F. K. Fisher in The Gastronomical Me, food is more than a metaphor in The Bread and the Knife. It is the organizing principle of an existence. Starting with "A Is for Al Dente," the loosely linked chapters evoke an alphabet of food memories that recount a woman’s emotional growth from the challenges of youth to professional accomplishment, marriage, and divorce. Betrayal is embodied in an overripe melon, her awakening in a Béarnaise sauce. Passion fruit juice portends the end of a first marriage, while tarte Tatin offers redemption. Each letter serves up a surprising variation on the struggle for self-knowledge, the joy and pain of familial and romantic love, and food’s astonishing ability to connect us with both the living and the dead. Ranging from her grandmother's suburban kitchen to an elegant New York restaurant, a longhouse in Borneo, and a palace in Rajasthan, The Bread and the Knife charts the vicissitudes of a woman forced to swallow some hard truths about herself while discovering that the universe can dispense surprising second chances.

    It explores what the experience of this psychedelic medicine exposes to us about the nature of mind, emotion, society, psychospiritual maturity, and reality itself. This book is about facing the darkness within each of us, developing the courage of emotional honesty, and investigating how the unacknowledged aspects of self, the shadow, can make the grounds of personal growth fertile again. The psilocybin mushroom offers us the opportunity to experience life from a point of amplified emotional, psychological, and spiritual significance. It unlocks a perspective of self and other that is naturally occurring within us, but culturally suppressed to the point of nearly complete omission. When we begin to navigate the vastly novel experiences this substance can provide us, we further enable its potential for not only exposing, but healing the unconscious narratives that hold us back from being our fullest, most courageous, most honest self.

    Writing under pseudonyms, the McKenna brothers provided simple, reliable, and productive methods for magic mushroom propagation, including black-and-white photographs that showed the techniques of the time. The development of more modern cultivation techniques does not eclipse the cultural contributions of this book. Philosophical asides, whimsical illustrations evoking the mystical nature of mushrooms, and speculations about the relationship of these organisms to humankind provide a lasting legacy. Truly the classic manual on home cultivation, the wisdom of Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide continues to inspire new students of psycho-mycology—and refreshes psychedelic memories for others.

    In 17 months, she traversed beaches and mountains, farms and urban sprawl. She received unimaginable support – people offered beds, food, cups of tea, donated to her chosen charities. Walking Wales rooted her in the country and in herself; her account of the physical and mental challenges painting a unique portrait of the natural landscape of a country and its people.

    of Manchester) has hitherto been known for his several excellent books on the Dead Sea Scrolls. In an unusual reversal, he has now produced a book that will make The Passover Plot seem the last refuge of theological ultra-conservatism. The thesis of the book is simple enough: Jesus did not exist, the Gospels were & are a hoax, & Christianity is the atavistic vestige of an ancient fertility cult in which the object of worship was a peculiarly phallic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, capable of producing psychedelic reactions. As farfetched as all this may seem, it cannot be denied that he has brought to this work the same care & scholarly detachment that have characterized his earlier, & more conventional, works; & he has made not one concession to the sensational nature of his thesis. The book is, in fact, a demanding one, which presupposes in the reader at least a working knowledge of the ancient Semitic tongues & of the sciences considered auxiliary to biblical studies. Only the most determined non-professional iconoclast will be willing to wade through his unrelenting jargon. None of which, of course, will affect the demand for what is probably to become a very controversial work.--Kirkus (edited)

    This book presents principles and methods of assessment using a combination of the helpful Ayurvedic and modern techniques.

    Allen's distinctive ethnography of the Quechua-speaking people of the Andes brings their story into the present. She has added an extensive afterword based on her visits to Sonqo in 1995 and 2000, and has updated and revised parts of the original text. The book focuses on the very real problem of cultural continuity in a changing world, and Allen finds that the hold life has in 2002 is not the same as it was in 1985.

    The Healer's Manual shows specific techniques—involving color, sound, fragrance, herbs, and gemstones—to restore the natural flow of energy. Use the simple practices in this book to activate healing, alleviate aches and pains, and become the healthy person you're meant to be.

    It is a story of obstacles--physical, emotional, and psychic--overcome again, and again, and again. Whether riding a mule up a hillside in Iraq surrounded by mud-stained Kurdish refugees, navigating his wheelchair through intractable stretches of Middle Eastern sand, or auditioning to be the first journalist in space, John Hockenberry, ace reporter, is determined not only to bring back the story, but also to prove that nothing can hold him back from death-defying exploits. However, he will never be a poster boy for a Jerry Lewis telethon. A paraplegic since an auto accident at age nineteen, Hockenberry holds nothing back in this achingly honest, often hilarious chronicle that ranges from the Ayatollah's funeral (where his wheelchair is pushed by a friendly Iranian chanting "Death to all Americans"), to the problems of crip sex and the inaccessibility of the New York City subway system. In this immensely moving chronicle--so filled with marvelous storytelling that it reads like a novel--John Hockenberry finds that the most difficult journey is the one that begins at home, as he confronts the memories of his beloved one-armed grandfather, and finally meets his institutionalized Uncle Peter, whose very existence was long a secret buried in the family history.Moving Violations is a sometimes harrowing but ultimately joyful ride.

    Includes the teachings and a structural analysis.

    Weed. Grass. Mary Jane. We all think we know what cannabis is and what we use it for. But do we? Our collective understanding of this surprising plant has been muddled by politics and morality; what we think we know isn’t the real story.A war on cannabis has been waged in the United States since the early years of the twentieth century, yet in the past decade, society has undergone a massive shift in perspective that has allowed us to reconsider our beliefs. In Brave New Weed, Joe Dolce travels the globe to "tear down the cannabis closet" and de-mystify this new frontier, seeking answers to the questions we didn’t know we should ask.Dolce heads to a host of places, including Amsterdam, Israel, California, and Colorado, where he skillfully unfolds the odd, shocking, and wildly funny history of this complex plant. From the outlandish stories of murder trials where defendants claimed "insanity due to marijuana consumption" to the groundbreaking success stories about the plant’s impressive medicinal benefits, Dolce paints a fresh and much-needed portrait of cannabis, our changing attitudes toward it, and the brave new direction science and cultural acceptance are leading us.Enlightening, entertaining, and thought-provoking, Brave New Weed is a compelling read that will surprise and educate proponents on both sides of the cannabis debate.

    It includes short gems from many of his teachings made popular in such books as The Art of Happiness and Ethics for the New Millennium, as well as on subjects such as religion, politics, peacework, and human rights.

    She takes the time to enjoy it. It will be over soon. For all those who loved The Alchemist, Siddhartha, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, This Flawless Place Between is a mesmerising and uplifting story about death and dying. Interweaving the key themes of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, one of the world’s most influential and treasured spiritual texts, Portier gently explores our deepest questions about life, love, and death with a refreshing openness and delicacy. Anne and Evan are vacationing in the Tibetan mountains when on an isolated stretch of road they lose control of their motorbike. Bike and riders spin over the edge, plunging into a ravine. Evan’s leg is broken; Anne isn’t moving. A Tibetan peasant hurries to help them, but while Evan tries in vain to save Anne’s life, the stranger focuses on guiding her spirit along the new path it must take to the next one. So begins a cathartic voyage that carries Anne away from her broken body and back through the traumas and ecstasies of her life. Once again, she is a child mourning a dead pet, a young woman embracing her lover, the radiant hostess of an art exhibition, a distraught mother hearing that her young daughter has been critically injured. As she revisits her past, and the futures of those she will leave behind, Anne begins to accept not only her death but also her life – and that what happens next will be up to her. A gifted successor to the inspirational Paulo Coelho, BRUNO PORTIER is a writer, photographer, and documentary maker. He travelled around Asia for 12 years before undertaking a PhD in social anthropology and writing this, his first novel.

    Once introduced by famed psychedelics advocate Timothy Leary as "one of the most important people on the planet," radical philosopher Terence McKenna was an iconic legend in the psychedelic community. He died in 2000, but his ideas live on in the writings of author Dennis McKenna. On their Amazonian journey together, the brothers explored the outer limits of psychedelic experience and were haunted ever since by the curious events that overtook them in that primeval rainforest.

    What begins as an innocent ethnographic encounter ends in a revelation as Knab uncovers the ghoulish dimensions of a blood feud that has left dozens of sorcerers dead."-- Wade DavisAuthor of The Serpent and the Rainbow "A War of Witches represents a uniquely original and authentic piece of research into one of the most difficult topics to penetrate and evaluate -- the highly sacred rituals concerning the gods and lost souls of the modern Aztecs. It will long stand as a milestone in anthropology."-- Richard Evan Schultes, Harvand Botanical Museum Author of Plants of the Gods