For Campbell, many of the world's most powerful myths support the individual's heroic path toward bliss.In Pathways to Bliss, Campbell examines this personal, psychological side of myth. Like his classic best-selling books Myths to Live By and The Power of Myth, Pathways to Bliss draws from Campbell's popular lectures and dialogues, which highlight his remarkable storytelling and ability to apply the larger themes of world mythology to personal growth and the quest for transformation. Here he anchors mythology's symbolic wisdom to the individual, applying the most poetic mythical metaphors to the challenges of our daily lives.Campbell dwells on life's important questions. Combining cross-cultural stories with the teachings of modern psychology, he examines the ways in which our myths shape and enrich our lives and shows how myth can help each of us truly identify and follow our bliss.

    Both were first composed in verse and, coming down the centuries in the ancient oral tradition, have deeply influenced the history, culture and arts of not only the Indian subcontinent but of most of South-East Asia. The Mahabharata tells of a Great War, and the events that lead upto it. The original Mahabharata in Sankrit is an epic poem of 100,000 couplets seven times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey together.

    Still an integral part of India's cultural and religious expression, the Ramayana was originally composed by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 b.c. The epic of Prince Rama's betrayal, exile, and struggle to rescue his faithful wife, Sita, from the clutches of a demon and to reclaim his throne has profoundly affected the literature, art, and culture of South and Southeast Asia-an influence most likely unparalleled in the history of world literature, except, possibly, for the Bible. Throughout the centuries, countless versions of the epic have been produced in numerous formats and languages. But previous English versions have been either too short to capture the magnitude of the original; too secular in presenting what is, in effect, scripture; or dry, line-by-line translations. Now novelist Ramesh Menon has rendered the tale in lyrical prose that conveys all the beauty and excitement of the original, while making this spiritual and literary classic accessible to a new generation of readers.

    From the first millennium BC until today, the myths have been repeated in an inexhaustible series of variations and reinterpretations. They can be found in the latest movies and television shows and in software for interactive computer games. This book combines a retelling of Greek myths with a comprehensive account of the world in which they developed their themes, their relevance to Greek religion and society, and their relationship to the landscape."Contexts, Sources, Meanings" describes the main literary and artistic sources for Greek myths, and their contexts, such as ritual and theater."Myths of Origin" includes stories about the beginning of the cosmos, the origins of the gods, the first humans, and the founding of communities."The Olympians: Power, Honor, Sexuality" examines the activities of all the main divinities."Heroic exploits" concentrates on the adventures of Perseus, Jason, Herakles, and other heroes."Family sagas" explores the dramas and catastrophes that befall heroes and heroines."A Landscape of Myths" sets the stories within the context of the mountains, caves, seas, and rivers of Greece, Crete, Troy, and the Underworld."Greek Myths after the Greeks" describes the rich tradition of retelling, from the Romans, through the Renaissance, to the twenty-first century.Complemented by lavish illustrations, genealogical tables, box features, and specially commissioned drawings, this will be an essential book for anyone interested in these classic tales and in the world of the ancient Greeks.

    George actually fought dragons, since dragons don't exist? Strange though they sound, however, these myths did not begin as fiction.This absorbing book shows that myths originally transmitted real information about real events and observations, preserving the information sometimes for millennia within nonliterate societies. Geologists' interpretations of how a volcanic cataclysm long ago created Oregon's Crater Lake, for example, is echoed point for point in the local myth of its origin. The Klamath tribe saw it happen and passed down the story--for nearly 8,000 years.We, however, have been literate so long that we've forgotten how myths encode reality. Recent studies of how our brains work, applied to a wide range of data from the Pacific Northwest to ancient Egypt to modern stories reported in newspapers, have helped the Barbers deduce the characteristic principles by which such tales both develop and degrade through time. Myth is in fact a quite reasonable way to convey important messages orally over many generations--although reasoning back to the original events is possible only under rather specific conditions.Our oldest written records date to 5,200 years ago, but we have been speaking and mythmaking for perhaps 100,000. This groundbreaking book points the way to restoring some of that lost history and teaching us about human storytelling.

    One of the most individual voices of his generation, Armitage revitalizes our sense of the Odyssey as oral poetry, as indeed one of the greatest of tall tales.

    Written with consummate ease and brimming with wit and allusion, it is at once classic SFF and subtle spoof, featuring scantily clad centauresses, flying carpets, pink trolls, belly dancers and homicidal rabbits. Monty Python meets the Ramayana, Alice in Wonderland meets The Lord of the Rings and Robin Hood meets The Arabian Nights in this novel-a breathtaking ride through a world peopled by different races and cultures from mythology and history.

    Drawing from the Bible, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud and Midrash, the kabbalistic literature, medieval folklore, Hasidic texts, and oral lore collected in the modern era, Schwartz has gathered together nearly 700 of the key Jewish myths. The myths themselves are marvelous. We read of Adams diamond and the Land of Eretz (where it is always dark), the fall of Lucifer and the quarrel of the sun and the moon, the Treasury of Souls and the Divine Chariot. We discover new tales about the great figures of the Hebrew Bible, from Adam to Moses; stories about God's Bride, the Shekhinah, and the evil temptress, Lilith; plus many tales about angels and demons, spirits and vampires, giant beasts and the Golem. Equally important, Schwartz provides a wealth of additional information. For each myth, he includes extensive commentary, revealing the source of the myth and explaining how it relates to other Jewish myths as well as to world literature (for instance, comparing Eves release of evil into the world with Pandoras). For ease of use, Schwartz divides the volume into ten books, Myths of God, Myths of Creation, Myths of Heaven, Myths of Hell, Myths of the Holy Word, Myths of the Holy Time, Myths of the Holy People, Myths of the Holy Land, Myths of Exile, and Myths of the Messiah.

    Moreover, his spirit of adventure soared higher that the planes he so skilfully piloted.

    Drawing on folktales and myths from many cultures and spiritual ideas from the East and West, he leads us to an undeniable truth: that the only story we came here to live is our own. Meade shows how the limitations of family and fate form the inner threads from which our individual destiny must emerge. He explains how our wounds can become doorways to our deepest gifts, and how our greatest efforts in the world are intended to lead us to a treasure divinely seeded within us before birth. Fate and Destiny speaks directly to young people looking to find a genuine path in life and trying to awaken to the dream they carry inside. It offers penetrating insights for those caught in life s inevitable struggles and shows how the wisdom of elders depends upon re-membering the spirit of eternal youth. As one story puts it, god has only one question to ask you at the end of life: did you become yourself? Weaving stories within stories, lacing pertinent psychology within cultural analysis, and mixing autobiography with myth, Meade opens the territory of fate and destiny to new interpretations and deeper meanings.

    Coomaraswamy was engaged in the world not only as a scholarly expositor of traditional culture and philosophy, but also as a radical critic of contemporary life.

    The tales of King Arthur are rooted in history, but over the years the facts have become shrouded in myth and mystery. In this beautifully illustrated book Arthurian expert John Matthews explores the legends that have grown around the king and uncovers the mysteries of Arthur's Britain. The numerous characters surrounding King Arthur are introduced and the facts behind the epic saga are revealed. •Contains 120 color and black-and-white images•Covers Merlin, Guenevere, Lancelot, the Holy Grail, and all the mythic search for characters

    Ancient interpretation of myth is represented here in selections from the allegorists Heraclitus, Cornutus and Fulgentius, the rationalists Palaephatus and Diodorus of Sicily, and the philosophers and historians Plato, Herodotus and Thucydides. Appendices treat evidence from inscriptions, papyri and Linear B tablets and include a thematic index, a mythological dictionary, and genealogies. A thoughtful Introduction supports students working with the primary sources and the other resources offered here; an extensive note to instructors offers suggestions on how to incorporate this book into their courses.

    Certainly, unless one cleanses the augean stables of his mind and expurgates all impurities through selfless and disinterested service while living amid the toil and moil of the world, he will find himself in a fool’s paradise, when he puts on the second orange-coloured garb to follow the path of renunciation. So one has to do Karma Yoga first ceaselessly and untiringly, and develop all noble qualities such as cosmic love, endurance, nobility and Brahmacharya, and thus equip himself for the great ensuing battle royal, and finally come out the victor.The present work, Practice of Karma Yoga, coming as it does, from the inspired and enlightened pen of Swami Sivanandaji, is, as usual, a safe and sound guide to reach the goal in view of the aspirant. Those who have had the good fortune to know of Sri Swami Sivanandaji and his writings—from the biggest volume to the sixteen-page pamphlet distributed free to those who ask and those who do not ask—will agree with us how infallible his writings are, how simple and lucid is the language he employs in order that what he writes may be accessible not only to the university graduate, but also to him or her who has a working knowledge of English, and how sincere and earnest the author is in his unquenchable thirst to be even a ‘particle’ of service to his brethren. Pregnant with the magnetism of a Jivanmukta or liberated sage, they cannot but uplift the seeker after Truth to ineffable heights of spiritual glory, bliss and peace.

    These indispensable references are handy and thorough guides with knowledgeable text and hundreds of full color photographs.

    In addition to its in-depth theoretical analysis, Walkers Between the Worlds contains practical exercises drawn from traditional teaching methods used by both native and hermetic traditions to help the reader explore these mysteries.

    Which fruitTo pick from the nodding tree."This chilling passage is from Ellen McLaughlin’s new adaptation of The Persians by Aeschylus, the earliest surviving play in Western literature, an elegy for a fallen civi-lization and a warning to its new conqueror. As Margo Jefferson wrote in the New York Times, "The play is a true classic: we see the present and the future right there, inside the past. And when writers give us a ‘new version’ (a translation or adaptation) of a classic, they both serve and use it. They serve the playwright’s gifts by refusing to simplify. But they can’t just imitate. Every age has its own rhythms and drives. The classic must make us feel the new acutely. Ellen McLaughlin serves and uses The Persians with true power and grace."Also included in this volume: Iphigenia and Other Daughters (from Euripides and Sophocles); The Trojan Women (Euripides); Helen (Euripides); and Lysistrata (Aristophanes), all powerfully realized and as relevant today as when they were first performed.Ellen McLaughlin’s plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity’s House and Tongue of a Bird, which have been widely produced. She is a past finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and was the co-winner of the Great American Play Contest. Also an accomplished actor, Ms. McLaughlin is most known for having originated the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, appearing in every U.S. production through its Broadway run.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Written for all those who have felt the tug of memory or a connection to some time and place that came before they lived, this book explores Frank’s trip to Ireland for a shamanic conference and his experiences of connecting with the land, the faery people, and the spirits that inhabit the land. It explores the inner reaches of our connections to ancestors, to the land, to the mysteries shared in all life. As Frank explores these depths, he brings the reader along on the journey, explaining what is happening and what he is experiencing and how this ties to the myths and deep meanings of the Celtic traditions. The book continues on the "mist-filled path" of Frank’s first book, exploring the teachings and beliefs of ancient Ireland and recasting them into language and stories that will appeal to today’s readers. Celtic spirituality is based on the oneness of all life and the sanctity of our Mother Earth.

    This elephant-headed God symbolizes possibility and transcendence from obstacles. Stationed at a sacred threshold, Ganesh is being reintroduced as a modern and universal torchlight for the curious, inquisitive seeker in all hearts. Both traditional and contemporary artists gorgeously illustrated Ganesh in full color.

    Instead of providing shortcuts, scripts, or rote rituals, she teaches women how to think like a ritualist. Step by step, readers learn the ritual-making process: developing a purpose and theme, building an altar, preparing emotionally and mentally (energetics), spellcasting, and more. For beginners or experienced ritualists, solitaries or groups, this thorough, engaging guide to the art of ritual-making can help women commemorate every sacred milestone-from menstruation to marriage to menopause-that touches their lives.Praise: "Ruth Barrett brings her many years of experience in teaching and priestessing in the Dianic tradition to this book. Her thoughtfulness, intelligence and depth of understanding make it a valuable resource and will open a new perspective for many Pagans."—Starhawk, best-selling author of The Spiral Dance and The Fifth Sacred Thing

    The gentleman, then battling with a fatal malady, took from his library shelf a translation of the Upanishads and, opening it, expressed deep regret that the obscure and unfamiliar form shut from him what he felt to be profound and vital teaching. The desire to unlock the closed doors of this ancient treasure house, awakened at that time, led to a series of classes on the Upanishads at The Vedanta Centre of Boston during its early days in St. Botolph Street. The translation and commentary then given were trans-cribed and, after studious revision, were published in the Centre's monthly magazine, "The Message of the East," in 1913 and 1914.. Still further revision has brought it to its present form.

    It explores romance motifs - quests and fairy mistresses, passionate heroines and rudderless boats and missing heirs - from the first emergence of the genre in French and Anglo-Norman in the twelfth century down to the early seventeenth. This is a continuous story, since the same romances that constituted the largest and most sophisticated body of secular fiction in the Middle Ages went on to enjoy a new and vibrant popularity at all social levels in black-letter prints as the pulp fiction of the Tudor age. This embedded culture was reworked for political and Reformation propaganda and for the 'writing of England', as well as providing a generous reservoir of good stories and dramatic plots. The different ways in which the same texts were read over several centuries, or the same motifs shifted meaning as understanding and usage altered, provide a revealing and sensitive measure of historical and cultural change. The book accordingly looks at those processes of change as well as at how the motifs themselves work, to offer a historical semantics of the language of romance conventions. It also looks at how politics and romance intersect - the point where romance comes true.The historicizing of the study of literature is belatedly leading to a wider recognition that the early modern world is built on medieval foundations. This book explores both the foundations and the building. Similarly, generic theory, which previously tended to operate on transhistorical assumptions, is now acknowledging that genre interacts crucially with cultural context - with changing audiences and ideologies and means of dissemination. The generation into which Spenser and Shakespeare were born was the last to be brought up on a wide range of medieval romances in their original forms, and they could therefore exploit their generic codings in new texts aimed at both elite and popular audiences. Romance may since then have lost much of its cultural centrality, but the universal appeal of these same stories has continued to fuel later works from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

    Mars, Venus, Neptune - the planets themselves are named after gods and goddesses of civilizations past. "MythAstrology "is a guide to understanding the expression of planetary energies through the signs of the zodiac. Explore the many myths that you may be living, their lessons, and their rewards and difficulties by discovering your own astrological mythology. All you need is a copy of your astrological birth chart and this book to form a complete astromythological profile of yourself and your friends and family. Deepen your understanding of ancient myth, modern astrology, and your own psyche.

    Fourteen large illustrations, with text on facing pages, describe the feats of Odin, the Father of the gods; Aegir, the much-feared master of the seas; Thor and his mighty hammer; the mischievous Loki; and other mythical figures.

    Case study birthcharts, tables, and a consultation preparation worksheet are included. This treatise explains synastry, house overlays, composite and Davison charts, configurations and midpoints. Analyzing relationship moving through time, identifying partners who activate our shadow, finding past life connections, using antiscia synastry, and electing wedding charts are covered.

    Whenever Shiva or Adishakti come to Earth in human form, they are fated to marry each other again--but that’s no guarantee that all will go smoothly with their courtship. In this story Adishakti comes to Earth as the mountain princess Parvati, who has her work cut out for her when she tries to win the affections of Shiva. Shiva spends all his time meditating on a remote mountainside in the Himalayas and has no interest in marriage. Parvati washes his feet, wipes his brow, and lays sixteen offerings before him, but he won’t even look at her. Sage Narada advises her to invoke Shiva’s name--Om Namah Shivaya--over and over again as a mantra. So in the heat of the sun, in the driving rain, in snow up to her neck Parvati sits and repeats her beloved’s name until the focused power of her intent opens his heart and persuades him to ask for her hand in marriage. Parvati’s timeless story teaches children that with enough love and perseverance even the seemingly impossible can be achieved. Accompanied by rich, color illustrations prepared according to the traditional Hindu canon, How Parvati Won the Heart of Shiva will transport children to a magical world filled with ancient wisdom.

    Through serendipitous encounters, they learn that the ancient Celtic people befriended the horse to cultivate the human heart and soul, and that horses accompanied the Celts as they spread their spiritual vision far and wide. The McCormicks soon embark on a wisdom pilgrimage. From India to Mexico to Spain and Morocco, they follow the ancient relationship between horses and humans, exploring a mystical path lit by a spirit of unity and beauty. With help from their horses, the McCormicks learn to integrate spirituality with their psychological training, forming a new, powerful form of healing. Horses and the Mystical Path recounts their memorable journey, and the lessons they learn from their amazing equine guides.

    It provides a clear roadmap of the unseen worlds while enhancing your perspective of spiritual oneness with the Universe. Spiritual teacher, healer and author Caroline Cory uses her unique ability of communicating with Source Energy to discuss and explain such topics as: . The inherent energetic nature of humans which enables them to interact spontaneously with invisible beings and realities. . The process by which various types of beings enter our physical system and appear in human form. . The function and nature of the Cosmic Mind, the divine mind- energy that shapes and ministers to the human mind. . The process of remembering our pre-natal contract and attaining self-realization. . The significant shifts in our societal, governmental and religious structures and the complete transmutation of the human physical and mental characteristics. The Visible and Invisible Worlds of GOD is a powerful new revelation about the beings and energies that irrevocably shape human destiny and potential. with the Creator-Source.

    In The Pregnant Darkness, Wikman shows readers that the best way to cope with their darkest hours is by fostering a connection to the deeper current of life, those mysteries that give life form and meaning. Wikman's analysis of dream material leads readers into a practical explanation of alchemical symbolism. Far from being a quaint, ancient practice, The Pregnant Darkness shows that alchemy is at work in contemporary, everyday life. Alchemical symbolism, properly understood, can be applied to unraveling the meaning of visions in meditation, active imagination, and dream work. Wikman shows how readers can participate in the divine energies to help miraculous changes occur in their lives.Wikman writes: "In Greek mythology, Pegasus, upon taking to the air, pushed hard with a back hoof and penetrated the earth. A spring rose up where his hoof dashed the earth, and in this hole . . . the muses reside. One of the roles of the "religious function" of which Jung speaks is to bring us toward that inner spring of the muses where something beyond ego resides, instructs, and inspires. Like a hole created from Pegasus' leaping foot, contact with this inner spring often entails a crack in our field of ordinary consciousness. In the inner world, the spring of living symbols and accompanying presences is the source of dreams and visions, as well as the fountain of inspiration at the heart of poetry, art, ritual, mythology, and even religion."

    Figures like Brigid, Cernunnos, Rhiannon, and CuChulainn are honored for their magic, their bravery, and their mythical deeds. Among Pagans, the gods and goddesses of Gaul, Ireland, Wales, and the other Celtic lands rank with the Greek, Roman, Norse, and Egyptian pantheons as the most popular and influential deities in the Neo-Pagan movement.Magic of the Celtic Gods and Goddesses is the first resource available to help Pagans, Witches, and Druids to connect specifically with the Celtic Gods and Goddesses in a truly deep, powerful, and spiritual way. This book will help you:Learn the major Irish, Welsh, and continental Celtic deities.Discover the major myths and lore associated with each deity.Create rituals and magical work appropriate for each deity.Understand the psychological archetypes of each God and Goddess.Forge true and meaningful relationships with the deities for our time.Relate the various gods and goddesses to the Sabbats and Holy Days.

    This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1901 edition by the Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Jung, and extended by the work of James Hillman, Depth Psychology: Meditations in the Field grows directly from the soil of the Romantic Movement of the 19th century, itself a rebellion against the legacy of Enlightenment fundamentalism, which emphasized the literal reality of the world, and feasted on Measurement and the quantification of all knowledge.

    Oedipus borealis is a discussion of aberrance in the mythic and legendary hero as he appears in thirteenth-century Icelandic narratives, and in the quasihistorical figures in the saga literature who are modeled on him.

    This is the story of their history, location and psychological significance. They are known as Sheela na Gigs

    In a brief Note written thirty years later, included in this volume, he looks back on what he sees as the limits of his original reading of the Iliad. Yet he seems to have been aware of the fundamental problems from early on that he wrestled with explicitly when he returned to Homer some forty years later: the question of the relations among gods, fate, and human choice, which lies at the core of his late "Platonic reading" of the Odyssey, is already guiding his understanding of the Iliad. And he saw, in working out that understanding, how those relations take on a very distinct form for the tragic hero in contrast with the comic hero - Achilles in contrast with Odysseus.Achilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero is divided into two parts, "Style" and "Plot." In the first, Benardete examines the formulae Homer inherited from the poetic tradition, but only to demonstrate how Homer put them to work for deliberate purposes: in his search for those purposes, Benardete leads us to see how the supposedly conventional epithets and similes in fact open up key themes of the Iliad, including the crucial differences between men and heroes, Achaeans and Trojans, lineage and individual virtue. If the epithets were properly understood, Benardete suggests, however hesitantly, the plot of the Iliad would necessarily follow.Turning to the plot, Benardete brings to light a pattern marked by three stages, in the course of which the motives of the Trojan War are transformed. While the war begins as a struggle for justice and vengeance, provoked by Helen, she unleashes something that goes beyond her – the love of fame or glory, in which heroic ambition finds its natural expression. A third stage is ushered in with Achilles’ choice to return to the war in order to avenge the death of Patroclus; this final development brings the motive of the action back to the personal, albeit on a different plane, which in some sense comprehends the first two stages. Benardete's penetrating analysis uncovers, in the figure of Achilles, the paradigmatic Homeric hero, an increasingly complex character, who is haunted, in his grief at the loss of Patroclus, by his suspicion of the guilt he must assume for his death, which he tries to overcome in so many ineffective ways. It is only with his choice in the end to give back to Priam the corpse of Hector that the hero "rejoins the family of men." In tracing this trajectory, Benardete discloses us what it means for the plot of the Iliad to be the tragedy of Achilles.

    He is the author of the world's bestselling English editions of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Currently, he lives with his family in Radlett, England, where he lectures, broadcasts, and writes.

    Divided into 26 sections and illustrated in full color with more than 2,000 images sourced from leading galleries, museums and private collections from around the world.

    School. Friends. Girlfriends. Actually, Senna was probably the oddest aspect of his life. She was beautiful. Smart. But there was something very different about her. Something strange.Then one day it began. One moment, Senna was with him. The next, she was swallowed up by the earth. David couldn't just let her go and neither could their friends. So David, April, Jalil, and Christopher followed Senna to a world they never could have imagined. Wolves the size of elephants, beings who consider themselves immortal, mythological gods.Now the four friends have to find Senna and get home without losing their lives. Or their minds. Or both...

    Concentrating on places that are identifiable and able to be visited today, the sources drawn on range from traditional folklore to modern first-hand sighting reports. The entries give precise locations, including Ordnance Survey map references. All the different types of Little People are represented. They are mostly not the pretty winged fairies that appear in children's picture books. 'Real' fairies can be frightening. By reading these stories and travelling to the sites, the reader will gain a sense of what it is to inhabit that Otherworld of the fairies. This is a call to get up and explore the Fairyland that is all around us.

    The UK’s only Masonic Bible, with bespoke presentation page and special introduction to Freemasonry and the Bible.With a beautiful imitation leather flexible binding, coloured page edges and its own slipcase, this is the ideal gift for a new Mason.

    León's compelling, innovative exploration of religion in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands issues a fundamental challenge to current scholarship in the field and recharts the landscape of Chicano faith. La Llorona's Children constructs genealogies of the major traditions spanning Mexico City, East Los Angeles, and the southwestern United States: Guadalupe devotion, curanderismo, espiritualismo, and evangelical/ Pentecostal traditions. León theorizes a religious poetics that functions as an effective and subversive survival tactic akin to crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. He claims that, when examined in terms of broad categorical religious forms and intentions, these traditions are remarkably alike and resonate religious ideas and practices developed in the ancient Mesoamerican world.León proposes what he calls a borderlands reading of La Virgen de Guadalupe as a transgressive, border-crossing goddess in her own right, a mestiza deity who displaces Jesus and God for believers on both sides of the border. His energetic discussion of curanderismo shows how this indigenous religious practice links cognition and sensation in a fresh and powerful technology of the body—one where sensual, erotic, and sexualized ways of knowing emphasize personal and communal healing. La Llorona’s Children ends with a fascinating study of the rich and complex world of Chicano/a Pentecostalism in Los Angeles, a tradition that León maintains allows Chicano men to reimagine their bodies into a unified social body through ritual performance. Throughout the narrative, the connections among sacred spaces, saints, healers, writers, ideas, and movements are woven with skill, inspiration, and insight.

    Often, the way a story is told is as important as the story itself. This is true of the most recent novel by Gerry William, THE WOMAN IN THE TREES. Set during the time of the first contact, THE WOMAN IN THE TREES takes place around what is now Vernon, B.C. The novel moves effortlessly from myth to dream time to narrative real time. Spanning the historical period from 1780 to 1860, this book addresses a time of massive upheaval for the Okanagan people (the syilix). The coming of the horse, relations with early Europeans, and the smallpox epidemic dramatically changed the lives of the syilix. Part historical novel, part myth for our times, THE WOMAN IN THE TREES will inspire and ultimately satisfy. For as the narrator says, "there are fifty ways to tell the beginning of everything, but there is only one ending."

    The four angles - Ascendant, Descendant, MC and IC - reflect the horizon and meridian at the moment of birth, and symbolise the 'cross of matter' into which we are born. They describe our participation in external reality, and also clarify how the subtle patterns of belief, attitude and circumstance affect our inner sense of orientation. Each angle is described separately, in terms of the element and mode, and the meaning of the houses which flank it. Transits are also considered, and there is a guided imagery process where the individual horoscope placements are explored. The axis of the Moon's Nodes represents an arc of meaning along which the activities of 'being' and 'doing' are balanced, over and over again. Our ability to let go of the past is tested, and we embrace the future from the vantage point of the eternal 'now'. This section reviews familiar material, and also offers a number of approaches to the Nodes which the reader will not find elsewhere. There is a review of the Nodes as placed in the six pairs of opposite signs, plus a questionnaire for readers to consider their own Nodes. This book includes astronomical and psychological material, presented in a lively seminar format which will expand the understanding of beginners and experienced astrologers alike.

    Accounts of conflicts, happenings, and methods by which an earlier world of man changed into the now-existing one, these tribal tales largely describe the struggles between hostile parties. Metamorphoses between combatants produce entirely different characters — sometimes a bird, a plant, or an insect — but always a creature corresponding in power to some leading quality of the character it has replaced. As a collector of myths and tales, few excelled Curtin and his remarkable linguistic abilities.

    Thus began a legend that would grow and flourish throughout the Middle Ages and cause the diffusion of countless splinters of holy wood. And where there is wood, there was once a tree. Could it be that the Cross was made from that most noble species, the Tree of Life? So, gathering characters along the way, the legend evolved into a tale that stretches from the Creation to the End of Time. A Heritage of Holy Wood is the first reconstruction of the iconographic and literary tradition of the Legend of the True Cross. Its broad scope encompasses relic cults, pilgrimages, travellers tales and the Tree of Life and involves Church Fathers, crusader kings, Teutonic Knights and mendicant orders, all of which influenced the legend s depiction from its earliest representation in manuscripts, reliquaries and altarpieces, to the great monumental cycles of the high Middle Ages. If the holy wood was the medium of medieval memory, A Heritage of Holy Wood reveals the growth rings of fifteen centuries of imagery."

     The quest for the Holy Grail is, in a larger sense, the story of the individual's path to wholeness, while the King Arthur legends represent a collective narrative of humanity. In The Return of King Arthur, Diana Durham analyzes the key symbols from the intertwined Arthurian myths. Woven through the narrative are discoveries from her personal search for wholeness while she was living in association with a spiritual community and fully embracing a shared lifestyle. Her exploration of the individual path-the Grail quest, and the collective process-the court of King Arthur, eventually resolves itself as one story, offering the reader insights into how they can have a more satisfying existence. Durham has deciphered the deepest meaning of the Arthurian myths as they relate to our modern lives, and, in the process, uncovered the reasons why they have held our fascination for so long.

    trapped in a loveless marriage, she cannot save her firstborn child from her husband's wrath... left alone on the throne after her husband's death, she must contend with the dangerous Sphinx and contrive a plan to protect her city... charmed by a foreign prince, she does not know she is falling in love with her own son..."This well-written book, about an intelligent, observant and questioning woman to whom big events happen, is riveting." Associated Press

    But she knows that for this wonderful day to arrive, we must first learn how to communicate with these elusive but ever-present beings. That is what she is here to teach us—the path to quieting the mind and summoning the angels. Nahmad reveals the special blessings angels bring to groups; explains how they communicate with, interact with, and guide us; and explores the many forms of angel magic, from the use of scents and colors to emblems and chants. Find out how angels manifest themselves in dreams, about their historic visitations, and the vital importance of angelic aid and mercy in healing our lives.

    Eventually the sisters are reunited with the help of a colorful cast of characters, including a man-eating lizard, a cosmic spider, and a giant bird, and find happiness at last in each other's company. This timeless kaao, or legend, of long ago is lovingly retold and illustrated here by renowned Island artist and storyteller Dietrich Varez.