Books

Perhaps the first of its kind, 'Ascending with both feet on the Ground' is a collection of author Jeff Browns most inspiring and well-loved Facebook quotes, soul-bytes, excerpts and aphorisms. In Jeff's hands, Facebook status became a kind of spiritual graffiti, a grass roots opportunity to inspire, support and connect with humanity. With a writing style that is unforgettably heartfelt and original, Jeff calls out to our inner knowing and reminds us of the magnificent life that awaits us.

This little treasure book is no generic quotes book. It is an impactful, stirring and enlivening piece of art that will keep you company on the journey home. Exhilarating, compassionate, insightful, these truth-soundings will help you to excavate your purpose, befriend your confusion, confront your avoidance, ground your spirituality and open your heart. 

The Shaman's Body: A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships, and the CommunityAuthor: Mindell, Arnold

A set of ancient inscriptions on marble found forty years ago in southern Italy, recording details so bewildering that scholars have kept silent about them.

Strange evidence about a tradition of people who were mystics but who were so intensely practical that, two and a half thousand years ago, they shaped our existence and the world we live in. And yet they did this with a purpose we've completely forgotten.

These are just two ingredients of this extraordinary book, which uncovers an astonishing reality that lies unsuspected right at the origins of the western world. Our dramatic failure to acknowledge or come to grips with that reality is what has been responsible for so much of the emptiness -- of the sense of something missing -- in our modern lives.

In the Dark Places of Wisdom is no work of fiction. The documents, the discoveries, the people that it describes are all as real as we are. But the story it has to tell is far stranger than any fiction, because this is the story of ourselves.

Deepen your awareness through the practice of Tibetan dream and sleep yoga.

We spend a third of our life sleeping and it is common, in many spiritual traditions throughout the world, for the world of dream and sleep to be utilized on the path to awakening. Dream yoga in the Tibetan traditions of dream practice has been the primary support for the realization of many yogis and great Tibetan masters. Now, updated and presented with fresh insight born from years of teaching this practice to Westerners, Tenzin Wangyal clearly presents a powerful method for liberation. With clearly illustrated Tibetan syllables and the places they are to be visualized, this practical guide will be of use to both new and adept practitioners. 

"If we cannot carry our practice into sleep, if we lose ourselves every night, what chance do we have to be aware when death comes? Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Look to your experience of sleep to discover whether or not you are truly awake."—Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

A reader-friendly, fun, and practical guide to improving one's love life, career, health, and overall happiness with African American folk magick.

In this groundbreaking book that places Rootwork in its rightful spot among other magickal traditions, Tayannah Lee McQuillar offers a fun and practical guide to improving your life with the help of African American folk magick. Rootwork begins with the basics, from explanations about the magickal powers of the four elements (air, earth, fire, and water) to instructions on creating talismans, charms, and mojo bags.

Also included are spells to help you:

• Find your soul mate
• Spice up your sex life
• Get a new job
• Improve your health
• Discover your inner muse

Accessible and easy to use, Rootwork offers the insights of a time-honored tradition as a means of self-empowerment and spiritual growth.

Death welcomes everyone. This is the foundation for the veneration of Santa Muerte, or Holy Death. Considered to be the female personification of death, she is associated with protection and safe passage to the afterlife. She is also the patron saint of people who live on the fringes of society and often face violence and death. In recent years her constituency has expanded to include the LGBT community and people who are marginalized or whose jobs put them at significant risk of death such as military and police personnel. Santa Muerte is hailed as their potent and powerful protector, capable of delivering them from harm and even granting miracles.

Santa Muerte is a complete ritual guide to working with this famous--and infamous!--Mexican folk saint. It takes us beyond the sensational headlines to reveal the truth about why Santa Muerte is so beloved by so many. Author Tracey Rollin presents simple, straightforward methods for working with Holy Death that may be used alone or easily incorporated into your own magical practice.

 The Cherokee community is grateful for blessings and challenges that each season brings. This is modern Native American life as told by an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

The word otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-lee-gah) is used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. Beginning in the fall with the new year and ending in summer, follow a full Cherokee year of celebrations and experiences. Written by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, this look at one group of Native Americans is appended with a glossary and the complete Cherokee syllabary, originally created by Sequoyah.

"A gracious, warm, and loving celebration of community and gratitude"—Kirkus Reviews STARRED REVIEW

"The book underscores the importance of traditions and carrying on a Cherokee way of life"—Horn Book STARRED REVIEW

"This informative and authentic introduction to a thriving ancestral and ceremonial way of life is perfect for holiday and family sharing"—School Library Journal STARRED REVIEW

"An elegant representation"—Shelf Awareness STARRED REVIEW

Long before it came to be known as Duluth, the land at the western tip of Lake Superior was known to the Ojibwe as Onigamiising, "the place of the small portage." There the Ojibwe lived in keeping with the seasons, moving among different camps for hunting and fishing, for cultivating and gathering, for harvesting wild rice and maple sugar. In Onigamiising Linda LeGarde Grover accompanies us through this cycle of the seasons, one year in a lifelong journey on the path to Mino Bimaadiziwin, the living of a good life.

In fifty short essays, Grover reflects on the spiritual beliefs and everyday practices that carry the Ojibwe through the year and connect them to this northern land of rugged splendor. As the four seasons unfold--from Ziigwan (Spring) through Niibin and Dagwaagin to the silent, snowy promise of Biboon--the award-winning author writes eloquently of the landscape and the weather, work and play, ceremony and tradition and family ways, from the homey moments shared over meals to the celebrations that mark life's great events. Now a grandmother, a Nokomis, beginning the fourth season of her life, Grover draws on a wealth of stories and knowledge accumulated over the years to evoke the Ojibwe experience of Onigamiising, past and present, for all time.

First published in 1972, Vine Deloria Jr.'s God Is Red remains the seminal work on Native religious views, asking new questions about our species and our ultimate fate. Celebrating three decades in publication with a special 30th-anniversary edition, this classic work reminds us to learn "that we are a part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibilities to the natural world." It is time again to listen to Vine Deloria Jr.'s powerful voice, telling us about religious life that is independent of Christianity and that reveres the interconnectedness of all living things.

From Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and author MacQuarrie comes a landmark history of the epic conquest of the mighty Inca Empire, and the decades-long insurgency the Incas waged against the Conquistadors. 20 photos & maps. 

-

In 1532, the fifty-four-year-old Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers, to the shores of Peru. Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers of Peru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor Atahualpa had defeated his brother Huascar. Pizarro and his men soon clashed with Atahualpa and a huge force of Inca warriors at the Battle of Cajamarca. Despite being outnumbered by more than two hundred to one, the Spaniards prevailed—due largely to their horses, their steel armor and swords, and their tactic of surprise. They captured and imprisoned Atahualpa. Although the Inca emperor paid an enormous ransom in gold, the Spaniards executed him anyway. The following year, the Spaniards seized the Inca capital of Cuzco, completing their conquest of the largest native empire the New World has ever known. Peru was now a Spanish colony, and the conquistadors were wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

But the Incas did not submit willingly. A young Inca emperor, the brother of Atahualpa, soon led a massive rebellion against the Spaniards, inflicting heavy casualties and nearly wiping out the conquerors. Eventually, however, Pizarro and his men forced the emperor to abandon the Andes and flee to the Amazon. There, he established a hidden capital, called Vilcabamba—only recently rediscovered by a trio of colorful American explorers. Although the Incas fought a deadly, thirty-six-year-long guerrilla war, the Spanish ultimately captured the last Inca emperor and vanquished the native resistance.

While everything appears to be collapsing around us – ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, the end of cheap oil, water shortages, global famine, wars – we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children’s children.

Thom Hartmann’s comprehensive book is one of the fundamental handbooks of the environmental activist movement. Now with fresh, updated material on our Earth’s rapid climate change and a focus on political activism and its effect on corporate behavior, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight helps us understand – and heal – our relationship to the world, to each other, and to our natural resources.

Difficulties are a part of life but so is the wisdom that helps us overcome them. On Keep Going, Lakota elder and award-winning storyteller Joseph M. Marshall III offers the unique perspective of his people to remind us that the most important and enduring lessons come through the power of perseverance. In this original author adaptation, Marshall shares with heartwarming understanding and moving insight stories that stretch back across generations through the Lakota oral tradition. Whether you re currently involved in a challenging situation or simply in need of a voice of encouragement, Keep Going will inspire each and every step along the path ahead of you.

As we contemplate leaving the morning of our life, where ego has played a commanding role and entering the afternoon (and evening), where meaning and purpose replace ambition and struggle, we may encounter unexpected occurrences that accompany this new direction. It's almost a universal law that we'll experience a fall of some kind. Yet these falls or low points provide the energy we need to move away from ego and into a life of meaning and purpose. The Shift doesn't mean that we lose our drive and ambition; it signifies that we become ambitious about something new. We make a commitment to living a life based on experiencing meaning and feeling purposeful, rather than a life based on never-ending demands and false promises that are the trademark of the ego's agenda.

The World of Tibetan Buddhism is the definitive explanation of Tibetan Buddhism by the world's ultimate authority, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. First providing a general overview of the most elemental Buddhist concepts and terms, the Dalai Lama then goes into reasonable depth on Buddhist values and the Tibetan practice of Vajrayana Buddhism, with a focus on Tantra. 

Herrmann, Steven B.