Throughout the centuries, humanity has sought to understand this sobering thought through art and ritual. The theme of memento mori informs medieval Danse Macabre, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Renaissance paintings of dissected corpses and “anatomical Eves,” Gothic literature, funeral effigies, Halloween, and paintings of the Last Judgment. Deceased ancestors are celebrated in the Mexican Day of the Dead, while the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead to secure their afterlife.A volume of unprecedented breadth and sinister beauty, Death: A Graveside Companion examines a staggering range of cultural attitudes toward death. The book is organized into themed chapters: The Art of Dying, Examining the Dead, Memorializing the Dead, The Personification of Death, Symbolizing Death, Death as Amusement, and The Dead After Life. Each chapter begins with thought-provoking articles by curators, academics, and journalists followed by gallery spreads presenting a breathtaking variety of death-related imagery and artifacts. From skulls to the dance of death, statuettes to ex libris, memento mori to memorabilia, the majority of the images are of artifacts in the astonishing collection of Richard Harris and range from 2000 BCE to the present day, running the gamut of both high and popular culture.Table of Contents1. The Art of Dying2. Examining the Dead3. Memorializing the Dead4. The Personification of Death5. Symbolizing Death6. Death as Amusement7. The Dead After LifeEssays: Death in Ancient and Present-Day Mexico, Eva Aridjis,The Power of Hair as Human Relic in Mourning Jewelry - Karen Bachmann, Medusa and the Power of the Severed Head, Laetitia Barbier, Anatomical Expressionism, Eleanor Crook, Poe and the Pathological Sublime, Mark Dery, Eros and Thanatos, Lisa Downing, Death-Themed Amusements, Joanna Ebenstein, The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, Bruce Goldfarb, Theatre, Death and the Grand Guignol, Mel Gordon, Holy Spiritualism, Elizabeth Harper, Playing dead – A Gruesome Form of Amusement, Mervyn Heard, The Anatomy of Holy Transformation, Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca, Collecting Death, Evan Michelson, Art and Afterlife: Ethel le Rossignol and Georgiana Houghton, Mark Pilkington, The Dance of Death, Kevin Pyle, Art, Science and the Changing Conventions of Anatomical Representation, Michael Sappol, Spiritualism and Photography, Shannon Taggart, Playing with Dead Faces, John Troyer, Anatomy Embellished in the Cabinet of Frederik Ruysch, Bert van de Roemer

    You can do all the programming, affirmations, and techniques you want to get a better life, but if you don’t love yourself, it will not change a damn thing. You will still feel the same way about yourself tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. The bottom line is the most important relationship you will ever have is the relationship you have with yourself. This relationship can be a rewarding one when rooted in self-love, or it can be toxic one when not. So, what is self-love? Why is it so important? And most importantly, how do you find it? The Heart of the Matter answers these questions and more. It takes the esoteric concept of self-love and makes it accessible by clearly defining the three necessary components of this love. Learn how to reconnect to these components and live a life rooted in self-love by: • Discovering the transformational tools that are available within all of us.• Learning how to use these tools to uncover what you really think and feel about yourself, the world around you, and beyond, and more importantly why.• Transforming the wounded parts of self that have been separated from this love through practical steps and exercises for healing and forgiving the past. • Empowering yourself to make more loving and conscious choices about what you believe and therefore what you will feel and experience. We all are searching for more love in our lives. The Heart of the Matter, through its teachings and exercises, exposes the truth that the love we have been desperately seeking was inside us all along – we just needed to know where to look. The Heart of the Matter not only shows you where to look but also gives you a roadmap on how to get there.

    The Tibetan Book of the Dead speaks about the seven Lokas, or dimensions, the Soul travels through after death, while the Egyptian Book of the Dead refers to the Soul becoming one with the ever-renewing phoenix. Yet what is the phoenix but a symbol of our own Angelic Twin who resides in the highest realms, the essence of our Soul? In this book, Tricia McCannon explains how to discover the angelic realms where the highest parts of yourself reside and become the catalyst for your own path of ascension. Exploring the Soul’s angelic origins, the Nine Orders of Angels, and the multi-dimensional landscapes of Heaven, McCannon takes you on the journey each Soul makes as it descends from the higher vibrational realms to arrive in the world of form. Drawing from the perennial wisdom of the Gnostics, Tibetans, Egyptians, Buddhists, Hindus, Hebrew mystics, and the ancient Mystery traditions, she looks at what our ancient ancestors have to say about the nature and history of the Soul. She reveals how, once embodied, the Soul loses its ability to vibrate with the highest celestial levels causing it to forget its purpose. She addresses how our illusion of separation from Divine Oneness arises, causing us to move away from the Light and become wrapped up in the Shadow of fear and suffering. She explains the six stages of Soul Evolution we must pass through to heal the wounds of separation, reawaken to higher vibrations, and remember our Soul’s purpose, the reason your Soul chose this incarnation. McCannon shares stories from those who have returned from the Otherside, tales of revelation, temples of learning, and crystal cities of light. Presenting the great Course Curriculum of the Soul, the lessons we must master to complete our missions on Earth, the author shows that by remembering our divine essence we can move beyond conflict and struggle to embrace the love and joy that reside eternally at the core of our being.

    The heart listens to no one. It hums its own song. This is primarily the reason why love and music are so much interrelated. When a person falls in love, his heart becomes an orchestra of emotions which churns out a beautiful song, audible only to the heart of his lover. There are different kinds of love stories, but one thing is same in all of them. In every love story, there is a melody. It might be sweet or passionate. It can also be transcending or heart wrenching. In this book, you will be able to taste 35 distinct flavors of love. Delve in the verses, catch a glimpse of the 35 love stories unfolding before you and hear the melody they produce. The heart listens to no one because it is governed by love. Then, why try to control it? Let it produce its own melody. Let it hum its own song.

    The Beat writers stand out as prophets who made a valiant effort to speak the truth in the face of the establishment values of the American post-WWII period, and the fact that so much of their work has stood the test of time is testimony to their importance. The Beat movement was at heart, according to Robert Inchausti, a spiritual enterprise, and the writings compiled in this anthology provide convincing evidence for that claim. Using his broad knowledge of Beat literature, he has created this treasury excerpts from the writings of such figures as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, but also of lesser-known Beatniks--arranged in a way that gives a shape and significance to their spiritual quest. Included are Kerouac's dialogues with Ginsberg and Burroughs on writing as a form of religious resistance and revelation, along with accounts of their experiments with psychedelics and visionary practices, which will then include their shared thoughts on meditation and psychedelic experimentation as visionary practices. This is considerably more than a collection of Beat spiritual writings. It's a kind of introduction to Beat spirituality, presented systematically in the Beats' own words.

    For sixteen-year-old Will Winchester, born Willow Winchester and raised as a young man, the safety of his own secrets rests one atop the other. Hiding his gender queerness is important. But so is hiding the ghostly voices of the Missing, which Will hears when no one else can … until the Spiritualist Black Cross Order of Occult Occurrences wants him in their service to keep peace between London’s living and dead. The freedom to be himself may come with a price. Working alongside a patchwork team of misfits and unlikely allies, Will finds he isn't the only one keeping secrets. Someone does not want him to uncover the truth about the ghosts who aren’t just missing from the world of the living, but missing from history itself. Can he find the Missing before he ends up becoming one of them?