Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith
Kathleen Norris (1998) 384pages

What follows is an exploration and a record of my engagement with some of the words in the Christian lexicon that most trouble and attract me. I hope that the reader will indulge me as I try on my scary words for size, as I wiggle them around on my tongue, as I play with them, and let their odd stories unfold; words that I can no longer separate out from the community of faith but nevertheless must believe are not a private language for believers only...And I hope to approach these words with a proper sense of humility before the great mystery of language, this human venture that begins with the ear and the tongue and reaches for the stars. Our words - as the poet Ben Belitt told me in my freshman year at Benington College, changing my life forever - our words are wiser than we are. And that's a good thing. Language used truly, not mere talk, neither propaganda, nor chatter, has real power. Its words are allowed to be themselves, to bless or curse, wound or heal. They have the power of a "word made flesh," of ordinary speech that suddenly takes hold, causing listeners to pay close attention, and even to release bodily sighs - whether of recognition, delight, grief, or distress. Emily Dickinson had the good sense to call it a "consent of Language, / This loved Philology." - from the author's Preface (publisher)

Art of Worldly Wisdom: 300 Practical Proposals for Success by a 17th Century Jesuit
Baltasar Gracian S.J. (17th C.) 304pages

Gracian, born in 1601 in Belmonte in the Kingdom of Aragon, was a contemporary of Cervantes and Shakespeare. One of his works, El Criticon, was a philosophical allegory on which Daniel Defoe is said to have based his Robinson Crusoe. Seven volumes of his work were edited and published by his friend, Don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa "without the permission of Gracian but not without his consent." This book consists of 300 brief chapters which Lastanosa excerpted from Gracian's complete works and which he published only a few years before Gracian's death (in 1658). Schopenhauer translated The Art of World Wisdom into German because, he said, it was invaluable and there was nothing like it in the Gerrman language. - from the publisher's Foreword (Templegate, 1996)

At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst
Carol lee Flinders (1998) 369pages

Initially, I just wanted to figure out whether spirituality and feminism were compatible. But as I forced myself to be more and mor e specific about what I meant by spirituality and what I meant by feminism, I discovered, somewhat to my astonishment, that they were not merely compatible at all. Eventually, I would have to conclude that for me, at least, they are mutually necessary: for the aims of either to be fully realized, both would have to be accommodated....For a variety of reasons, Julian of Norwich presides over the first half of this book. Her place is taken in the second half by a figure who may not ever have existed, a princess who figures centrally in the Indian epic Mahabharata....The division of the whole into these two parts is my concession to the layered quality life can sometimes have....It seems reasonable to have done this; at any given moment a great many things can be happening at once whose connections become clear only much later. - from the author's preface (HarperSanFrancisco)

Being Home: A Book of Meditations
Gunilla Norris (1991) Photographs by Greta D. Sibley 74pages

All of us have some kind of daily round. As human beings we have a strong intuition that deep within our dailiness lies meaning, a huge dimension. But how do we speak of that sense of the sacred? How do we address holiness? I have chosen to use words like Life, Reality, Glory, Mystery. For me they point to that which is fundamental and beyond knowing. I am truly helpless here and hope that you will forgive this very inadequate formulation. Personally I have been eased by using the simple word You when addressing the awesome mystery within and beyond my life. I do so in these prayers. In your reading, if this is difficult for you, I invite you to find another word that works better. In fact, this whole book is an invitation, an invitation to a process. It invites you to become aware of the prayers that you are already praying. Perhaps you will be surprised at how full of silent prayers your daily round is, how full of meaning and grace. It is my hope that together we will learn more about this. - from the author's Preface (Bell Tower)

The Call
David Spangler (1996) 120pages

Calls are all around us. We are never bereft of calls. But sometimes we just have to be poised and alert and aware in all directions to listen and to perceive them. We have to recognize that some calls come as whispers, some calls come in very ordinary ways. If we want to hear the big call, we cannot ignore the little ones. After all, the call that comes with a little "c" may be every bit as important, and may in fact be the foundation that allows us to receive the call with a capital "C." - from the author's concluding chapter (Riverhead)

Composing a Life
Mary Catherine Bateson (1990) 241pages

This extraordinary book explores that act of creation that engages us all - the composition of our lives. Through the comparative biographies of five women. Mary Catherine Bateson provides a fascinating framework for her inquiry into the creative potential of complex lives, where enrgies are not narrowly focused toward a single ambition but rather are continually refocused and redefined. Each of the women in this book - Johnnetta Cole, anthropologist and college president; Joan Erickson, dancer, writer, and jewelry designer; Alice d'Entremont, electrical engineer and entrepreneur; Ellen Bassuk, psychiatrist and researcher on homelessness; and writer and professor Mary Catherine Bateson - has faced discontinuity and divided energy at different periods in her life, yet each has been rich in professional achievement and personal relationships - in love and in work. Bateson's life-affirming conclusion is that life is an improvisational art form, and that the interruptions, conflicted priorities, and exigencies that are a part of all our lives can, and should, be seen as a source of wisdom. Important and empowering, Composing a Life will change lives. (Plume / Penguin)

Contentment: A Way to True Happiness
Robert A. Johnson & Jerry M. Ruhl (1999)116pages

As modern people, we like to believe that contentment comes from getting what we want. it does not. Contentment grows out of our capacity to mediate our desires with "what is." ...The art of realizing contentment is an active and dynamic process. You might imagine it as a dance between your wishes and reality, what you want and what you get....each of us can learn to dance with what is given. Sometimes you take the lead and assert your will, and fate moves with you. In the very next step you may need to follow rather than lead. Clearly, to move with such agility and grace takes a lot of practice, but our practice studio is daily life...The goal of this book is to provide readers with both practical strategies for the mind and rich nourishment for the soul. - from the Preface by Jerry M. Ruhl (HarperSanFrancisco)

A Country Year: Living the Questions
Sue Hubbell (1986) 221pages

I have lived here in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri for twelve years now, and for most of that time I have been alone...Over the past twelve years I have learned that a tree needs space to grow, that coyotes sing down by the creek in January, that I can drive a nail into oak only when it is green, that bees know more about making honey than I do, that love can become sadness, and that there are more questions than answers. - from the author's Foreword (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin, 1999)

Crafting the Soul: Creating Your Life as a Work of Art
Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin (1998) 225pages

"In the eyes of the world, I am average. But in my own heart, I am of great moment. The challenge I face is how to actualize, how to concretize, the quiet eminence of my being." So wrote the eminent Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel. Engaging in the task of crafting the soul is how a person can "concretize the quiet eminence" of his or her own being. The meaning of life is a problem to which crafting the soul is an answer. Within each soul, meaning flickers as a spark awaiting to be ignited. How one chooses to live, how one fashions one's life, determines whether this spark will be smothered or whether it will burst forth as a flame. Cultivating the soul, the creation of life as a work of art, offers a path toward making extrinsic the intrinsic core of meaning that lays dormant within each human person. The task is not so much to discover the meaning of life as to evoke meaning from life. When both life and meaning are present, the challenge is to become a match-maker, to affect a sacred union between them. - from the author's eighth chapter (Park Street)

Creating an Imaginative Life
Michael Jones (1995) 202pages + full-length music CD

There is a story living in us that speaks of our place in the world. It is a story that invites us to love what we love and simply be ourselves. The story is not given to us, it flows naturally from within; to hear it we have only be silent for a moment and turn our face to the wind.-Michael Jones (Conari Press)

The Dove in the Stone: Finding the Sacred in the Commonplace
Alice O. Howell (1988) 199pages

A gentle travelogue and open-heart ruminations along a pilgrimage through the Celtic isle of Ilona, in the Scottish Hebrides.
Then I tried to explain that the mystics have been saying that the sacred is very well hidden in the commonplace, and that the way to unlock the wisdom in this world is to learn to think and live symbolically... So Sophia holds the key, and we have to find it. Thus the rules of the game involve following certain clues. These are hidden in: (a) nature (b) the religions of the world (esoterically understood) (c) sacred geometry (d) myths and fairy tales (e) archetypal processes in and outside the psyche (f) astrology and alchemy (g) the human body (h) dreams (i) words (etymology). If you showed it as a petaled flower, it would look like this. And each petal could lead you to the center. - excerpt from Chapter Eight: Flowers (Quest Books)

Dying Well: Peace & Possibilities at the End of Life
Ira Byock, M.D. (1997) 299pages

Through my years as a hospice doctor, I have learned that dying does not have to be agonizing. Physical suffering can always be alleviated. People need not die alone; many times the calm, caring presence of another can soothe a dying person's anguish. I have learned from my patients and their families a surprising truth about dying: this stage of life holds remarkable possibilities. Despite the arduous nature of the experience, when people are relatively comfortable and know that they are not going to be abandoned, they frequently find ways to strengthen bonds with people they love and to create moments of profound meaning in their final passage. Dying Well is a book about living. It is a book about realizing the human potential to grow-as individuals and as members of families-through the process of dying. Being with people who are dying in conscious and caring ways is of value to them and to us. - from the author's Introduction (Riverhead)

The Education of the Heart:
Readings and Sources for Care of the Soul, Soul Mates, and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
edited by Thomas Moore (1996) 349pages

Education is an education, the art of educing or bringing out what is latent in a person. Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, rather a making visible what is hidden as a seed. To be educated, a person doesn't have to know much or be informed, but he or she does have to have been exposed vulnerably to the transformative events of an engaged human life...Without an education, the heart presents itself as a cauldron of raw emotions, suspicious desires, and disconnected images. Dreams appear stupefying, longings inappropriate, and relationships confounding. Without an animating educated heart, the intellect appears superior, and we give too much attention and value to it. Our institutions and ideas then lack the humanizing breath of the soul. Education of the proper kind brings into view the order and sense in matters of the heart that otherwise seem elusive, and position the heart to play a significant role in affairs of the mind...The many and varied selections that follow, then, are to be meditated upon, discussed, written, and repeated- or perhaps in the spirit of magic, simply kept physically close. The soul deepens by a process like osmosis, an almost imperceptible growth in love and attachment for the words and personalities of the authors. Reading can be an exercise in eros as well as logos, an intimate act with sexual overtones. Love, desire, and pleasure, and chances are, soul will be called out from hiding and we readers in the deepest sense will be educated. - from the editor's Introduction ( Harper Collins)

Enjoy Old Age: A Practical Guide
B.F. Skinner & M.E. Vaughan (1983/1997) 157pages

In many ways, this book is about the lessons B.F. Skinner learned as he adjusted to his own old age. Having spent his entire professional life observing and studying behavior, including his own, he hoped his experience would be useful to other people of similar age. But the reflective reader will soon find that the underlying theme of these lessons is relevant to all of us at any age. This theme is derived from the science of behavior Fred Skinner pioneered. Simply put, the enjoyment of life is a by-product of doing something about life. It is only by doing that we experience consequences, and it is the consequences of doing that create an effective enjoyable life...Whether it is fixing a cup of coffee, working in the garden, or joining a political party, it is only through interacting with the world that you can come to enjoy your life more fully. Remaining active is the key. Unfortunately, feelings often seem to stand in the way of doing, and it often seems that feelings are the hardest things to change. But to change feelings, we must first change the conditions that are causing the feelings. The result is feeling better. By doing things that change the particular world you live in, you are able to change what you feel. Fred Skinner was truly remarkable at changing his particular world. He preached only what he practiced....His life, like all lives, contained ups and downs. But he had learned how to transcend disappointment by taking practical steps. As a result, he learned how to enjoy life with all of its setbacks. Writing this books was his way of wishing others equal success. - from Margaret E. Vaughan' 1997 Preface (W.W.Norton)

Everyday Miracles: The Inner Art of Manifestation
David Spangler (1996) 239pages

For the purpose of this book, I define manifestation as the art of fashioning a co-creative, synchronistic, and mutually supportive relationship between the inner creative energies of a person's own mind and spirit and their counterpart within the larger world in order to bring a new and desirable situation into being. To understand the nature of this participation in a co-creative world is to understand the inner art of manifestation. The practice of such co-creation is the practice of this inner art. Underlying this understanding and practice is a simple principle. Manifestation is about being, not getting. If we honor this, we will not fail to manifest in skillful ways. - from the author's Introduction (Bantam)

Fire in the Belly: On Being A Man
Sam Keen (1991) 272pages

Today the question that is the yeast in the social dough is: What do men want? The traditional notions of manhood are under attack and men are being called upon to defend themselves, to change, to become something other than what they have been...(This book) is for a new kind of man who is being forged in the crucible of the chaos of our time. It is for men who are willing to undertake a spiritual journey beginning with the disillusioning awareness that what we have agreed to call "normal" is a facade covering a great deal of alienation. But it goes beyond the valley of the shadow to celebrate a new vision of manhood- a vision of man with fire in his belly and passion in his heart. The path it follows is the ancient way of the hero's journey that involves departure from everyday normality; descent into the strange land of disease, demons, dreadful powers, treasures, and maidens guarded by dragons; and, finally, a return home to the heart of the ordinary. - from the author's Introduction: The Making of A Man (Bantam)

The Force of Character and the Lasting Life
James Hillman (1999) 236pages

Aging is no accident. It is necessary to the human conditions, intended by the soul. Aging is built into our physiology; yet, to our puzzlement, human life extends long beyond fertility and outlasts muscular usefulness and sensory acuteness. For this reason we need imaginative ideas that can grace aging and speak to it with the intelligence it deserves. You will find that vision in this book. It offers the promise of refreshing the reader's mind with a shower of insights whose goal is to affect transitions to later years profoundly, even permanently. So, why do we live long?...let us entertain the idea that character requires the additional years and that the long last of life is forced upon us neither by genes nor by conservational medicine nor by societal collusion. The last years confirm and fulfill character. - from the author's A Preface for the Reader (Random House)

Writing about the last of life cannot be an objective study, indifferent to the writer. His or her life is also on the line, so that the writing, if it comes from the heart at all, tells of the writer's character. Authors are characters in their own fictions..."Character" refers to the distinctive qualities of an individual, and can also mean a person in a work of fiction or played on the stage. The word wraps together the peculiarities of the author's individuality, the act of writing, and the book as a stage peopled by imagination. But what kind of writing does an old person do, and how does one do it?...The tortoise determines the pace. We are borne on its back. Exploring as slow thinking, and thinking as slower writing: the old ones are connoisseurs of lost threads and downtime, because we can't keep up with usual thought. Usual thinking about later years stops at death. That is not the destination of this book, nor is death a bold way to consider aging. What could be more usual than allegories of nature: splendid trees resting on solid trunks; an ancient turtles in the deepest seas; the full savor of aging wines and cheeses ("Ripeness is all")? - from the author's A Preface from the Writer (Random House)

This book consists of three main parts, following the theme of character through three stages. These stages are not the usual three - childhood, maturity, and old age; rather, this book expands upon the changes character undergoes in later life. First, the desire to last as long as one can; then the changes in body and soul as the capacity to last leaves and character becomes more and more exposed and confirmed until a third piece of the puzzle emerges: what is left when you have left. Lasting. Leaving. Left. Three parts, three main ideas. A book that invites the soul into its inquiry draws us inside its labyrinth. A preface tries to lay out the labyrinth on a flat map; it can't do justice, however, to the twists and turns and dark passages, or to the moments when clear light breaks through. Maybe the best this preface can do is to wish the book bon voyage, to acknowledge gratitude that the book exists and that its has found someone's hand and eye, even perhaps someone's mind and heart. - from the author's A Preface to the Book (Random House)

Freeing the Soul from Fear
Robert Sardello (1999) 278pages

Fear comes at us from everywhere - from war, politics, work, relationships, strangers, movies, the media. It drives us to manic extremes or fits of rage. It damages the relationships that would otherwise give us the means to confront it. Most important, says Robert Sardello, fear keeps us from a state of being that is the soul's strongest defense against it: becoming present. When not confronted, fear feeds on itself, gnaws at our being, and makes us forgetful of our humanity. At the same time, when approached with the correct attitude, fear can spur us to discover more of our humanity. The crucial task, Sardello argues, is to work with fear and find a place of balance. Our humanity is to be found not in the complete absence of fear, but in a courageous, unending struggle with it. It's a struggle that leads us to the core of what it means to be truly human, and allows us to work with the destructive forces within us to find a new sense of love. (Riverhead Books)

Gifts of the Spirit: Living the Wisdom of the Great Religious Traditions
Philip Zaleski & Paul Kaufman (1998) 271pages

In every tradition, East or West, contemplation serves as the royal road to the divine. It lies at the heart of the practices described in every chapter of Gifts of the Spirit. All contemplative disciplines share a love of stillness, silence, and attention... Contemplative practices appeal because they offer a practical method for collecting our scattered energies, for remembering the deeper significance of our lives, for encountering the sacred... Gifts of the Spirit is designed as a coherent narrative, to be read from cover to cover. It 's certainly possible, however to dip into the text at random, as if cruising a lavish buffet table. You might wish to search an area of particular interest... We have divided each chapter into three parts. The first part introduces the subject and provides background material. The second part, the "contemplative close-up," offers an in-depth look at one aspect of the subject or explores its place in a particular tradition. The third section provides a "contemplative harvest," an array of practices, reflections, interviews, and profiles that illuminate the subject from many directions. - from the authors' Introduction (HarperSanFrancisco)

Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die - Death Stories of Tibetan, Hindu & Zen Masters
compiled & edited by Sushila Blackman (1997) 160pages

All the great masters wish for us one thing: that we become able to identify with the true part of our being - our essence, our inner self, our soul - before we leave our physical body. Death is natural and unavoidable. But, from the viewpoint of Eastern mystery, it is not real. Only union with the Absolute, immersion in the Void, is real. In compiling these stories, I have entered more deeply into my understanding of death and erased many fears associated with it. I hope that you, the reader, have a similar experience. - from the editor's Introduction (Weatherhill)

Gray Heroes: Elder Tales from Around the World
edited by Jane Yolen (1999) 233pages

Jane Yolen shines the light on strong, powerful, adventuruos older people, in an original anthology of seven-five tales from around the world. Revisit forgotten favourites from Grimm and Aesop, and discover new gems from Africa, Asia, and Appalachia among the pithy parables and full-length myths. Yolen's graying heroes and heroines heartily prove that you're never too old to fall in love, fight a dragon, play a trick, save a king or kingdom, teach a lesson - or learn one yourself. They meet the enemy with courage , cunning, and compassion (especially when the youngsters around them have none). (Penguin)

A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness
Sharon Salzberg (1997) 192pages

From my earliest days of Buddhist practice, I felt powerfully drawn to the possibility of finding a way of life that was peaceful and authentic. My own life at that time was characterized largely by fear and confusion. I felt separate from other people and from the world around me, and even oddly disconnected from my own experience. Stepping onto the Buddhist path, I saw that it was possible to be free of feelings of separation and defensiveness- that one could live with a seamlessness of connection and an unbounded heart. The life of the Buddha embodied this. There seemed to be no circumstance that limited his compassion; he truly had a heart as wide as the world. The essence of the Buddha's teaching is that we all have this same capacity for compassion and for peace. Discovering that our hearts are indeed wide enough to embrace the whole world of experience - both pleasurable and painful - is the basis of the spiritual path, and with it comes an extraordinary freedom and happiness. This way of living is beautifully described by the poet Rilke: "I Live my life in widening circles / that reach out across the world./ I may not ever complete the last one,/ but I give myself to it." My hope is that this book may encourage you to bring mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion to life through practice, so that you may learn that your own heart can become as wide as the world. To paraphrase Rilke: you need only give yourself to it. - from the author's Introduction (Shambhala)

Hermits: The Insights of Solitude
Peter France (1996) 240pages

The human impulse to take off and live alone is an ancient one and societies down the ages have varied in their responses to it. From the earliest times there have been people who felt at their best in company and others who felt happiest on their own... Hermits have built up great reputation not only, as might be expected, for heroic asceticism of spirituality, but for insights into the ways of the world. They have often found it difficult to preserve their seclusion from the crowds who came to disturb it in search of counsel. They have something to say to us today even in an age so uniquely averse to solitude. Hermits can make clear the fruits of solitary life as well as re-ordering the priorities for those of us who live among people...The selection of viewpoints and personalities from ancient China to present-day Patmos is inevitably a personal one... the book is a record of some of the most penetrating insights, described in the words of hermits over two thousand years, into the need we all have for a time of solitude in our lives. - from the author's Prologue and Introduction ( Pimlico)

Hymns to an Unknown God: Awakening the Spirit in Everyday Life
Sam Keen (1994) 308pages

Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life that Matters
Bernard Glassman & Rick Fields (1996) 171pages

Maps, recipes, and instruction manuals are made up of real words and images that convey real information about our lives and the world we live in. A map can help us get from here to there; a recipe can help us bake a delicious loaf of bread; and words that come from experience and the heart can help us to live more fully and completely. So this book is my painted cake. My hope is that it will help you to discover and practice the ancient and up-to-date principles of the Zen cook so that you can prepare the supreme meal for yourself and others, moment after moment. For the supreme meal - your own life - is the greatest gift you can receive and the greatest offering you can make. - from the authors' Prologue (Bell Tower)

In The Tenderness of Stone: Liberating Consciousness Through the Awakening of the Heart
Diana Denton (1998)168pages

The awakening of the heart is a sacred moment in the mystical life. As the knot of the heart is loosened, as the stone heart softens, consciousness is freed. The imaginal offers a return to the tactile body, the feeling body. Drawing on poetic and kinesthetic sensibilities this study explores the image of the heart - visions that confine and free.

As a researcher. I inquire into a somatic knowledge of the heart, how the corporal world offers an entry to the invisible; how the visible informs the invisible. I seek liminal spaces, where things are not yet fixed, thresholds for the imaginal.

The text consists of fragments drawn from my experience, my poetry, and images and conversations that arise in my workshops. These act as sites for interpretive inquiry. The study examines the correspondences between, the imaginal, mystical, psychological, scientific and transpersonal worlds in moving towards an understanding of the heart. As researcher, I look for a discourse that will allow this understanding to be offered for others. - from the author's Introduction (Sterling House)

Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal
Rachel Naomi Remen (1996) 336pages

Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along.. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering...Real stories take time. We stopped telling stories when we started to lose that sort of time, pausing time, reflecting time, wondering time... Because we stopped listening to each other we may even have forgotten how to listen, stopped learning how to recognize meaning and fill ourselves from the ordinary events of our lives... The kitchen table is a level playing field. Everyone's story matters... At the kitchen table we do this for each other. Hidden in all stories is the One story. The more we listen, the clearer that Story become. Our true identity, who we are, why we are here, what sustains us, is in this story... In telling them, we are telling each other the human story. Stories that touch us in this place of common humanness awaken us and weave us as a family once again. - from the author's Introduction ( Riverhead)

Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty
Carolyn G. Heilbrun (1997) 225pages

When she was young, distinguished author and critic Carolyn Heilbrun solemnly vowed to end her life when she turned seventy. But on the advent of that fateful birthday, she realized that her golden years had been full of unforeseen pleasures. Now, the astute and ever-insightful Heilbrun muses on the emotional and intellectual insights that brought her "to choose each day for now, to live." There are reflections on her new house and her sturdy, comfortable marriage; sweet solitude; the fascination with E-mail; and the joy of discovering unexpected friends. Even the encroachments of loss, pain and sadness that come with age cannot spoil Heilbrun's moveable feast. They are merely the price of bountiful living. (Ballantine)

Let Evening Come: Reflections on Aging
Mary C. Morrison (1998) 134pages

A standard complaint about writings on old age is that they are either too bright and determinedly cheerful, or too dark and gloomy. My hope in this small book is to bring the two extremes together without denying either one, for both are valid... Old age is not for the fainthearted, and anyone who watches it closely and with a sympathetic eye can sometimes be lost in admiration for the aging and their gallantry. Where does this gallantry come from? How are we going to find it in ourselves, as we need it? What will this newfound present of old age and its unknown future, full of diminishments of all kinds, demand of us? Where is dignity to be found in it? How shall we find in ourselves the dignity that we see is needed? - from the author's introductory paragraphs (Doubleday)

A Life of One's Own
Joanna Field [Marion Milner] (1936) 226pages

This book is the record of a seven years' study of living. The aim of the record was to find out what kinds of experience made me happy. The method was (a) to pick those moments in my daily life which had been particularly happy and try to record them in words. (b) To go over these records in order to see whether I could discover any rules about the conditions in which happiness occurred. The form of this book follows from the nature of the experiment...As for the methods which led me to these discoveries, let no one think it is an easy way because it is concerned with moments of happiness rather than with stern duty or high moral endeavor. For what is really easy, as I found, is to blind one's eyes to what one really likes, to drift into accepting one wants ready-made from other people, and to evade the continual day-to-day shifting of values. And finally, let no one undertake such an experiment who is not prepared to find himself more of a fool than he thought. - from the author's 1934 Preface (Jeremy P. Tacher/Putnam, 1981)

Light in My Darkness
Helen Keller (1927) Revised & edited by Ray Silverman (1994)168pages

"I do not know whether I adopted the faith or the faith adopted me. I can only say that the heart of the young girl sitting with a big book of raised letters on her lap in the sublime sunshine was thrilled by a radiant presence and inexpressibly endearing voice....The teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg have been my light and a staff in my hand, and by his vision splendid I am attended on my way." Thus wrote Helen Keller about how Emmanuel Swedenborg's writings affected her life, a subject she explored in her 1927 book My Religion. Now revised and expanded, this version draws from Keller's autobiography, essays, letters, and lectures. it presents an inspiring picture of this remarkable woman's affirmation of the power and triumph of the spirit. (Chrysalis Books, 1994)

Maps to Ecstasy: A Healing Journey for the Untamed Spirit
Gabriel Roth with John Loudon (1989/1998) 217pages

Maps to Ecstasy implies that ecstasy is a place and that we can get there with a good set of directions. The key to entering this place is some radical form of surrender, a ritual shattering. For me this has taken place on countless dance floors, when the music was really pumping and I stopped caring about what anybody else thought of my dance, my hairdo, my brain, or my butt. Through dancing I navigated the badlands of endless head trips and found my way back to the stomping ground of my own two feet. Through dancing I discovered that when you put the psyche in motion, it heals itself... The book's five chapters mirror the five aspects of the psyche. In Chapter One, we enter the teachings of the body, which are rooted in the map of the five rhythms. Chapter Two charts our journey through the heart and reveals five core emotions. Chapter Three is the domain of the mind, where we investigate life's five stages, focusing on one's sacred teachings and teachers. In Chapter Four, we expose the ego to reveal the mysteries of the soul. And finally, in Chapter Five, all the paths converge on the road to the Silver Desert - an illuminative, visionary level of experience. From start to finish, this is a spiral journey we can enter again and again from different viewpoints and at different times in our lives. - from the Author's 1998 Preface (New World)

Mindfulness and Meaningful Work: Explorations in Right Livelihood
Edited by Claude Whitmyer (1994) 289pages

In this collection of writings on the integration of mindfulness and ethics in the workplace, some of the leading thinkers and doers of our time - Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, Sam Keen, E.F.Schumacher, Gary Snyder, Shakti Gawain, Shunryu Suzuki, Robert Aiken, Tarthang Tulku, Marsha Sinetar, Rick Fields, Ellen Langer, and many others - share their insights on the practice and value of working and of finding work that is meaningful, life-affirming, and non-exploitative. (Parallax)

Money and the Meaning of Life
Jacob Needleman (1991) 321pages

I do not mean to say that our culture is necessarily more materialistic than those that have preceded it. I am saying only that money - that extraordinary device whose origins we shall soon discuss - now plays an unprecedentedly powerful role in our inner and outer lives, and that any serious search for self-knowledge and self-development requires that we study the meaning that money has for us. / The present book is in many ways no more than a discourse on this power of money to make things real, It is a power that many people regard with distaste. It is the argument of this book, however, that if we are seeking something in ourselves and in our common life that is both deeply meaningful and unshakably real, then in this time and place, in this culture that shapes us all, we have no choice but to take very seriously the power money has not only to seduce or frighten us, but to show us what we can develop in ourselves that can never be bought and sold at any price. - from the author's introduction and his 1994 User's guide (Currency/Doubleday)

A Mythic Life: Learning to Live Our Greater Story
Jean Houston (1996) 340pages

What does it mean to live life in constant dialogue with myth? This is the question that Jean Houston explores in her autobiography, and the examples that she offers to her readers...The dialogue with myth, or with history interwoven with myth, has been a focus of the life-history narratives of many writers living at the meeting place of different cultures, and striving for identity... Jean Houston would have us live our lives in multilogue not with a single mythic tradition but with all the world's wealth of imagination and aspiration... We must cultivate the skills of inclusiveness, delighting in diversity, Jean calls this "polyphrenia," the orchestration of many parts of ourselves, and "leaky margins," the accepting of other modes of experience...This autobiography is what I have come to call a learning narrative, organized not around linear chronology but around a series of themes and the events that opened up understanding of those themes and have come to symbolize them... I find it helpful to read this book as the braided narrative of three aspects of Jean's character; this gives me a way through the polyphrenia of performer, teacher, and "midwife of souls." - from the Foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson (HarperSanFrancisco)

Old Age: Journey Into Simplicity
Helen M. Luke (1987) 112pages

Drawing on the masterworks of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot; reading those works with an understanding formed through years of absorbing and reflecting upon the insights of Carl Jung; and speaking as a wonderfully conscious individual making the transition herself into old age, Helen Luke teaches us that a point comes in our lives at which we choose how we go into our last years, how we approach our death. The choice, as she describes it, may be painful, requiring (should we choose to continue to grow old, instead of merely sinking into the aging process) that we let go of much that has been central even to our inner lives. The choice, she says at one point, is "whether [we] will let go of everything else so that a new man who is the creation of Mercy will be born, or whether [we] will hold on to the old man, to rejection of that emptiness which is the fullness of Marcy." ...For those who recognize the moment, who choose to let go, to embrace "the gifts reserved for age": loss of energy and of enchantment, helpless rage at the folly of mankind, the suffering hidden in our memories - old age becomes freedom, becomes the dance "into which we may enter if we have passed... the purging flame of integration of these strange gifts." - from the Introduction by Barbara A. Mowat (Parabola)

Older & Wiser: How to Maintain Peak Mental Ability for As Long As You Live
Richard M. Restak, M.D. (1997) 272pages

Since the brain is a dynamic, ever-changing organ, it should come as no surprise to learn that brain researchers are confirming what many experts have long suspected but couldn't prove: the brain of an older person is not inferior to that of a younger counterpart; instead, the brain of an 80-year-old is organized differently than that of a 35-year-old. In practical terms, this means the mature brain possesses strengths and assets that it lacked decades earlier. What's more, as we age, we retain considerable control over how our brain functions. And we can take practical steps to improve brain performance over our entire life span. We aren't simply passive spectators who must adapt to inevitable cognitive decline. We can maintain healthy brain functioning by adopting certain lifestyle habits. Included among these are educational and learning activities, diet, exercise, general attitude, and attention to our physical and mental health. In Older and Wiser we will be discussing these factors as examples of how much we can do to positively influence our brain function during the later years of our lives. - from the author's Introduction (Berkley Books)

On Not Being Able to Paint
Joanna Field [Marion Milner] (1957) 184pages

Marion Milner's treatment of psychic creativity differs in several respects from those well-established approaches to the subject to which psycho-analytic readers owe whatever familiarity with it they possess. She chooses as the object of her scrutiny not the professional and recognised artist but herself as a "Sunday-painter"; not the finished masterpiece but her own fumbling and amateurish beginner's effort to draw and paint. In short, she analyses not the mysterious and elusive ability of the genius who achieves self-expression through the medium of painting, but, - as the title of the book suggests - the all too common and distressing restrictions by which the creativity of the average adult individual is held in check. - from the Foreword by Anna Freud (1956)

It was the discovery that it was possible at times to produce drawings and sketches in an entirely different way from any that I had been taught, a way of letting hand and eye do exactly what pleased them without any conscious working to a preconceived intention. This discovery had at first been so disconcerting that I had tried to forget all about it; for it seemed to threaten, not only all familiar beliefs about will-power and conscious effort, but also, as I suppose all eruptions from the unconscious mind do, it threatened one's sense of oneself as a more or less known entity. - from the author's Introduction (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam)

Parent as Mystic, Mystic as Parent
David Spangler (1998) 191pages

Creating a family in which a child can know safety, support, empowerment, and love is surely one of the most profound acts of service that any human being can provide. If at times the darkness of the world seems to press in close, then healthy, happy families - whatever shape or form they take, as long as the children within them are protected and enabled to grow in balanced ways - are part of the bulwark that protects us. If any mystic is looking for a calling, for a place to work meaningful miracles, then to be a good and sane parent is certainly worthy of the most careful consideration. If any parent wonders, in the midst of all the turmoil, sacrifice and struggle, and challenge of raising a family, if it is worth it, then he or she can reflect that there are good reasons beyond mere metaphors of authority or power why the sacred is so often characterized as a father or a mother. Parents have the opportunity to re-create daily the presence of the sacred in the very substance of what they do. They can ensure that through their lives and their efforts, and the lives and efforts of their children, Life itself will take a step forward and the world will be blessed because of it. - from the author's chapter on Calling (Riverhead)

A Passion for the Possible: A Guide to Realizing Your True Potential
Jean Houston (1997) 194pages

With your senses tuned and your psyche primed, with a mythic path beneath your feet and the immensity of Spirit holding it all in Love, your life can be your work of art, your great creation, your everyday passion....All that is required now is that you continue to till the soil of your soul...you must attend to and nourish the garden of your becoming...Now you can live the life you were meant to live. So just do it! - from the author's concluding chapter (Harper SanFrancisco)

A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
Jack Kornfield (1993) 352pages

While this book will draw upon my experience in the Buddhist traditions, I believe the principles of spiritual practice it touches on are universal. The first half introduces the ground of an integrated spiritual life: ways of practice, common perils, techniques for dealing with our wounds and difficulties, and some Buddhist maps of spiritual states of human consciousness and how these extraordinary experiences can be grounded in common sense. The second half of the book will speak more directly to the integration of this practice into our contemporary lives, addressing topics such as codependence and compassion, compartmentalization, psychotherapy and meditation, and the benefits and difficulties encountered with spiritual teachers. We will conclude by looking at spiritual maturity; the ripening of wisdom and compassion, and the ease and joy it brings to our life...An integrated sense of spirituality understands that if we are to bring light or wisdom or compassion into the world, we must first begin with ourselves. The universal truths of spiritual life can come alive only in each particular and personal circumstance. This personal approach honors both the uniqueness and the commonality of our life, respecting the timeless quality of the great dance between birth and death, yet also honouring our particular body, our particular family and community, the personal history and the joys and sorrows that have been given to us. In this way, our awakening is a very personal matter that also affects all other creatures on earth. - from the author's introductory chapter ( Bantam)

The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time
Matthew Fox (1994) 342pages

When he wrote, "To live well is to work well, or display a good activity," Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century saint and theologian, laid out in clear words how deep the issues of work are to the human species. Work touches life itself-"to live well is to work well." Good living and good working go together. Life and livelihood ought not to be separated but to flow from the same source, which is Spirit, for both life and livelihood are about Spirit. Spirit means life, and both life and livelihood are about living in depth, living with meaning, purpose, joy, and a sense of contributing to the greater community. A spirituality of work is bringing life and livelihood back together again. And Spirit with them....To bring spirituality to bear on our discussion of work is to bring out the mystical as well as the prophetic dimension of work. Part 1 of this book thus constitutes the mystical side to work, at least up to chapter 4, which bridges the mystical and the prophetic; part 2 constitutes the prophetic side to work, discussing how to apply a mystical cosmology to the subject of reinventing our work - how to transform work itself. And part 3 explores the most fertile field for transforming our species and its civilizations by way of the transforming work that will in turn transform souls. Hildegard of Bingen once wrote a letter in which she stated that she wanted above all else to be "useful". I hope, in Hildegaard's words, this essay proves to be "useful" in the revisioning of work in an increasingly postindustrial era. - from the author's Introduction (Harper SanFrancisco)

The Science of Mind
Ernest Holmes (1926/1938) 668pages

The Science of Mind gives us the passion for a new possibility along with precise and clear directions for building a new matrix of mind and manifestation. It shows us how to activate the constructive imagination and how to hold in thought and feeling the intention and energy for healing, wholing, and cocreation...Ernest Holmes was one of the first to direct us to what is to be found in the vast ecology of inner space. The Science of Mind shows us how to be active and creative citizens in a Universe and Innerverse richer than all previous imaginings. Written in what some may believe to have been a simpler time, this work speaks to a future, more complex time as well. Although Holmes's use of language belongs to the 1920s and 1930s, the ideas expressed remain larger than the constraint of words and even more relevant to today's necessity. Holmes seemed to anticipate the world of the new millenium with its compounding of factors unique to the human experience. How can we deal with a world in the throes of whole-system transition in which everything that we have known is changing at so rapid a pace that we are caught between the dangers that threaten us and the opportunities that beckon us? The tasks that are now ours, the tasks of virtual creation, compel the revolution in consciousness that tells us that we are part of the great unfolding of Spirit in flesh. These are the times. We are the people. This is the book that can help us do it. - from the Foreword by Jean Houston (Jeremy P. Tarcher)

The Secret of Jesuit Breadmaking:Recipes & traditions from Jesuit bakers around the world
Brother Rick Curry, S.J. (1995)244pages

Bread baking has been a Jesuit tradition since the order was founded in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola, who begged bread for the poor. Gathered from Jesuit Brothers around the globe, the 80 recipes include Brother Bondera's Italian Easter Bread, Irish Soda Bread, Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread, St. Peter Canisius's Stollen, Holy Thursday Apple Bread, and Spy Wednesday Biscuits. Incorporated into the bread baking techniques are Curry's meditations on the links between bread baking and spirituality. A charming collection of mealtime graces, brief commentaries on ancient lessons from the Jesuit rule, and amusing anecdotes about the bakers themselves complement the recipes and make this book a spiritually and nutritionally satisfying read. (HarperPerennial)

The Seven Laws of Money
Michael Phillips (1974/1993) 120pages

The Seven Laws of Money tells how to live with money: how to get it, care for it, and forget about it. An underground classic among corporate executives, accountants, and entrepreneurs since the 1970's, it is rooted in the author's commitment to right livelihood, to learning how the world works, to a willingness to "fail young," and to networking. Phillips shows how to combine these principles with the seven laws to engender a healthy fearless attitude toward money. (Shambhala)

Sex, Health , and Long Life: Manuals of Taoist Practice
Translated by Thomas Cleary (1994) 111pages

"The human body," according to an old Taoist book, "consists of vitality, energy, and spirit." In Taoist health science, vitality, energy, and spirit are called the Three Treasures, and their care and cultivation are considered the basis of health, happiness, and long life...The five texts translated here were part of the famous Mawangdui finds of 1973-74. The first three, Ten Questions, Joining Yin and Yang, and Talk on Supreme Guidance for the World, deal specifically with physical health and sex lore, including diet, exercise, sleep, and lovemaking technique. The last two, entitled A Course in Effectiveness and A Course in Guidance, concentrate on the psychological factors of good health and well-being, especially the reduction of stress and cultivation of wholesome social relations. - from the translator's Introduction (Shambhala)

Soul Food: Stories to Nourish the Spirit & the Heart
Jack Kornfield & Christina Feldman (Ed.) (1991/1996) 366pages

Long before the birth of formal religions, storytelling was the vehicle for sustaining age-old wisdom. Within the stories, legend, history, and profound truths about life found their expression. Stories introduced their listeners to a world of magic and mystery. Stories, too, have long been the traditional medium of teaching and learning...This book is a collection of such teaching stories, drawn from the great traditions of the East and West...Each story is alive filled with the heart and inspiration of these traditions...the stories in this book are divided into three sections, each illustrating an aspect of the spiritual journey. Part I, "Opening to Possibilities," emphasizes the emergence of the inner vision that inspires us to begin our spiritual journey...Part II, "Finding the Way," shows us the valleys and peaks we encounter as we begin to travel our spiritual path...Part III, "Living Our Truths," we learn what it means to embody integrity and compassion in our lives and how to touch the world around us through the simple love and wisdom that is born of our own experience. - from the editors' Introduction (HarperSanFrancisco)

The Soul of Sex: Cultivating Life as an Act of Love
Thomas Moore (1998) 308pages

Sex is infinitely more mysterious than we usually imagine it to be and it only superficially considered when we talk about it in terms of hormones and the mechanics of lovemaking. I approach sex here as a lover of mysteries. I have written about eros in all my books, but here I focus in on sexuality itself. I take a long look at the body, especially as it is presented in art and religion, for signs of the mysteries involved in bodies and lovemaking. When I tease out those hidden meanings, I apply them to life and culture on a larger scale with the idea that we might be less depressed and less confused if we were able to make our surroundings more sexual and allow pleasure to be a valid goal in life....Given our obsession with sex, we need to get more of it, not in quantity but in quality....We need more sex, not less, but we need sex with soul. What that means is, of course, the burden of the book. from the author's Introduction (HarperPerennial)

Soul Work: A Field Guide for Spiritual Seekers
Anne A. Simpkinson and Charles H. Simpkinson (1998) 411pages

We find the windhorse a compelling image because it represents the relationship of personality, soul, and spirit and thus is the perfect metaphor for soul work and spiritual seeking. The horse symbolizes the physical body and personality, ego and natural instincts - in short the self. The rider, or jewel, represents the soul, and the wind signifies the spirit, the mysterious, invisible force that is greater than we are, that animates our lives. ...Soul work is the attempt to balance the knowledge and discipline of our "horse" with surrender to the flow of the spirit wind so that our souls can reach its unique destiny. David Richo mentions the windhorse image in his book When Love Meets Fear"and sums up the interaction in this way:

Both the wind and the horse propel us
The horse is the visible choices we made by effort;
The wind is the invisible force we receive by grace.

Over the centuries, people have discovered and devised many ways to ride their windhorses so as to be able to flow with the invisible mysteries. This field guide is a manual for those who wish to explore the methods available today for initiating or deepening their spiritual journey. - from the authors' Introduction (Harper Perennial)

Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life
Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat (1996) 608pages

Life is a sacred adventure. Everyday we encounter signs that point to the active presence of Spirit in the world around us. Spiritual literacy is the ability to read the signs written in the texts of our own experiences. Whether viewed as a gift from God or a skill to be cultivated, this facility enables us to discern and decipher a world full of meaning. The readings in this book reflect the wide variety of approaches to and experiences of the sacred in everyday life. Many of us recognize the presence of Spirit moving in our lives through encounters with things, places, nature and animals. Chapters two, three, four and five include selections on these common catalysts of spirituality. Our activities also put us on a spiritual path. Everything from cooking, eating, chores, hobbies, the creative arts, and work can be important steps toward a life of spiritual meaning, as readings in chapter six and seven attest. When we see the world with a spiritually literate focus, we frequently find ourselves moved to service; chapter eight is a guide to this path. We obviously have close ties to partners, family, and friends, but we are also part of layers and layers of communities. Chapters nine, ten, and eleven bring together illustrations of these relational paths. We come full circle in the final chapter to the most concrete experience of daily life. Beginning with waking up in the morning and ending with a late-night snack, these readings show us how Spirit moves through our ordinary activities and becomes known to us. - from the authors' Introduction (Touchstone Books)

Through the Kitchen Window: Women Writers Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking
Edited by Arlene Voski Avakian 315pages

These stories about women and food provide glimpses into the lives of women in their various contexts and tell us about the meanings embedded in women's relationships to food. They introduce us to cooking and eating as a way to maintain once colonized and now fragile histories; as creativity, sensuality, nurturance, love; as imposed, compulsory, and oppressive; as a way to combine diverse, even opposing, traditions; to claim or reclaim food rituals, transforming them or creating new ones an in doing so revising personal or collective histories. Thinking about women and food can help us understand how women reproduce or resist and rebel against the prevailing ideas of what they should be and codes that determine what they can do - gender constructions as varied as the worlds we see when we look in through their kitchen windows. The voices in these pieces and the recipes themselves provide a rich array of dishes, a sumptuous feast- food for thought about our histories, our current shifting contexts, and our future agendas. - from the editor's Introduction (Beacon Press)

Time and the Art of Living
Robert Grudin (1982) 191pages

Time is everywhere, yet eludes us. Time is so bound up in our universe and ourselves that it resists our efforts to isolate and define it. Time haunts our experience like some invisible spirit of things, some irretrievable truth. And when we try to manage our own time, setting new goals, cleaning and rearranging the little houses of our days, time gently mocks us - not so much because we lack wit as because time operates on a deeper psychological level than conscious effort can normally reach. This book does not attempt to isolate or organize time. Instead it attempts, on the broadest possible scale, to do justice to time's rooted coherence in nature. My premise, which is quite traditional, is that the acceptance and appreciation of nature are the only channels to its elusive bounty, the only valid foundations of boldness and achievement...First, since time refused to sit still for my portrait, I have written instead a kind of moving picture, a series of statements and reflections which readers may follow at their own pace...Second, since time operates most dramatically on our dearest values and concerns, I have been unable to avoid making statements about these matters; so that what began as an objective discourse has ended up as a personal philosophy of life. For this unavoidable excess I take full responsibility, trusting that readers will sort out what is valuable from what is not, and that those who find nothing of value will forgive and forget. - from the author's Preface (Mariner Books / Houghton Mifflin)

Time and the Soul
Jacob Needleman (1998) 157pages

The root of our modern problem with time is neither technological, sociological. economic nor psychological. It is metaphysical. It is a question of the meaning of human life itself. The aim of this book is to uncover the link between our pathology of time and the eternal mystery of what a human being is meant to be in the universal scheme of things...A story and an image can enter our psyche in a way that concepts and analyses cannot. And so this examination of time and the human soul should perhaps, as all true stories begin, with the suddenly pregnant phrase: "Once upon a time..." - from the author's Preface (Currency/Doubleday)

A Time to Live: Seven Steps of Creative Aging
Robert Raines (1997) 205pages

While the challenge of creative aging faces us all along the adult life cycle, it becomes pressing as we approach the later years. The good news is that, because of the increasing longevity, there is an elder season, which may begin around seventy or later, and continue throughout the rest of our lives. Specific age parameters are necessarily imprecise, because the sense of where people are in the age span is shifting and not settled. What matters is to locate one's self within the journey and engage its tasks...I hope this book will provide companionship, guidance, and encouragement in the living of these years. I have identified seven tasks of creative aging, works to be undertaken if one is to fulfill the promise of the passage. These tasks have emerged out of my struggle to understand and participate in my own passage. They have been tested and shaped with hundreds of others on the same journey... The seven tasks might be described in various ways, but here is how I see them: 1.Waking Up... 2.Embracing Sorrow... 3.Savoring Blessedness... 4.Re-imagining Work... 5.Nurturing Intimacy... 6.Seeking Forgiveness... 7.Taking on the Mystery. So wherever you are on the aging journey, I hope you will find in this approach useful clues for the living of these years with all your passion and hope. - from the author's Introduction (Plume)

Timeshifting: Creating More Time to Enjoy Your Life
Stephan Rechtschaffen (1996) 238pages

To be aware of time, we must develop new attitudes and new skills. This involves focusing on one thing at a time, learning to slow down and notice - really experience - our physical and emotional states. It involves reacquainting ourselves with our senses, our friends, our spouses, our children, and just what it is to be in this moment. It involves learning when to speed up (increasing the speed of our rhythm can be as valuable as decreasing it) and when and how to down shift. It involves facing ourselves directly, and truly showing up in each moment of our lives. In fact, the "time management" I teach is an individual process, governed by only one rule: Live life in the now. - from the author's Introduction (Doubleday)

To Love and Be Loved
Sam Keen (1997) 244pages

Love is not something we "fall" into, declares Sam Keen, but rather a complex art combining many skills and talents that take a life time to learn. Here he shows how sixteen key "elements of love" comprise the full spectrum of human affection, ranging from attention and compassion to more exclusive gifts like desire and sexuality. Combining personal stories and poems with psychological and spiritual insights, this book reveals why knowledge and solitude are so important to love, and explores the essential qualities of empathy and commitment. Concluding with a soaring meditation on the claim that "those who love know God," To Loved and Be Loved ultimately invites readers to experience their own place in the universe through the eyes of love. (Bantam)

Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings: Recipes & Reflections
Edward Espe Brown (1997) 293pages

We have forgotten what really nourishes us, and when we fail to connect with things, life becomes empty and deadening. To see food merely as fuel or stuff is impoverishing. Enlightenment or realization in Zen is sometimes referred to as "attaining intimacy": It is to actually touch and know through and through, to digest and grow. We cannot be more intimate than we are with food; it becomes us. The so-called spiritual cannot be separated from the so-called material. Spiritual food is right at hand, but we have to pick it up, smell it, and taste it. Cooking, then is life, is learning, is realization, but, hey, let's not just talk about it, let's eat. And let's not be mindless about what we're putting in our mouths. Let's taste the incredible blessing in each bite of food, which is also the blessing of our ability to taste and be aware, the blessing of our capacity to grow and nourish one another. -from the author's Introduction ( Riverhead)

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
Pema Chodron (1997) 147pages

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy...Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we dream about. The off-center, in-between sate is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggresive, open-ended state of affairs. To stay with that shakiness - to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge - that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic - this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior. -from the author's second chapter (Shambhala)

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last
Stephen Levine (1997) 175pages

This is a book of renewal. It is not simply about dying but about the restoration of the heart, which occurs when we confront life and death with mercy and awareness. It is an opportunity to resolve our denial of death as well as our denial of life in a year long experiment in healing, joy and revitalization. The program in this book need not be followed in a linear way. Indeed, readers are encouraged to experiment and create their own timetable...Perhaps because this book was written as though it were the last I would ever write, and because its benefit are so immediately and intuitively recognizable, this has been the easiest and most enjoyable book process I have yet experienced and the shortest that wanted to be written. - from the author's Introduction and Epilogue (Bell Tower)