This bestselling author and speaker offers a companion devotional to her award-winning message, Battlefield of the Mind.

    What I appreciate so much about David and Sharon is how they help their Yoga students to understand and appreciate the wisdom of all the great saints and jivamuktas who have contributed to raising consciousness. Ultimately, it is Self-Realization, that is the true goal of Yoga.”–SRI SWAMI SATCHIDANANDACreators of the extremely popular Jivamukti Yoga method and cofounders of the New York City studios where it is taught, Sharon Gannon and David Life present their unique style of yoga for the first time in book form. As they explain their intensely physical and spiritual system of flowing postures, they provide inspiring expert instruction to guide you in your practice.Unlike many books about yoga, Jivamukti Yoga focuses not only on the physical postures but also on how they evolved–the origins of the practices in yoga’s ancient sacred texts and five-thousand-year-old traditions–the psychotherapeutic benefits that accrue with a steady practice, and the spiritual power that is set free when energy flows throughout the mind and body. Jivamukti Yoga, which means “soul liberation,” guides your body and soul into spiritual freedom, physical strength, peace of mind, better health, and Self-realization–the ultimate goal of any practice. Gannon and Life help you understand each of the practices that comprise the yoga path to enlightenment:AHIMSA–The Way of Compassion: choosing nonviolence, respecting all life, practicing vegetarianism, living free of prejudiceASANA–The Way of Connection to the Earth: postures and sequences, breathing, transforming energy, understanding the bandhasKARMA–The Way of Action: creating good karma, giving thanksNADAM–The Way of Sacred Music: appreciating the sacred sounds of yogaMEDITATION–The Way of the Witness: how to sit still and move inwardBHAKTI–The Way of Devotion to God: living with love, grace, and peaceWhatever yoga you practice, Jivamukti Yoga will help you to strengthen and deepen that practice and lead you onto a path of spiritual clarity and self-discovery.“If there is only one book you read about the practice of Yoga, this should be the one. Sharon and David are deeply dedicated students and teachers of Yoga who have the rare capacity to translate their profound understanding to the reader. This book is for anyone who wishes to find transformation through Yoga. I’m grateful for their work and teaching.”–STEPHAN RECHTSCHAFFEN, MD Co-founder & CEO, Omega Institute

    This handy, pocket-sized volume includes 900 illustrations and takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the most spectacular works of art around the world and throughout time.

    Taking the sculptures out of the museum context (and thus off of their proverbial pedestals), this volume presents a completely new view which affords enlightening comparisons between eras and genres. This remarkable work is indispensable for artlovers of all tastes and disciplines.

    In Homeric Moments, she brilliantly conveys the unique delights of Homer's epics as she focuses on the crucial scenes, or moments, that mark the high points of the narratives: Penelope and Odysseus, faithful wife and returning husband, sit face to face at their own hearth for the first time in twenty years; young Telemachus, with his father Odysseus at his side, boldly confronts the angry suitors; Achilles gives way to boundless grief at the death of his friend Patroclus.Eva Brann demonstrates a way of reading Homer's poems that yields up their hidden treasures. With an alert eye for Homer's extraordinary visual effects and a keen ear for the musicality of his language, she helps the reader see the flickering campfires of the Greeks and hear the roar of the surf and the singing of nymphs. In Homeric Moments, Brann takes readers beneath the captivating surface of the poems to explore the inner connections and layers of meaning that have made the epics "the marvel of the ages.""Written with wit and clarity, this book will be of value to those reading the Odyssey and the Iliad for the first time and to those teaching it to beginners."—Library Journal"Homeric Moments is a feast for the mind and the imagination, laid out in clear and delicious prose. With Brann, old friends of Homer and new acquaintances alike will rejoice in the beauty, and above all the humanity, of the epics." —Jacob Howland, University of Tulsa, Author of The Paradox of Political Philosophy"In Homeric Moments, Eva Brann lovingly leads us, as she has surely led countless students, through the gallery of delights that is Homer's poetry. Brann's enthusiasm is as infectious as her deep familiarity with the works is illuminating."—Rachel Hadas"Brann invites us to enter a conversation [about Homer] in which information and formal arguments jostle with appreciations and frank conjectures and surmises to increase our pleasure and deepen the inward dimension of our humanity."—Richard Freis, Millsaps College"For anyone eager to experience the profundity and charm of Homer's great epic poems, Eva Brann's book will serve as a passionate and engaging guide. Brann displays a deep sensitivity to the cadence and flow of Homeric poetry, and the kind of knowing intimacy with its characters that comes from years of teaching and contemplation. Her relaxed but informative approach succeeds in conveying the grandeur of the great Homeric heroes, while making them continually resonate for our own lives. Brann helps us see that this poetry has an urgency for our own era as much as it did for a distant past."—Ralph M. Rosen, University of Pennsylvania, Author of Old Comedy and The Iambographic Tradition"The most enjoyable books about Homer are always written by those who have read and taught him the most. Eva Brann's collection of astute observations, unusual asides, and visual snapshots of the Iliad and the Odyssey reveals a lifelong friendship with the poet, and is as pleasurable as it is informative. Homeric Moments is rare erudition without pedantry, in a tone marked by good sense without levity."—Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Other Greeks and co-author of Who Killed Homer?Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include The Logos of Heraclitus, Feeling Our Feelings, Homage to Americans, Open Secrets / Inward Prospects, The Music of the Republic, Un-Willing, and Then and Now (all published by Paul Dry Books).

    That is a program that strikes even the most stalwart critics of contemporary educational mediocrity as quixotic, and perhaps even undesirable.Tracy Lee Simmons readily concedes that there is little reason to hope for a widespread renascence in the teaching of Greek and Latin to our nation's schoolchildren. But in this concise and elegantly wrought brief, he argues that, whatever its immediate prospects, an education in the classical languages is of inestimable personal and cultural value. Simmons first sketches the development of educational practice in the schools of the classical and Renaissance eras. He then presents a lively narrative of the fortunes of classical learning in the modern age, including accounts of the classical tongues' influence on some of the West's most prominent writers and statesmen, including, among many others, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Arnold, Theodore Roosevelt, Evelyn Waugh, and C. S. Lewis. Simmons demonstrates the personally cultivating and intellectually liberating qualities that study of the Greek and Latin authors in their own languages has historically provided. Further, by tracing the historical trajectory of Greek and Latin education, Simmons is able to show that the classical languages have played a crucial role in the development of authentic Humanism, the foundation of the West's cultural order and America's understanding of itself as a union of citizens.In Climbing Parnassus Simmons presents the reader not so much with a program for educational renewal as with a defense and vindication of the formative power of Greek and Latin. His persuasive witness to the unique, now all-but-forgotten advantages of study in, and of, the classical languages constitutes a bracing reminder of the genuine aims of a truly liberal education. About the Author Tracy Lee Simmons is a journalist who writes widely on literary and cultural matters. He holds a master's degree in the classics from Oxford.

    The Neutral preceded this work, containing Barthes's challenge to the classic oppositions of Western thought and his effort to establish new pathways of meaning. How to Live Together predates both of these achievements, a series of lectures exploring solitude and the degree of contact necessary for individuals to exist and create at their own pace. A distinct project that sets the tone for his subsequent lectures, How to Live Together is a key introduction to Barthes's pedagogical methods and critical worldview.In this work, Barthes focuses on the concept of "idiorrhythmy," a productive form of living together in which one recognizes and respects the individual rhythms of the other. He explores this phenomenon through five texts that represent different living spaces and their associated ways of life: �mile Zola's Pot-Bouille, set in a Parisian apartment building; Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, which takes place in a sanatorium; Andr� Gide's La S�questr�e de Poitiers, based on the true story of a woman confined to her bedroom; Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, about a castaway on a remote island; and Pallidius's Lausiac History, detailing the ascetic lives of the desert fathers.As with his previous lecture books, How to Live Together exemplifies Barthes's singular approach to teaching, in which he invites his audience to investigate with him--or for him--and wholly incorporates his listeners into his discoveries. Rich with playful observations and suggestive prose, How to Live Together orients English-speaking readers to the full power of Barthes's intellectual adventures.

    I wanted not a tract, but a tapestry in which making is seen in the context of the other processes—sexuality, mortality—inseparable from it.""Bidart has patiently amassed as profound and original a body of work as any now being written in this country. He has given form for our age to what is most urgent and most private in the human soul: the ordeals of solitude and mortality and hunger and, recently, that action through which being speaks: the drive to make or create. Bidart’s poems sound like no one else’s; they look like no one else’s. . . . He is, in the feeling of our jury, one of the great poets of our time."—Louise Glück, jury chair, 2001 Wallace Stevens Award The Academy of American PoetsThe inaugural edition in Sarabande's Quarternote Chapbook Series which will feature a select group of poets by invitation onlyFrank Bidart's collections of poetry include Desire (1997), which received the 1998 Bobbitt Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress and the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, and was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize; In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965-90 (1990); The Sacrifice (1983); The Book of the Body (1977); and Golden State (1973). Among his many honors are the Lila Acheson Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund Writer’s Award, the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Shelley Award of the Poetry Society of America, and the Lannan Literary Award. He teaches at Wellesley College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    The Guideways through Mountains and Seas, compiled between the fourth and first centuries b.c.e., contains descriptions of hundreds of fantastic denizens of mountains, rivers, islands, and seas, along with minerals, flora, and medicine. The text also represents a wide range of beliefs held by the ancient Chinese. Richard Strassberg brings the Guideways to life for modern readers by weaving together translations from the work itself with information from other texts and recent archaeological finds to create a lavishly illustrated guide to the imaginative world of early China.Unlike the bestiaries of the late medieval period in Europe, the Guideways was not interpreted allegorically; the strange creatures described in it were regarded as actual entities found throughout the landscape. The work was originally used as a sacred geography, as a guidebook for travelers, and as a book of omens. Today, it is regarded as the richest repository of ancient Chinese mythology and shamanistic wisdom. The Guideways may have been illustrated from the start, but the earliest surviving illustrations are woodblock engravings from a rare 1597 edition. Seventy-six of those plates are reproduced here for the first time, and they provide a fine example of the Chinese engraver's art during the late Ming dynasty.This beautiful volume, compiled by a well-known specialist in the field, provides a fascinating window on the thoughts and beliefs of an ancient people, and will delight specialists and general readers alike.

    Included is an essay on how to look at Greek vases and another on the conservation of ancient ceramics. These essays provide succinct explanations of the terms most frequently encountered by museum-goers. The concise definitions are divided into two sections, one on potters and painters and another on vase shapes and technical terms relating to the construction and decoration of the vases. Featuring numerous color illustrations of Greek vases, many from the Getty Museum's collection, Understanding Greek Vases is an indispensable guide for anyone wishing to obtain a greater understanding and enjoyment of Greek ceramics.

    Since his Akkadian dynasty many other empires have risen and fallen; Assyrian, Roman, Mongol, Aztec, Habsburg, British and Soviet -- all have held sway over far-flung territories and peoples, usually through force, and always seeking economic gain. The construction of an empire invariably meant suffering for the conquered peoples, but empires have also contributed to stability and wealth, and many have acted as catalysts for social, political and technological progress. But what drives one nation to expand and exert its influence to extend over others? With specially commissioned cartography, color illustrations and photographs, Historical Atlas of Empires explores and explains the ever-changing concept of empire from the ancient Middle East to the superpowers of the 20th century.

    

    With "This Machine Kills Fascists," scrawled across his guitar in big black letters, Woody Guthrie brilliantly captured in song the experience of twentieth-century America. Whether he sang about union organizers, migrant workers, or war, Woody took his inspiration from the plight of the people around him as well as from his own tragic childhood.From the late 1920s to the 1950s, Guthrie wrote the words to more than three thousand songs, including "This Land Is Your Land," a song many call America's unofficial national anthem. With a remarkable ability to turn any experience into a song almost instantaneously, Woody Guthrie spoke out for people of all colors and races, setting an example for generations of musicians to come. But Woody didn't have the chance to find everything he was looking for. He was ravaged by Huntington's disease, just like his mother, and died in a mental institution at the age of fifty-five.Award-winning author, Elizabeth Partridge has taken the life of this songwriting genius and woven in his lyrics, and other rich materials to create a touching and highly entertaining portrait of a true talent.

    A small island in the Pacific exists in perfect harmony, where all the plants, animals and people are interdependent. But the islanders live with the knowledge that their mountain god sometimes grumbles and threatens to awake. When that happens, the people offer up prayers and garlands of flowers to coax the giant back to sleep. There comes a day, however, when the god will not be appeased. Smoke rises out of the mountain's crater, and ash and cinders begin to fall on the village. The chief tells his people it is time to leave. And days later, when the people have barely landed on another island, the volcano explodes. Soon there is nothing left of the old island but a smoking ruin devoid of all life. But the story is not over. Slowly, gradually, the island begins to support the stirrings of life once more. And with the return to its lush, former glory comes the hope that the island will be home once more to a sleepy village and its gentle, smiling people. Written with the grace and dignity of a native storyteller's voice, When the Giant Stirred demonstrates how even one of the world's most cataclymic events can be an integral part of nature's cycle. Celia Godkin takes her artwork into a new, exciting level with oils that are saturated with colour. Her depiction of a primitive people and their jewel-like paradise is reminiscent of the great post-impressionist Gauguin. This information storybook is a must-have for schools, libraries and homes everywhere.

    Each book contains 55 of the photographer s key works, presented chronologically and through them tells the photographer s own story. These books are small, but surprisingly rich in content and reproduction quality. They are a most economical way to bring the world of photography into your home. Each book is 128 pp. 6 1/4 x 5 3/4 , softbound.

    In A Certain Curve of Horn, veteran journalist John Frederick Walker tells the story of one of the most revered and endangered of these regal beasts: the giant sable antelope of Angola, a majestic, coal-black quadruped with breathtaking curved horns over five feet long. It is an enthralling and tragic tale of exploration and adventure, politics and war, the brutal realities of life in Africa today and the bitter choices of conflicting conservation strategies. A Certain Curve of Horn traces the sable's emergence as a highly sought-after natural history prize before the First World War, and follows its struggle to survive in a war zone fought over by the troops of a half-dozen nations, and its transformation into a political symbol and conservation icon. As he follows the trail of this mysterious animal, Walker interweaves the stories of the adventurers, scientists, and warriors who have come under the thrall of the beast, and how their actions would shape the course of the history of the giant sable antelope and the history of the war-torn nation that is its home. Culminating with a heart-pounding voyage into the heart of rebel-held Angola in search of the first scientific confirmation of the animal's existence in decades, A Certain Curve of Horn is a thrilling blend of history, natural science, and adventure -- and a fascinating look into the world of a magnificent beastthat has haunted the imaginations of hunters and naturalists around the globe for generations. Eight pages of photographs are included.

    This book focuses on the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and also provides some crafts, activities, and open-ended questions for discussion. The text describes the main players in the adventure as well as several of the other members of the company and then follows their journey from St Louis to the Pacific and back. Excerpts from the explorers' journals bring their voices into the story. Printed in two colours, with many cartoons as well as maps, drawings, photographs, and reproductions of period illustrations, the broad pages have an accessible look. Activities include making a model of a keelboat from balsa wood, measuring a zigzag course by dead reckoning, and building a miniature Mandan earth lodge from sticks, clay, and grass. Ages 4 to 6 years.