: luminescent, brave, beautiful. I've never read such a powerful testament to poetry. It's as essential here as oxygen, as love. . .
. . . When I finished reading this, I felt I had been given a gift, as if Melissa Green had pressed some small thing into the palm of my hand for my fingers to curl around in recognition. I've read it twice, and each time I've felt a little changed by it. I'll read it again. It will change me further." Carolyn McCurdie
"Here I am, standing on the tallest roof-top, bellowing into the largest megaphone I can find, to rave about The Linen Way by Melissa Green. What adjectives will do the job? I'll try: luminescent, brave, beautiful. I've never read such a powerful testament to poetry. It's as essential here as oxygen, as love. . .
. . . When I finished reading this, I felt I had been given a gift, as if Melissa Green had pressed some small thing into the palm of my hand for my fingers to curl around in recognition. I've read it twice, and each time I've felt a little changed by it. I'll read it again. It will change me further." Carolyn McCurdie
REINVENTING BACH | Paul Elie
“. . . This is a book about the music of Bach and the ways it has been reinvented in our time.” Fascinating and engagingly written, it emphasizes that Bach — whose greatness as a composer, for Mr. Elie, is “total and inviolable” — was also a pioneer of technology: not just a master organist but a master organ builder and repairer; a theoretician who investigated the possibilities of a tuning system that changed the way music sounds and is still in use; a composer who embraced the art of transcription and would not have minded at all, and maybe anticipated, that his pieces would one day be reconceived for Moog synthesizers and small ensembles of swinging, scatting singers. . . " Paul Etie
“. . . This is a book about the music of Bach and the ways it has been reinvented in our time.” Fascinating and engagingly written, it emphasizes that Bach — whose greatness as a composer, for Mr. Elie, is “total and inviolable” — was also a pioneer of technology: not just a master organist but a master organ builder and repairer; a theoretician who investigated the possibilities of a tuning system that changed the way music sounds and is still in use; a composer who embraced the art of transcription and would not have minded at all, and maybe anticipated, that his pieces would one day be reconceived for Moog synthesizers and small ensembles of swinging, scatting singers. . . " Paul Etie
DIGGING FOR SPAIN | Penelope Todd
'There are two places for every one: The place we imagine and the one waiting for us when we get there.'
Here is a portrait of the growth of a writer, of the challenges of faith, and the route one woman takes to reach a better accommodation with herself, and her family. It's heartfelt and lyrical narrative - as the author questions her closest relationships, and some of the stifling patterns she has fallen into. Yet it will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever tried to juggle relationships, the craving for solitude, and the urge to write or to devote oneself to a career which demands total focus.
'There are two places for every one: The place we imagine and the one waiting for us when we get there.'
Here is a portrait of the growth of a writer, of the challenges of faith, and the route one woman takes to reach a better accommodation with herself, and her family. It's heartfelt and lyrical narrative - as the author questions her closest relationships, and some of the stifling patterns she has fallen into. Yet it will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever tried to juggle relationships, the craving for solitude, and the urge to write or to devote oneself to a career which demands total focus.
A FIELD GUIDE TO GETTING LOST | Rebecca Solnit
"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. . . " Rebecca Solnit
"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. . . " Rebecca Solnit
MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS | Carl Jung
"Jung's arguments (and those of his colleages) spiral upward over his subject like a bird circling a tree. At first, near the ground, it sees only a confusion of leaves and branches. Gradually, as it cirles higher and higher the recurring aspects of the tree form a wholeness and relate to their surroundings. Some readers may find this 'spiralling' method of argument obscure or confusing for a few pages-but not, I think, for long. It is characteristic of Jung's method, and very soon the reader will find it carrying him with it on a persuasive and profoundly absorbing journey." John Freeman (from the Introduction)
Free download of the ebook/pdf
"Jung's arguments (and those of his colleages) spiral upward over his subject like a bird circling a tree. At first, near the ground, it sees only a confusion of leaves and branches. Gradually, as it cirles higher and higher the recurring aspects of the tree form a wholeness and relate to their surroundings. Some readers may find this 'spiralling' method of argument obscure or confusing for a few pages-but not, I think, for long. It is characteristic of Jung's method, and very soon the reader will find it carrying him with it on a persuasive and profoundly absorbing journey." John Freeman (from the Introduction)
Free download of the ebook/pdf
WHERE THE HEART BEATS - John Cage, Zen Buddhism & The Inner Life of Artist | Kay Larson
Our intention is . . . to wake up to the very life
we’re living, which is so excellent once one
gets one’s mind and desires out of its way
and lets it act of its own accord. — John Cage
Our intention is . . . to wake up to the very life
we’re living, which is so excellent once one
gets one’s mind and desires out of its way
and lets it act of its own accord. — John Cage
THE BOOK OF QUESTIONS | Pablo Neruda
When Neruda died in 1973, The Book of Questions was one of eight unpublished poetry manuscripts that lay on his desk. In it, Neruda achieves a deeper vulnerability and vision than in his earlier work-and this unique book is a testament to everything that made Neruda an artist.
"Neruda's questions evoke pictures that make sense on a visual level before the reader can grasp them on a literal one. The effect is mildly dazzling [and] O'Daly's translations achieve a tone that is both meditative and spontaneous." --Publishers Weekly
When Neruda died in 1973, The Book of Questions was one of eight unpublished poetry manuscripts that lay on his desk. In it, Neruda achieves a deeper vulnerability and vision than in his earlier work-and this unique book is a testament to everything that made Neruda an artist.
"Neruda's questions evoke pictures that make sense on a visual level before the reader can grasp them on a literal one. The effect is mildly dazzling [and] O'Daly's translations achieve a tone that is both meditative and spontaneous." --Publishers Weekly
ART FORMS FROM THE OCEAN | Ernst Haeckel
At the nexus of art and science, this dazzling new edition of Ernst Haeckel's first work reintroduces the genius of an enigmatic scientist and passionate observer of the natural world.
At the nexus of art and science, this dazzling new edition of Ernst Haeckel's first work reintroduces the genius of an enigmatic scientist and passionate observer of the natural world.
THE POETICS OF SPACE - The classic look at how we experience intimate spaces
| Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space ( La Poétique de l'Espace, 1958) is a phenomenological interrogation into the meaning of spaces which preoccupy poetry, intimate spaces such as a house, a drawer, a night dresser and spaces of wide expansion such as vistas and woods. In the opening chapter of The Poetics of Space Bachelard places special emphasis on the interior domestic space and its component: the various rooms and the different types of furniture in it. Bachelard attempts to trace the reception of the poetic image in the subjective consciousness, a reception which demands, so Bachelard holds, great openness and a focus on the present experience while eliminate transient time. (The Cultural Studies Reader)
“It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.” Gaston Bachelard
| Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space ( La Poétique de l'Espace, 1958) is a phenomenological interrogation into the meaning of spaces which preoccupy poetry, intimate spaces such as a house, a drawer, a night dresser and spaces of wide expansion such as vistas and woods. In the opening chapter of The Poetics of Space Bachelard places special emphasis on the interior domestic space and its component: the various rooms and the different types of furniture in it. Bachelard attempts to trace the reception of the poetic image in the subjective consciousness, a reception which demands, so Bachelard holds, great openness and a focus on the present experience while eliminate transient time. (The Cultural Studies Reader)
“It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.” Gaston Bachelard
CULTIVATING PEACE | James O'Dea
In providing theoretical and practical guidance for facilitators of deep dialogue between perpetrator and victim, O’Dea strikes deep chords of optimism even as he teaches us how to face “the heart of darkness.”
His poetic, soulful voice calls readers to new ways to think about peace-building in our personal and professional lives.
Ideal for peace activists, mediators, negotiators, psychologists, educators, business leaders, and clergy, this handbook presents a unique set of tools and perspectives for fostering peace in the coming century.
In providing theoretical and practical guidance for facilitators of deep dialogue between perpetrator and victim, O’Dea strikes deep chords of optimism even as he teaches us how to face “the heart of darkness.”
His poetic, soulful voice calls readers to new ways to think about peace-building in our personal and professional lives.
Ideal for peace activists, mediators, negotiators, psychologists, educators, business leaders, and clergy, this handbook presents a unique set of tools and perspectives for fostering peace in the coming century.
ART OBJECTS | Jeanette Winterson
". . . I was answering questions for myself, but more, I wanted to communicate the passionate excitement I have for art of all kinds. I really believe in the redemptive, persuasive, healing power of art. We all need it. Most of us don’t get close to it – either because we think art’s not for us, or because the media circus is off-putting. I wanted to cut though the doubts and the objections. . . " Jeanette Winterson
". . . I was answering questions for myself, but more, I wanted to communicate the passionate excitement I have for art of all kinds. I really believe in the redemptive, persuasive, healing power of art. We all need it. Most of us don’t get close to it – either because we think art’s not for us, or because the media circus is off-putting. I wanted to cut though the doubts and the objections. . . " Jeanette Winterson
By now a modern classic, THE GIFT by Lewis Hyde is a brilliantly orchestrated defence of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. Widely available again after twenty-five years, this book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared. An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.
"Few books are such life-changers as The Gift: epiphany, in sculpted prose."
—Jonathan Lethem
"Few books are such life-changers as The Gift: epiphany, in sculpted prose."
—Jonathan Lethem
THE SPELL of THE SENSUOUS | David Abram
In prose at once poetic and precise, David Abram demonstrates that our most cherished human attributes - from the gift of language, to the awareness of past and future, to the rational intellect itself - all emerge in interaction with the animate natural world, and remain wholly dependent upon that living world for their coherence. Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this astonishing and intensely ethical.
"This is a landmark book. Scholars will doubtless recognize its brilliance, but they may overlook the most important part of Abram's achievement: he has written the best instruction manual yet for becoming fully human. I walked outside when I was done and the world was a different place." - Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
In prose at once poetic and precise, David Abram demonstrates that our most cherished human attributes - from the gift of language, to the awareness of past and future, to the rational intellect itself - all emerge in interaction with the animate natural world, and remain wholly dependent upon that living world for their coherence. Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this astonishing and intensely ethical.
"This is a landmark book. Scholars will doubtless recognize its brilliance, but they may overlook the most important part of Abram's achievement: he has written the best instruction manual yet for becoming fully human. I walked outside when I was done and the world was a different place." - Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
INVISIBLE CITIES | Italo Calvino
“Perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else someone's gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly.” Italo Calvino
“Perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else someone's gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly.” Italo Calvino
EINSTEIN'S DREAMS | Alan Lightman
“It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.”
“It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.”
EARTH IS OUR BUSINESS: Changing the rules of the Game | Polly Higgins
Earth is our Business is groundbreaking; no other book proposes law that comprehensively changes the rules of the game. Ecocide is a law that will transform our economies, energy supplies and political landscape. The implications of Polly Higgins’ proposal are far-reaching and profound. Like her award-winning first book, Earth is our Business is written for anyone who is engaging in the new and emerging discourse about the future of our planet.
Earth is our Business is groundbreaking; no other book proposes law that comprehensively changes the rules of the game. Ecocide is a law that will transform our economies, energy supplies and political landscape. The implications of Polly Higgins’ proposal are far-reaching and profound. Like her award-winning first book, Earth is our Business is written for anyone who is engaging in the new and emerging discourse about the future of our planet.
DESERT NOTES/RIVER NOTES | Barry Lopez
Reflections in the Eye of a Raven/The Dance of Herons
Here, for the first time in one volume, are two of Lopez's masterpieces, "River Notes and "Desert Notes. From the thundering power of the river's swift current, to the stillness of clear freshwater pools; to desert springs, birds and wind, and rattlesnakes . . . and the terrible intrusion of man, Lopez allows us to share moments of intense personal experience as man tries to come to terms with the Earth's landscape, and with his own existence.
"To stick your hands into the river it to feel the chords that bind the earth together in one piece."
Barry Lopez
Reflections in the Eye of a Raven/The Dance of Herons
Here, for the first time in one volume, are two of Lopez's masterpieces, "River Notes and "Desert Notes. From the thundering power of the river's swift current, to the stillness of clear freshwater pools; to desert springs, birds and wind, and rattlesnakes . . . and the terrible intrusion of man, Lopez allows us to share moments of intense personal experience as man tries to come to terms with the Earth's landscape, and with his own existence.
"To stick your hands into the river it to feel the chords that bind the earth together in one piece."
Barry Lopez
WHEN BLOOD & BONES CRY OUT - journeys through the soundscapes of healing and reconciliation | John Paul Lederach and Angela Jill Lederach
"In When Blood and Bones Cry Out, John Paul Lederach, a pioneer of peacebuilding, and his daughter, Angela Jill Lederach, show how communities can recover and reconnect through the power of making music, creating metaphors, and telling their extraordinary stories of suffering and survival.
. . . Instead of relying on more common linear explanations of healing and reconciliation, the Lederachs demonstrate how healing is circular, dynamic, and continuing, even in the midst of ongoing violence.
. . . the Lederachs stress the remarkable effects of sound and vibration through tales of Tibetan singing bowls, Van Morrison's transcendent lyrics, the voices of mothers in West Africa, and their own personal journeys." KROC Institute for International Peace Studies
"In When Blood and Bones Cry Out, John Paul Lederach, a pioneer of peacebuilding, and his daughter, Angela Jill Lederach, show how communities can recover and reconnect through the power of making music, creating metaphors, and telling their extraordinary stories of suffering and survival.
. . . Instead of relying on more common linear explanations of healing and reconciliation, the Lederachs demonstrate how healing is circular, dynamic, and continuing, even in the midst of ongoing violence.
. . . the Lederachs stress the remarkable effects of sound and vibration through tales of Tibetan singing bowls, Van Morrison's transcendent lyrics, the voices of mothers in West Africa, and their own personal journeys." KROC Institute for International Peace Studies
THE ACCIDENTAL UNIVERSE | The World You Thought You Knew | Alan Lightman
"One August afternoon, the two baby ospreys of that season took flight for the first time as I stood on the circular deck of my house watching the nest. All summer long, they had watched me on that deck as I watched them. To them, it must have looked like I was in my nest just as they were in theirs. On this particular afternoon, their maiden flight, they did a loop of my house and then headed straight at me with tremendous speed. My immediate impulse was to run for cover, since they could have ripped me apart with their powerful talons. But something held me to my ground. When they were within twenty feet of me, they suddenly veered upward and away. But before that dazzling and frightening vertical climb, for about half a second we made eye contact. Words cannot convey what was exchanged between us in that instant. It was a look of connectedness, of mutual respect, of recognition that we shared the same land. After they were gone, I found that I was shaking, and in tears. To this day, I do not understand what happened in that half second. But it was one of the most profound moments of my life." Alan Lightman
"One August afternoon, the two baby ospreys of that season took flight for the first time as I stood on the circular deck of my house watching the nest. All summer long, they had watched me on that deck as I watched them. To them, it must have looked like I was in my nest just as they were in theirs. On this particular afternoon, their maiden flight, they did a loop of my house and then headed straight at me with tremendous speed. My immediate impulse was to run for cover, since they could have ripped me apart with their powerful talons. But something held me to my ground. When they were within twenty feet of me, they suddenly veered upward and away. But before that dazzling and frightening vertical climb, for about half a second we made eye contact. Words cannot convey what was exchanged between us in that instant. It was a look of connectedness, of mutual respect, of recognition that we shared the same land. After they were gone, I found that I was shaking, and in tears. To this day, I do not understand what happened in that half second. But it was one of the most profound moments of my life." Alan Lightman
GOD and CONFLICT | Philip Hellmich
God and Conflict opens the way for deep exploration of what is asked of each of us if we are:
God and Conflict opens the way for deep exploration of what is asked of each of us if we are:
- to declare peace with the same intensity as we have for so long declared war;
- to make a decision for peace in our every day lives, and live it; and
- to stand steadily for peace in these turbulent times that are cracking the foundations of the world as we know it.
ERADICATING ECOCIDE | Polly Higgins
In Eradicating Ecocide: laws and governance to prevent the destruction of our planet, international environment lawyer and barrister Polly Higgins sets out to demonstrate how ‘compromise’ laws have caused the problem and why we can destroy the Earth without consequence. The solution offered is to create a law of Ecocide, the 5th Crime Against Peace. Such a law will hold to account heads of corporate bodies as well as other ‘natural persons’ in positions of superior responsibility.
In Eradicating Ecocide: laws and governance to prevent the destruction of our planet, international environment lawyer and barrister Polly Higgins sets out to demonstrate how ‘compromise’ laws have caused the problem and why we can destroy the Earth without consequence. The solution offered is to create a law of Ecocide, the 5th Crime Against Peace. Such a law will hold to account heads of corporate bodies as well as other ‘natural persons’ in positions of superior responsibility.
BECOMING ANIMAL: An Earthly Cosmology | DAVID ABRAMS
As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we’ve ignored the wild intelligence of our bodies, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. Abram’s writing subverts this distance, drawing readers ever closer to their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the human body and the breathing Earth. The shape-shifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in this book.
As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we’ve ignored the wild intelligence of our bodies, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. Abram’s writing subverts this distance, drawing readers ever closer to their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the human body and the breathing Earth. The shape-shifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in this book.
WHAT IS LIFE? | Lynn Margulis & Dorion Sagan
Half a century ago, before the discovery of DNA, the Austrian physicist and philosopher Erwin Schrödinger inspired a generation of scientists by rephrasing the fascinating philosophical question: What is life? Using their expansive understanding of recent science to wonderful effect, acclaimed authors Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan revisit this timeless question in a fast-moving, wide-ranging narrative that combines rigorous science with philosophy, history, and poetry.
THE LITTLE PRINCE | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
"What is essential is invisible to the eye", says the fox.
"What is essential is invisible to the eye", says the fox.
The MORE BEAUTIFUL WORLD OUR HEARTS KNOW is POSSIBLE | Charles Eisenstein
This inspirational and thought-provoking book serves as an empowering antidote to the cynicism, frustration, paralysis, and overwhelm so many of us are feeling, replacing it with a grounding reminder of what’s true: we are all connected, and our small, personal choices bear unsuspected transformational power. By fully embracing and practicing this principle of interconnectedness—called interbeing—we become more effective agents of change and have a stronger positive influence on the world.
"Is it too much to ask, to live in a world where our human gifts go toward the benefit of all? Where our daily activities contribute to the healing of the biosphere and the well-being of other people?" Charles Eisenstein
This inspirational and thought-provoking book serves as an empowering antidote to the cynicism, frustration, paralysis, and overwhelm so many of us are feeling, replacing it with a grounding reminder of what’s true: we are all connected, and our small, personal choices bear unsuspected transformational power. By fully embracing and practicing this principle of interconnectedness—called interbeing—we become more effective agents of change and have a stronger positive influence on the world.
"Is it too much to ask, to live in a world where our human gifts go toward the benefit of all? Where our daily activities contribute to the healing of the biosphere and the well-being of other people?" Charles Eisenstein
SACRED ECONOMICS | Charles Eisenstein
This book is about how the money system will have to change—and is already changing—to embody this transition. A broadly integrated synthesis of theory, policy, and practice, Sacred Economics explores avant-garde concepts of the New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies, and the restoration of the commons. Author Charles Eisenstein also considers the personal dimensions of this transition, speaking to those concerned with “right livelihood” and how to live according to their ideals in a world seemingly ruled by money. Tapping into a rich lineage of conventional and unconventional economic thought, Sacred Economics presents a vision that is original yet commonsense, radical yet gentle, and increasingly relevant as the crises of our civilization deepen.
This book is about how the money system will have to change—and is already changing—to embody this transition. A broadly integrated synthesis of theory, policy, and practice, Sacred Economics explores avant-garde concepts of the New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies, and the restoration of the commons. Author Charles Eisenstein also considers the personal dimensions of this transition, speaking to those concerned with “right livelihood” and how to live according to their ideals in a world seemingly ruled by money. Tapping into a rich lineage of conventional and unconventional economic thought, Sacred Economics presents a vision that is original yet commonsense, radical yet gentle, and increasingly relevant as the crises of our civilization deepen.
INTERLUNAR | Margaret Atwood
I wish to show you the darkness
you are so afraid of.
Trust me. This darkness
is a place you can enter and be
as safe in as you are anywhere;
you can put one foot in front of the other
and believe the sides of your eyes.
Memorize it. You will know it
again in your own time. . .
I wish to show you the darkness
you are so afraid of.
Trust me. This darkness
is a place you can enter and be
as safe in as you are anywhere;
you can put one foot in front of the other
and believe the sides of your eyes.
Memorize it. You will know it
again in your own time. . .
HOW TO BE AN EXPLORER OF THE WORLD | Keri Smith
"At any given moment, no matter where you are, there are hundreds of things around you that are interesting and worth documenting. . ." Keri Smith
"Everyone is an artist." Joseph Beuys
"At any given moment, no matter where you are, there are hundreds of things around you that are interesting and worth documenting. . ." Keri Smith
"Everyone is an artist." Joseph Beuys
STAYING ALIVE - real poems for unreal times edited by Neil Astley
". . . Assembling a diverse mix of contemporary poets-Mary Oliver, W.H. Auden, Maya Angelou, Billy Collins, Louise Gluck, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Rita Dove, and hundreds more-Staying Alive is a unique anthology that illuminates the vital force of our humanity, the passion of our aspirations, the power of our spirituality. From the enigma of death to the sweetness of friendship, these poems speak to life's mysteries and consolations and help us navigate the most trying times in recent memory." Goodreads
". . . Assembling a diverse mix of contemporary poets-Mary Oliver, W.H. Auden, Maya Angelou, Billy Collins, Louise Gluck, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Rita Dove, and hundreds more-Staying Alive is a unique anthology that illuminates the vital force of our humanity, the passion of our aspirations, the power of our spirituality. From the enigma of death to the sweetness of friendship, these poems speak to life's mysteries and consolations and help us navigate the most trying times in recent memory." Goodreads
MADNESS, RACK AND HONEY | Mary Ruefle
"Over the course of fifteen years, Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every six months to a group of poetry graduate students. Collected here for the first time, these lectures include "Poetry and the Moon," "Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World," and "Lectures I Will Never Give." Intellectually virtuosic, instructive, and experiential,Madness, Rack, and Honey resists definition, demanding instead an utter—and utterly pleasurable—immersion. Finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award." (Goodreads)
"Over the course of fifteen years, Mary Ruefle delivered a lecture every six months to a group of poetry graduate students. Collected here for the first time, these lectures include "Poetry and the Moon," "Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World," and "Lectures I Will Never Give." Intellectually virtuosic, instructive, and experiential,Madness, Rack, and Honey resists definition, demanding instead an utter—and utterly pleasurable—immersion. Finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award." (Goodreads)
COLOUR - Travels Through The Paintbox | Victoria Finlay
Part travelogue, part narrative history, 'Colour' unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, and reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded and used. This remarkable and beautifully written book remembers a time when red paint was really the colour of blood, when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold, and yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. It looks at how green was carried by yaks along the silk road, and how an entire nation was founded on the colour purple.
Exciting, richly informative, and always surprising, 'Colour' lifts the lid on the historical palette and unearths an astonishing wealth of stories about the quest for colours, and our efforts to understand them.
Part travelogue, part narrative history, 'Colour' unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, and reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded and used. This remarkable and beautifully written book remembers a time when red paint was really the colour of blood, when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold, and yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. It looks at how green was carried by yaks along the silk road, and how an entire nation was founded on the colour purple.
Exciting, richly informative, and always surprising, 'Colour' lifts the lid on the historical palette and unearths an astonishing wealth of stories about the quest for colours, and our efforts to understand them.
ON LIES, SECRETS and SILENCE - Selected Prose | Adrienne Rich
“An honorable human relationship – that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" – is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”
“An honorable human relationship – that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" – is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”
THIS BECKONING CEASELESS BEAUTY | Heidi Rose Robbins
"Heidi's poems are a sturdy and capacious container - an invitation through innocence into eros; a place of whispers and exclamations, of fire and breath, grit and courageous exploration; of heart and listening, expansion and balm. We meet her and we meet ourselves. Turning ourselves and the world around, we remember, lament, marvel and see anew." Claire Beynon
"Heidi's poems are a sturdy and capacious container - an invitation through innocence into eros; a place of whispers and exclamations, of fire and breath, grit and courageous exploration; of heart and listening, expansion and balm. We meet her and we meet ourselves. Turning ourselves and the world around, we remember, lament, marvel and see anew." Claire Beynon
THE MYSTIC HEART - Discovering a universal spirituality in the world's religions
| Wayne Teasdale
"Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage - the sage we all are, if only we could see."
Link to video series with Ken Wilbur
| Wayne Teasdale
"Every one of us is a mystic. We may or may not realize it, we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery. We have been given the gift of life in this perplexing world to become who we ultimately are: creatures of boundless love, caring compassion, and wisdom. Existence is a summons to the eternal journey of the sage - the sage we all are, if only we could see."
Link to video series with Ken Wilbur
POSITIVE HARMLESSNESS IN PRACTICE - Enough for Us All | Dorothy Riddle
"Recognizing the need to develop attitudes that foster this cooperation and defuse the violence that threatens us all, Riddle offers her second volume, Positive Harmlessness in Practice, a thoughtful, wise, and mind-opening exploration of ways to help make harmlessness experiential in a culture in which habits of harm are so pervasive that they are felt to be 'normal.'” Kristine Morris
"Recognizing the need to develop attitudes that foster this cooperation and defuse the violence that threatens us all, Riddle offers her second volume, Positive Harmlessness in Practice, a thoughtful, wise, and mind-opening exploration of ways to help make harmlessness experiential in a culture in which habits of harm are so pervasive that they are felt to be 'normal.'” Kristine Morris
DISPELLING WETIKO | Paul Levy
Drawing on insights from Jungian psychology, shamanism, alchemy, spiritual wisdom traditions, and personal experience, author Paul Levy shows us that hidden within the venom of wetiko* is a revelation as well as its own antidote, which once recognized can help us wake up and bring sanity back to our society. How wetiko manifests─will it destroy our species, or will it catalyze a deeper process of global awakening?─depends upon recognizing what it is revealing to us about ourselves.
*wetiko (Native American term) - a 'mind-virus' that covertly operates through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, rendering people oblivious to their own madness and compelling them to act against not only their own best interests but against the wellbeing of the Collective.
Drawing on insights from Jungian psychology, shamanism, alchemy, spiritual wisdom traditions, and personal experience, author Paul Levy shows us that hidden within the venom of wetiko* is a revelation as well as its own antidote, which once recognized can help us wake up and bring sanity back to our society. How wetiko manifests─will it destroy our species, or will it catalyze a deeper process of global awakening?─depends upon recognizing what it is revealing to us about ourselves.
*wetiko (Native American term) - a 'mind-virus' that covertly operates through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, rendering people oblivious to their own madness and compelling them to act against not only their own best interests but against the wellbeing of the Collective.
THE INTERIOR CASTLE - St. Theresa of Avila | Mirabai Starr
Celebrated for more than four centuries as a master of mystical writing, St. Teresa of Avila is one of the most beloved religious figures in history. An irreverent fiery nun, St. Teresa talked back to everyone including God. She held unconventional progressive views on prayer and worship and spent most of her career under the scrutiny of the Inquisition. Her tendency toward sudden fits and visions only increased the Church's suspicions and she was even labelled insane by a few of her contemporaries. Like her confidant and protege, fellow reformer St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa was persecuted throughout her life simply for believing that every person is capable of a direct relationship with God.
Celebrated for more than four centuries as a master of mystical writing, St. Teresa of Avila is one of the most beloved religious figures in history. An irreverent fiery nun, St. Teresa talked back to everyone including God. She held unconventional progressive views on prayer and worship and spent most of her career under the scrutiny of the Inquisition. Her tendency toward sudden fits and visions only increased the Church's suspicions and she was even labelled insane by a few of her contemporaries. Like her confidant and protege, fellow reformer St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa was persecuted throughout her life simply for believing that every person is capable of a direct relationship with God.
HERMANN HESSE - Pilgrim of Crisis | A biography by Ralph Freedman
"This biography is the story of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist/poet Hermann Hesse who became the guide of many readers. As the historian George Mosse put it in 1978: “Hesse’s life was exemplary for those intellectuals who stood in the cross-fire of all parties, eternal exiles who yet longed for a home.” Hesse captured especially the imagination of young readers first in Germany through both World Wars as a poet of nature, then, during the 1960s and 1970s, the years of the counter-culture, in the United States by his choice of Eastern mysticism in Siddhartha and a heightened sensibility stirred by the drug-related visions in works like Der Steppenwolf."
Ralph Freedman
"This biography is the story of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist/poet Hermann Hesse who became the guide of many readers. As the historian George Mosse put it in 1978: “Hesse’s life was exemplary for those intellectuals who stood in the cross-fire of all parties, eternal exiles who yet longed for a home.” Hesse captured especially the imagination of young readers first in Germany through both World Wars as a poet of nature, then, during the 1960s and 1970s, the years of the counter-culture, in the United States by his choice of Eastern mysticism in Siddhartha and a heightened sensibility stirred by the drug-related visions in works like Der Steppenwolf."
Ralph Freedman
JITTERBUG PERFUME | Tom Robbins
"A saga must have a hero, and the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle. The bottle is blue, very, very old, and embossed with the image of a goat-horned god. If the liquid in the bottle is actually is the secret essence of the universe, as some folks seem to think, it had better be discovered soon becaused it is leaking and there is only a drop of two left. . . " Goodreads.
Andrew Bell (Christchurch) wrote, "I suggest 'Jitterbug Perfume' by Tom Robbins. It isn't an intellectual or academic tome that needs serious mental processing, but it is a fascinating and funny novel that explores the idea of immortality. Tom Robbins manages to wrap up interesting topics that require thinking about in a slightly anarchic and exceedingly funny work of literature. This novel has stayed with me, cavorting in my mental landscape, for about thirty years since I first read it." Thanks, Andrew.
"A saga must have a hero, and the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle. The bottle is blue, very, very old, and embossed with the image of a goat-horned god. If the liquid in the bottle is actually is the secret essence of the universe, as some folks seem to think, it had better be discovered soon becaused it is leaking and there is only a drop of two left. . . " Goodreads.
Andrew Bell (Christchurch) wrote, "I suggest 'Jitterbug Perfume' by Tom Robbins. It isn't an intellectual or academic tome that needs serious mental processing, but it is a fascinating and funny novel that explores the idea of immortality. Tom Robbins manages to wrap up interesting topics that require thinking about in a slightly anarchic and exceedingly funny work of literature. This novel has stayed with me, cavorting in my mental landscape, for about thirty years since I first read it." Thanks, Andrew.
WAKING UP | Sam Harris
"In Waking Up, I do my best show that a certain form of spirituality is integral to understanding the nature of our minds.
There is no discrete self or ego living like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is—the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself—can be altered or entirely extinguished. Although such experiences of “self-transcendence” are generally thought about in religious terms, there is nothing, in principle, irrational about them. From both a scientific and a philosophical point of view, they represent a clearer understanding of the way things are. . ." Sam Harris
"In Waking Up, I do my best show that a certain form of spirituality is integral to understanding the nature of our minds.
There is no discrete self or ego living like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is—the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself—can be altered or entirely extinguished. Although such experiences of “self-transcendence” are generally thought about in religious terms, there is nothing, in principle, irrational about them. From both a scientific and a philosophical point of view, they represent a clearer understanding of the way things are. . ." Sam Harris