Monkfish Book Publishing

2022 Foreword INDIES Award Winner | Silver: Body, Mind  Spirit

2023 IPPY Award Winner | Bronze: New Age/Mind, Body, Spirit

Hidden in the darkness is an ancient secret suppressed by every aspect of our light-drunk modern world—there is a Great Mother from the bottom of time who has always guided us through perils and calamities. Now is the hour of Her return.

“An exigent, affecting summons to rediscover the night.”—Kirkus Reviews

Is darkness synonymous with ignorance and evil? Or is it the original matrix from which all life emerges, and the Mother to whom it returns? Higher and higher levels of artificial illumination have suppressed our contact with the numinous since the Industrial Revolution, with dire consequences for society, our planetary ecology, and our souls. This mystical testament weaves together paleobiology, memoir, history, science, and spiritual archaeology to lead readers back into the lost mysteries of the dark. Not since The Teachings of Don Juan or Ishmael has a book diagnosed with such urgency and cultural coherence the problems at the heart of modern life.

In Waking Up to the Dark, Clark Strand offers penetrating insight into the spiritual enrichment that can be found when we pull the plug on our billion-watt culture. He argues that the insomnia so many of us experience as “the Hour of the Wolf” is really “the Hour of God”—a wellspring of rest and renewal, and an ancient reservoir of ancestral wisdom and inspiration. And in a powerful yet surprising turn, he shares with us an urgent message for the world, received through a mysterious young woman he calls Our Lady of Climate Change (aka THE VIRGIN MARY), about the challenges we all know are coming.

"This book is at once a love letter to Zen practice and a critique of late twentieth century American Zen. Judith inspires us to investigate our own karmic knots, and in the middle of this suffering, she invites us to walk quietly down to the neighborhood pond and take a cooling dip in the moonlight." —Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, and many other books

Untangling Karma is a memoir of accepting and healing personal trauma, both on and off the meditation cushion. Author Judith Ragir, an American Zen teacher, has used her spiritual practice to overcome anger and self-imposed isolation and become more loving. 

In Buddhism, the personal and the systemic are interwoven. If we are to heal from trauma, we need to find and face our deeply held, often hidden pain. Because we have been raised in a society of greed, aggression, and confused values, this is something we all must do, regardless of our ethnic or racial background.

Ragir lets fall the stereotypical cool, calm Zen teacher’s demeanor to reveal her complicated, emotional self. She discusses what she has done to find greater inner peace as well as the personal impacts of transferring an Eastern philosophy onto her Western mind and applying a male-inspired monastic model to herself as an American woman, Jew, and mother. Untangling Karma is at once a love letter to Zen Buddhism and a critique of turn-of-the-century American Zen.

If we can be bold when facing our personal pain and traumatic experiences, says Ragir, and curious about our own karmic histories, then we can help build a more inclusive, healing-focused, 21st-century Buddhism.

Strand’s mystical poems to Ma Kali, the Dark Goddess of India, as occasioned by his encounters with the material dealt in depth in both Waking Up to the Dark and the Way of the Rose.

“A treasure of mystical poetry, these poems pulsate with truth.” —Carolyn Myss, author of Intimate Conversations with the Divine and Anatomy of the Spirit

In the early hours of June 16, 2011, Clark Strand witnessed a startling apparition of the Divine Feminine in the form of a young woman with an X of black electrical tape over Her mouth. Strand removed the tape, and She began to speak of a coming age of chaos and collapse in which the world of humankind would be severely chastened so that Her world—the world of Nature—could be renewed. Overwhelmed by the presence of One so fully Other, Strand found that love was the only language that would suffice. Drawing inspiration from Song of Songs and the Bengali mystics Ramprasad and Sri Ramakrishna, he began a series of poems to Ma Kali, the Dark Goddess of India, the words to which often came from the Great Mother Herself.

“This is one of the best books on Zen and Zen practice that I have read in years. Busshō uses a well-known Zen song/poem to elucidate the key features of Zen meditation, practice and life….It brings the famous Zen master’s teaching alive while also showing how it is relevant to Zen practice in the 21st century." —Tim Burkett, author of Nothing Holy About It and Zen in the Age of Anxiety

Foreword Book of the Year Finalist (Nonfiction: Religion)

Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law introduces us to one of the great works of Zen literature, “The Song of Zazen.” Zen teacher Busshō Lahn illuminates Hakuin’s enigmatic poem in plain language, unpacking it and applying it to contemporary life. His book offers a wealth of information on the context and content of this eighteenth-century work, clearly evoking its themes of abiding wisdom, meditation, compassionate self-regard, and our own everyday life’s potential to express deep spiritual truth.

Short stanza by short stanza, this exceptionally readable and deeply engaging book shows how the poem’s teachings and invitations are as applicable now as they were when they were first written nearly three centuries ago. Lahn offers readers an intuitive and progressive path of exploration of their spiritual lives, regardless of their faith tradition.

“Wounds into Wisdom is for anyone who has suffered trauma, either directly or in a family whose generational trauma is buried. It helps readers uncover suffering and use it to help others―the final stage of healing. We may not be able to control what happens to us, but we can control what happens next.” —Gloria Steinem

• 2020 Nautilus Book Award—GOLD/Psychology
• 2020 Book Award from the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology
• 2019 Book of the Year Award Finalist in Religion and Self-Help categories

Compassion as Remedy is a quietly revolutionary book about healthcare, ethics, and spiritual practice delivered as a commentary on a 2,500-year-old Tibetan text—the rGyud-bZhi (The Four Tantras), which is the guiding treatise for Traditional Tibetan Medicine. This book, which is a translation of “The Physician Chapter” of rGyud-bZhi, helps readers grasp the essence of healing and teaches healthcare practitioners how to develop limitless compassion, a quality that is essential—as our current healthcare situation makes starkly clear.

Moral development and the practice of compassion should be of great importance to all medical practitioners and “The Physician Chapter” provides detailed instructions, drawn from a millennia-old culture and tradition that is attracting increased attention. Although many books have been written about Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and more, there are very few approachable books regarding the unique features of Tibetan medicine and spiritual and meditation practice.

By integrating healthcare with spiritual practice, Compassion as Remedy provides guidelines for ethics, along with suggestions for developing wisdom and compassion. Throughout the world today, both medical practitioners and their patients are increasingly curious about holistic healing traditions, seeking to find natural, organic, and noninvasive remedies with few side effects. This book shows that compassion itself is a source for the alleviation of suffering.

Dr. Yonten includes examples from his clinical practice, drawn from cross-cultural perspectives and neuroscience, giving readers a rare view of compassion as remedy. In the words of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, one of Dr. Yonten’s teachers, “The ideal physician is one who combines sound medical understanding with compassion and wisdom.”

This collection of genuine teachings resonates with an authenticity that comes from Yoshin's many years of practice. It is both profound and practical.

A Temporary Affair is a collection of talks given at Sunday morning sittings at the Ithaca Zen Center by Yoshin David Radin, abbot and founder of the Ithaca Zen Center for the past 40 years. The talks contained here were given at a time when Yoshin’s health was severely compromised by end stage renal failure. In February 2019, he received a kidney transplant from a member of Ithaca Zen Center, to whom the publication is dedicated.

The collection of 31 talks contains the insight of the individual dharma talks themselves, as well as the underlying story of how the dharma teachings helped the author cope, and even thrive, with his continuing loss of kidney function. The talks go right up to the days before he was admitted to the hospital. The comfort and guidance he received from the dharma during the times when he was most ill have been a great inspiration to all who know him, as they will to readers. In his own words, “How extraordinary, how blessed, how wonderful, to have met the teachings that free us from suffering when in difficult places.” Through these talks the reader can clearly see how he put that wisdom to use in his own life situation, and how they can do so as well.

“Mark Matousek has produced [a] riveting account of his search–at age 38, with the help of a private detective–for the father who abandoned him at age four. A searing meditation on the psychic harm suffered by men and women without fathers, this wise odyssey wrestles with questions of life and death and the search for the meaning of one’s existence.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap me,” begins this gripping memoir about Matousek’s search for James Matousek, the drifter father he never knew. Matousek chronicles his compelling search for his own father by hiring a detective and reveals his own life as he follows the hard-bitten investigator from one dead-end to the next.

Described by the New York Times as “ part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing,” this memoir is more than the story of one man’s search for his father; it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning.

Enter the world of The Wild Mother—modern fairytale, bold biblical midrash, filled with the psychological depth and imaginative originality for which the author of The Maeve Chronicles is known. Elizabeth Cunningham's classic feminist novel is as fresh and timeless today as when it was first released in 1993 to critical acclaim.

Adam Underwood and Eva Brooke appear to be made for each other. Both are single parents. Both are academics, he a dazzling, enigmatic professor of Alchemy, she a humble but dedicated professor of Fairytales. Adam's children, Ionia and Fred, share a latchkey after school with Eva's precocious son, Jason. So why don't Adam and Eva marry and live happily ever after?

Eva can't help wondering. Pathologically polite, she cannot bring herself to ask personal questions. She struggles not to find it strange that Adam has never so much as mentioned his children's absent mother. Nor has Adam's own mother-cum-housekeeper, the feisty, outspoken Ursula, ever uttered her name. Yet Eva glimpses the missing woman in ten-year-old Ionia's haunted and haunting purple eyes and in Ionia's drawings of a woman dancing on the crest of a hill, wild black hair spread out against the sky....

Then one night, she returns: Lilith, the wild mother. The precarious status quo that Eva, Adam, and their families have achieved is shattered and their world is turned inside out or, more precisely, outside in.

As wild breaks into their lives, Adam, obsessed with control, attempts to seal them all in a deadly trap. Now a crucial challenge confronts each one of them. Will these very human beings embrace their own wildness, risking all they value and understand? Or will they deny the freedom essential to Lilith's nature--and their own.

"Judaism Without Tribalism is a blessing, a much-needed challenge, and a deep well of wisdom and sanity." —Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones

This book investigates Judaism at its best—and sanest. It strips away outdated and harmful beliefs that have accrued over the centuries and returns to the essential truths that are too-often ignored in favor of tradition, tribal identity, or the claims of the powerful.

The result is a vibrant Judaism for the 21st century and beyond—a Judaism that draws deeply from history and scripture yet addresses the unmet needs of the present and the future. It is a Judaism that is open and accessible to everyone.

Judaism without tribalism is a call to be a light unto the nations, and a blessing to all the people of the earth. It is a Judaism free from legalism and tribalism—a Judaism that refuses to serve patriarchy and power.

Written by one of today's most respected—and most unconventional—Jewish thinkers, Judaism Without Tribalism is a manifesto, an invitation to completeness, and a call for inner and outer spiritual revolution. It is also a deeply practical guide to living authentically, breath by breath and day by day.

In a time when abuse at the hands of religious leaders is too common comes this guide to making the most of the Zen tradition while protecting and empowering yourself

“This is a thoroughly engaging exploration based on deep knowledge of the tradition as well as contemporary research.” —Martine Batchelor, author, Principles of Zen

While the liberation that Zen offers is real, it must be engaged with carefully, explains this sensei. Her book is neither a memoir about a single case of abuse nor a bloodless academic study. Nelson reflects on the multiple dangers in Zen, from firsthand experience in Boston—where documented abuse recently took place—integrating her discussion at every step with core Zen teachings.

“Practicing Safe Zen imparts a lesson we all will have to learn if we want to truly mature in our spiritual practice.” —Barry Magid, author, Ending the Pursuit of Happiness

Braided medieval and modern stories of an anchoress, her handmaiden, and the adjunct professor searching for them across centuries as they each navigate ambition, confinement, and the patriarchy.

“The modern and medieval stories spiral in and out of each other, intricate and vivid as the letters of illuminated manuscripts, connected by the mysteries of paradox: confinement and freedom, loss and fulfillment.” —Elizabeth Cunningham, My Life as a Prayer and The Maeve Chronicles

 “Holt-Browning is adept at honing in on the passion for life, nature, and language that can sustain a person through the hardest times.” —Nerissa Nields, Plastic Angel and All Together Singing in the Kitchen

Twelve-year-old Elinor is enclosed with an anchoress, Lady Adela, in a cell at Wenlock Abbey, 14th century England. Centuries later, an adjunct professor of medieval studies discovers Elinor’s long-lost book of hours on a research trip to England. Holt-Browning explores women’s timeless struggle for personal agency as her unforgettable characters discover the burdens and rewards of faith and devotion. A must-read for fans of Julian of Norwich.

“Reading Ellen Bernstein's Toward a Holy Ecology is to partake in a garden of delights. She refreshes our reading of the Song by enlivening all of our senses." —Rabbi Nancy Flam, Co-founder National Center for Jewish Healing, and The Institute for Jewish Spirituality

Song of Songs is known as the erotic part of the Bible, but Ellen Bernstein shows how it is also an ancient source of deep ecological wisdom.

Toward a Holy Ecology is a new translation of this Hebrew text, illuminating the place of humans in the natural world and inviting you to develop a holy, ecological language for life.

This book sets the natural world before you with intensity and beauty, inviting you to savor it with all your senses. Then you are able to return to the world with a renewed clarity, love, and energy necessary for creating a healthier future for the earth and all her inhabitants.

Toward a Holy Ecology is for all who love the earth and its inhabitants—including outdoor enthusiasts, spiritual seekers, fellow poets, feminists, and students of the humanities, religion, and ecology. It will change how you see, how you speak, and how you live.

“A brilliant and engaging book on haiku, and on the state of the body and mind required in the million to one shot against producing a good one” —Jim Harrison

First published in 1997, Seeds From a Birch Tree introduced readers to the only form of poetry in all of world literature that makes nature into a spiritual path. Its message was simple: Haiku teaches us to return to nature by following the seasons—seventeen syllables at a time.

With its mix of poetry and memoir, fallen leaves and birdsong, Seeds From a Birch Tree awakens us to what Bashō called “the life of each thing.” Simple instructions guide us to the possibilities for creativity and joy hidden in plain sight in the natural world around us, giving us hope and resilience in the face of life’s challenges.

This Revised & Expanded 25^th Anniversary Edition includes the complete text of the original classic, plus dozens of new haiku and an Afterword by the author discussing haiku for the 21^st century.

Winner of the 2023 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Prize for Memoir

This luminous memoir combines the hardscrabble setting of Appalachia with the spiritual wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki’s classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

“Amazing and intense. A unique, entertaining, and valuable contribution to the Dharma literature, Appalachian Zen addresses a part of the Western Dharma world that hasn’t received much attention: class.” —Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, Yale University, author of Blue Jean Buddha and Sitting Together

Appalachian Zen describes a journey we all take, one that Buddhism calls “seeking our true home.” Edgy, lyrical, and lovingly rendered, this book recounts how a kid from a Pennsylvania mill-town trailer park grew up—surrounded by backwoods farms and amid grief, violence, and passionate yearning—to become something improbable: a Buddhist minister teaching Zen. Author Steve Kanji Ruhl takes readers on an adventure of discovery, roving far from the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania on a footloose Zen pilgrimage to Japan and beyond.

Featuring vivid firsthand accounts of spiritual seeking and teaching in Japanese temples, as well as forays to Tokyo and Hiroshima, the alleys of Kyoto, Amish cornfields near the Susquehanna, and a monastery in the Catskills, Appalachian Zen includes robust historical sketches, rapt nature passages, and cultural references ranging from Proust to punk rock. Throughout the book, Ruhl engages Buddhist themes of awakening and the death of the self by confronting the lives and deaths, including two by suicide, of his loved ones. This provocative memoir tells how it feels to practice Zen, and to move toward a life of hard-won forgiveness, healing, and freedom.

Offers letters of the Sanskrit alphabet as key to understanding Yoga and the Divine

These original meditations on the Sanskrit letters range from personal narratives to metaphysical and theological speculations, linguistic play, and inter-spiritual allusions to other works and traditions, all relevant to living a contemplative life in the contemporary world.

Sowder’s book is anchored in the devotional Tantrik, Śaiva-Śakta tradition, focused on the Divine Feminine, but allusions to western mystics (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) also appear frequently. No other book like this exists.

Succinct, inspiring biography of a bridge-building Jewish leader, supplemented by 15 black-and-white photographs

On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights organizers led 8,000 protesters on a 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery. They invited a distinguished group of national religious figures to join them in the front lines. One of these was Abraham Joshua Heschel—a gifted Jewish scholar, teacher, and speaker, whose recent book, The Prophets (1962)—a detailed study of the ancient biblical champions of justice and mercy—was a source of great inspiration to Dr. King and others.

As Heschel walked arm-in-arm with his colleagues, he was easy to spot in the crowd: He was a short, stocky man with flowing white hair, a bushy beard, who wore a dark yarmulke (Jewish head covering). Like the prophets of old, Heschel believed that standing up for others—particularly the most vulnerable members of society—is a sacred obligation. He later wrote, the religious person must seek to hold God and humankind “in one thought at one time,” suffering “harm done to others,” making “compassion” one’s “greatest passion.”

Heschel first learned these essential values as a child in Eastern Europe. This little book is his story.

“A great way to deepen your spiritual life is to take a deep dive into a tradition other than your own—especially if you have a competent guide, and Rabbi Rami is an extraordinary guide. Not into Zen? Not a Jew? Not a problem. Anyone on any path will benefit enormously from this profoundly illuminating book.” —Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West

With reference to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Rami Shapiro begins with beginner’s mind as “empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.” Then, Rami ponders beginner’s mind in the child of the Passover Haggadah “who knows not how to ask.” The parents of this child are told to open (patach) the child to the art of questioning. Asking questions is key to Jewish mind.

The questioning perennial beginner is central to both Zen and Jewish, Rami demonstrates: a daring, iconoclastic, often humorous mind devoted to shattering the words, texts, isms, and ideologies on which expert mind—closed to inquiry—depends.

Zen Mind / Jewish Mind is not a scholarly study of anything, let alone Zen or Judaism, and despite all the footnotes, the book rests solely on Shapiro’s fifty-plus years of playing in the garden of Judaism, Zen, and advaita/nonduality. Chapters include “Dharma Eye, God’s I” (1), “Koan and Midrash” (4), and “The Yoga of Conversation” (7).

Epistolary biography of a bridge-building 20th century Christian-Hindu spiritual leader

This fascinating biography of Swāmī Abhishiktānanda (Henri Le Saux) is based on a vast collection of letters written to friends and family over his twenty-five years in India.

Swāmī Abhishiktānanda (1910-1973)—a French Catholic monk, who came to India in 1948 and settled there till the end of his life in 1973—was one of the most fascinating spiritual figures of the twentieth century and a bridge-builder between Christian and Hindu traditions. After nineteen years of living in a Benedictine monastery in France, his passionate longing to realize the Truth brought him face-to-face with Indian spirituality and paved the way for him to meet one of the greatest contemporary sages of India, Shri Ramana Maharshi.

This book illustrates the spiritual trajectory of an extraordinary pioneer of interreligious dialogue and a bridge-builder between Christian and Hindu traditions, from his first arrival in South India in 1948 towards his spiritual Awakening in Rishikesh on July 14, 1973.

This guide to Integrative Medicine, based on quantum science, combines studies in consciousness, with alternative systems of healing such as Ayurveda and Yoga to produce a new science of health which sees disease as a health disorder. Required reading for health professionals and anyone looking for a deeper understanding of wellness.

Inspired by the Dalai Lama to apply the integrative ideas of quantum science to practical everyday problems in people’s lives, famed physicist Amit Goswami began working in 1999 in the field of health and healing. His first task was to use the new quantum metaphysics to provide a basic science for the systems of alternative medicine and thus begin a tentative integrative medicine. This was accomplished in The Quantum Doctor, first published in 2004. 

What was still lacking was a unified theory of health leading to a new science of heath which would treat disease as a health disorder. Much more expertise in specifics was needed for such a project. In 2016, Goswami partnered with Valentina Onisor, MD, trained in both allopathic and most systems of alternative medicine as well including Ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, aromatherapy, and homeopathy. This book is the culmination of their efforts to date. It is intended for both laypeople and health professionals.

“Beautiful, generative, loving, and deep: this may be the wisest Tarot book ever written. Gil Stafford finds the folly of the Cross in the journey of the Fool, and reminds us that ‘Life is a pilgrimage on the path of wisdom’s way.’” —Lisa Freinkel Tishman, author of Mindful Tarot

This book is a portal for those interested in the Bible and curious about the Tarot, for both those who might read the Bible daily as well as those who know very little about it but are not averse to it.

The first two chapters provide background that place the two mystical texts in conversation with each other. The vast and complex mythos of the Bible with its complex characters, actors, symbols, stories, and parables, are the backstory of the magnificent creatures of the Tarot’s inner psychic world.

A book for spiritual explorers, reading the Bible and the Tarot hand-in-hand can expand the imagination. It explores how to read the Tarot and the Bible to provoke the unconscious, the dream world, and expand the imagination. By the final chapter, readers are able to connect the mysteries of the Bible with the psychological magic of the Tarot.

A rabbi’s lifelong journey to discover the source and inspiration of Hasidism.

As a student of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s at Jewish Theological Seminary sixty years ago, Burt Jacobson was moved to devote his life to the study of Israel Baal Shem Tov—the founder of Hasidism. Heschel considered the Baal Shem the greatest Jewish teacher and communal leader of the last 1,000 years. Living in the Presence: A Personal Quest for the Baal Shem Tov is a wide-ranging portrait, revealing numerous facets of the Baal Shem Tov’s biography and revolutionary thought previously unknown. Through his knowledge of the world’s wisdom traditions, and personal journey, Rabbi Jacobson is able to place the Baal Shem in the company of the great world spiritual teachers. He reveals the Baal Shem’s vision as an ecstatic mystical encounter that opened to the transcendent unity of existence. It was this that inspired his love and compassion for all creation, especially for the people he met. His disciples testified that their experience of these truths transformed how they understood their own identities as manifestations of the Divine, altered how they lived as spiritual leaders of their communities, and laid the foundations for Hasidism as a movement.

Throughout his book Jacobson presents and evaluates insights of historians and scholars, but it is also filled with personal stories about Jacobson’s own struggle with his Jewish identity and his encounter with the Baal Shem as his spiritual teacher. Both a tour de force and a labor of love, this book will quickly become the most essential work on the subject ever published in English.

2024 WINNER Autobiography/Memoir Best Book Awards

“A wondrous, hopeful, heart-breaking witness to one of the darkest journeys imaginable… This will be one of those rare books that people re-read, think about, and encourage others to read.” —Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D, author, with Oprah Winfrey, of What Happened to You

“I love this book. I absolutely could not put it down. It is beautifully written and cuts to the very heart of life and love: The story of Havi’s short, beautiful life and early death from Tay-Sachs is harrowing, heartbreaking, uplifting, profound and sometimes funny. Havi will charm the socks off you.”—Anne Lamott

Life is unfolding as planned for Myra Sack and her husband Matt until their beautiful year-old daughter Havi is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, a fatal neurodegenerative disease, and given only a year to live. Myra and Matt decide to celebrate Havi’s short life and vow to show her as much of the world as they can, surrounded by friends and family who relocate to be in Havi’s orbit. Tapping their Judaism, they transform Friday night Shabbats into birthday parties—“Shabbirthdays”—to replace the birthdays Havi will never have.

Named a Best Spiritual Book of 2023 by Spirituality and Practice

“Wild Grace is Chelan Harkin’s most moving collection of poetry yet… These poems are deeply nourishing. It’s impossible to read them without feeling something long dormant stir inside you.” —Eric Weiner New York Times Best-selling author of The Geography of Bliss

“There’s a Vedic saying: ‘Thy gifts, my Lord, I surrender to Thee.’ Chelan has indeed received a Divine gift. I don’t think ordinary human intelligence could express such depth in words..” —Rick Archer, host of podcast Buddha at the Gas Pump: Conversations with “Ordinary” Spiritually Awakening People

In Wild Grace, Chelan Harkin uses ecstatic poetry to redefine our relationship with the divine. She targets a tipping point happening in the souls of many that shifts a conceptual relationship with God into a genuine, direct, and satisfying experience. These are visions of the present, speaking into the future. They are openings of the heart and awe-filled possibilities for a life of honesty and joy.

2023 Foreword INDIES Award Winner | Silver: Travel

A pilgrimage-turned-adventure story in pursuit of a pagan mystery on the Camino de Santiago across France and Spain

"In Beebe Bahrami’s The Way of the Wild Goose, a mystery, the wild feminine, and trail magic come together on the Camino de Santiago....Bahrami affirms that the Camino is more than a mere road—it’s an initiation. With skill and insight, she details the joys, challenges, and human kindness she experienced on this ‘great leyline forged from the mix of natural earth energies with the human imagination’ that became her road to self-discovery and a heart-centered life." —Foreword Reviews; starred review

With three pilgrimages across southern France and northern Spain defining author and anthropologist Beebe Bahrami’s single journey on the Camino de Santiago, The Way of the Wild Goose recounts an inner and outer journey full of wild nature, ancient roads and history, quirky pilgrims, wise and humorous locals, and mysterious folklore. It’s a compelling tale of quest, initiation, and transformation following the Way of Saint James.

The book is also a detective story that reveals an old mystery: Why is the goose associated with the medieval Camino de Santiago, and how did it come to preserve a whole universe of pagan, pre-Christian lore in one innocent symbol? Longtime trekker Bahrami decided to find out, and unknowingly catapulted herself into a true wild goose chase, unearthing a magnetically alive and meaningful long walk on the ancient roads in France and Spain—and a journey into the Self.

A lighthearted comedy about the way a spiritual teacher tries to empower his followers, but they invest him with all the power.

“…brilliant, wise, moving, and funny. Like, really funny. … Spiritual writing like this is rare. “ Shozen Jack Haubner, author of Zen Confidential 

Henry “Hank” Wilder, a divorced loner, is unsuccessfully trying to establish a new Zen center when he accidentally cures an ex-girlfriend’s recurring cancer with his touch and discovers—at least this is what people keep telling him—that he has healing powers.

Suddenly the empty zendo is overcrowded with Zen students who also want to be touched and healed by Hank. At first he resists, but when he cures a local Mexican boy of a bad limp, his reputation takes off. A TV story on Hank’s healings goes viral. The Latino community shows up, bearing food and icons of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Hank befriends a Catholic priest and falls in love again. When his life gets totally out of hand, he escapes to Mexico on a spiritual odyssey and finds out who he really is.

International Book Awards—Religion: Eastern | Top Award
AmericanBookFest's Best Book Awards Winner | Religion: Eastern
Nautilus Award | Gold
Benjamin Franklin Award | Silver
Independent Book Publisher's Award | Bronze
Named One of the Best Books of 2021 — Spirituality and Practice Magazine

“An intriguing, challenging crash course in Zen Buddhism.” — Kirkus Reviews

"A generation-defining rendering of one of the great Zen Buddhist scriptures." — Spirituality and Practice

For centuries, The Blue Cliff Record has stood as one of the preeminent scriptures of the Zen Buddhist tradition in China, Japan, and Korea. However, until now there has been no published commentary by a contemporary Zen Master to assist readers in understanding its counterintuitive and sometimes baffling teachings.

The Garden of Flowers and Weeds draws on contemporary scholarship and the author’s extensive experience with Zen in order to offer new insights for sophisticated students who are hoping to uncover the secrets of the koan tradition. At the same time, The Garden is jargon-free and uses personal stories to appeal to readers who are new to Buddhism. The theme of the book is simple: Accepting the unenlightened self with all its flaws is the most profound form of enlightenment.

Even with this clarity, finding a path into these old Zen stories is a challenge. They are designed to be roadblocks to intellectual understanding. Using personal memoire, the oral teachings of Zen, and meditation instruction, The Garden assists the reader in approaching the dialogues as spiritual exercises. The Blue Cliff Record contains an explosive power, but you can only access it by integrating its wisdom into your everyday experiences. As Zen Master Nanquan said, “Ordinary mind is the Way.”

Wise, compassionate advice from one of the nation's most trusted grief counselors to help heal emotional wounds that prevent us from leading fulfilling lives.

Renowned grief counselor Stephen Levine tells us that long after an initial loss has passed and the period of grieving has ended an unattended sorrow lingers, accounting for a host of physical, emotional and spiritual maladies. It is not uncommon then for those with unresolved grief to lean toward addictions or dangerous behaviors or other forms of self-destruction. In Unattended Sorrow, Levine addresses the grief from fresh loss but also attends to the pain and troubles caused by the unresolved anguish, sadness and delayed stress than can accumulate over a lifetime. He notes that we may never entirely overcome sorrows but we can confront them with mercy and self-acceptance that smooths the path to healing the heart.

 “There is no one better to turn to in times of loss than Stephen Levine. This book is an invaluable tool for anyone recovering from any type of major loss. A must, must read.”—Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

“Stephen’s work is magic. His work with the grieving and dying is among the most skillful and compassionate that I am aware of.”—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 

This is what happened at the famous Zen monastery south of San Francisco.

From the best-selling author of the biography of Shunryu Suzuki (Crooked Cucumber), comes a memoir and oral history of Tassajara—a monastery founded in 1967 by Shunryu Suzuki, abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center. Peopled like a Sixties film of Buddhist invasion, with hippies, dreamers, lovers, a wave of serious practitioners. Nyogen Senzaki, D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and of course Shunryu Suzuki and Richard Baker are all here. This is the story of what happened at and surrounding the founding of the first Zen monastery in the West.

A modern prophet looks back on seven decades of activism.

Ask an expert who are the 5 most influential American Jewish leaders of the last century and Rabbi Arthur Waskow will make most of the lists. The author of the original Freedom Seder and legendary social justice activist is now in his 90s, and has recorded significant memories, relationships, and events of the last seventy years. Beginning with an anecdote about Gloria Steinem and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, Waskow plunges the reader into the counter-culture that has defined his life and work.

“But in the summer of 1968, I didn’t have the language of Spirit,” Waskow writes, and this becomes a chronicle of blending active resistance to tyranny with a gradual discovery of what Waskow calls very simply “Love.” Thus comes the title of this memoir, as these are personal accounts and encounters of Spirit rising—in an extraordinary life.

Discover your own inner goddess.

Cynthia Abulafia introduces a map of the complete spiritual process rooted in history, spiritual traditions, and modern science, by recalling the radically inclusive divine feminine principles of curiosity and reverence.

Spiritual traditions and religions often ask seekers to transcend something: the body, the mind, the human experience? Spirituality has for centuries, if not millennia, focused on moving beyond the human body and life. But embodiment matters, and is crucial. Many spiritual seekers have been offered an incomplete map of the spiritual process with a goal from “salvation” to “samadhi.” Abulafia calls this the transcendence bias: when a tradition teaches us to go up and out but forgets to tell us how to come back into the body.

Embodying the Goddess is about turning back in and toward the body, mind, and intuitive field, and finding spiritual recognition in the individual- limitations and all. The Goddess path is one where the spiritual practice is firmly experienced in life.

Poems and related practices for a more contemplative life.

Leaving the Shore is a collection of poems with the intent of creating contemplative experiences for readers. The author has added guided Lectio Divina (sacred readings) and writing/journaling prompts, so that readers can pray and reflect with the poems.

Each poem is about some aspect of living the spiritual path: the desire to reach beyond what we know, the longing to step into the Divine Mystery, and the commitment to live in an intimate exchange of love with the Holy.

An experienced spiritual director, Lafia draws on her commitment to the contemplative life. These poems are an expression of contemplation in action as they explore the Holy in moments of daily living: within a marriage, while assisting a loved one dying, in the creative act of painting, and more. They are inspired by writings of the mystics, in particular Mechthild of Magdeburg and St. John of the Cross, and suffused with surrender, love, and awe. They invite the reader into prayer, self-reflection, and seeing their own lives as sacred texts.

Not every Catholic mother wants her son to be a priest.

The true story of a young man’s journey to become a Jesuit priest—written by his mother, a fallen-away Catholic who must come to terms with her son’s decision or risk losing him. It is an intimate, sometimes irreverent, and often searing examination of faith, family, and reconciliation.

“You send your son off to college and you think that in a few years you might get a call, and he’ll announce that he has someone he’s bringing home, someone he wants you to meet. But then that someone turns out to be a recruiter hawking a lifetime of poverty, chastity and obedience. What college kid in his right mind would sign up for that?”

The book offers a rare, often entertaining, glimpse into the highly unusual Jesuit formation process—which includes sending would-be priests off on pilgrimages with $35 in their pockets. It also takes on tough issues, from the church’s history of sexual abuse to its treatment of women, and asks tough questions: Is it possible to be Catholic, liberal, and a feminist all at the same time? What does it mean to call yourself a Catholic?

The author of The Jew in the Lotus seeks to answer the Dalai Lama’s question.

Rodger Kamenetz, author of international bestseller The Jew in the Lotus, about a pilgrimage of rabbis to see H.H. the Dalai Lama (a historic dialogue between Jewish and Buddhist masters), watched as the rabbis asked H.H. in Dharamsala, “How does your spiritual practice purify afflictive emotions?” Rodger explains in this book, “This is the most fundamental question we might ask of any spiritual practice, any religion or philosophy of life. How do your practices help you purify afflictive emotions such as anxiety, envy, resentment, and shame?”

Kamenetz sets out to answer this question experimentally, in spiritual practice, through the contemplation of images in memory, dreams, perception, and prayer. These practices lead to a life of feeling which displaces negativity and reactivity.

Seeing into the Life of Things will help readers cultivate these skills—perception, memory, dreams, and prayer. The book is structured as a commentary on these practices building step-by-step from the simple “count your blessings” to more difficult images in dreams. Kamenetz shows how to use dreams as prompts and scripts, in order to learn how to experience feelings by acting them out.

Memoir and narrative threads also run through the book, revolving around the author’s relationship with Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi—the most important Jewish teacher of the 20th century and the anchor of that trip to Dharamsala in 1990.

Female protagonists turn Jewish folktales on their heads!

What happens when stories with traditional male protagonists are updated with female characters? Timeless plots and values remain, while old tales transform to inspire and captivate a new generation.

When Debra Gordon Zaslow first ventured into Jewish storytelling in the mid-1980s, she was surprised at how difficult it was to find Jewish tales featuring powerful female characters. This seemed odd, given the obvious strength of Jewish women. Over the years, she found herself slipping female characters into stories and changing male protagonists into females. Her criterion was simple: if it didn’t change the basic meaning or plot of the story, the character could be female. There was always the sense, however, of meddling with something sacrosanct. These Jewish stories have been handed down for centuries, and who was she to change them?

Decades later, comes this collection of stories. The maggidot (Jewish women storytellers) who wrote and compiled this innovative anthology have created a collection to honor Jewish values while featuring female characters in every central role. Some stories are female-centered versions of traditional tales (e.g. “The Fishmonger and the Shiviti” and “The Shekhinah Is in Exile”), others are original fiction inspired by perennial Jewish themes (“A Queer Soul in the Shtetl”).

The lost fiction—fantasy and horror—of the famous Christian writer.

A revered priest’s horrifying metaphysical secret that is revealed only after his death. A sculptor’s obsessive desire to craft the horrific face that haunts his dreams and drives him to madness. A journey upriver to an unspoiled realm whose denizens revile anything tainted by humans. The sole survivor of an island shipwreck and the terrifying ancient being he confronts.

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) is best known for her groundbreaking and accessible studies on Christian mysticism: over forty books and hundreds of articles and lectures on spiritual practices, including her most famous work, Mysticism (1911). Yet even the most avid Underhill reader does not know that she spent her youth writing some seriously weird fiction: supernatural short stories that H.P. Lovecraft might have enjoyed. Here for the first time is a collection of short stories, poetry, and an essay written by the foremost Christian mystic of the twentieth century. Furthermore, Underhill’s brief fiction career represents an important step in her mystical and spiritual development. Understand these stories and you go a long way toward understanding how Underhill became the transformational thinker and mystic the world knows her to be.

“We have a contemplation problem,” and here’s what to do about it.

Jacob Riyeff draws on 1,600 years of contemplative tradition in the West to show how humans are contemplative beings, what it means to contemplate in different areas of life, and how embracing a contemplative life can help lead anyone to a fuller experience of self, world, and communion with the Divine.

This is a volume of “spiritual theology,” using theological principles and understandings but exploring how to apply those principles and understandings to shape one’s daily living. Drawing on the ways that John Cassian, St. Benedict, Gregory the Great, William of Saint-Thierry, Dame Gertrude More, and others shaped and passed on the Christian inheritance, Contemplate brings this directly to bear on contemporary social and cultural situations. It seeks to answer the question, what does the contemplative tradition of the Latin west have to offer Christians living post-industrial, digitally-saturated, ecologically fraught lives?

This book is first in a new series, “Beyond Our Instincts”: succinct, multi-disciplinary, countercultural stances in an environment that sells us the idea that happiness is whatever you want now. These authors—all scholars of religion who are also religiously involved—suggest there are more important things, including some we may have forgotten.
     Coming in future publishing seasons:
     *Join (being together; refusing too much solitariness)
     *Imagine (on opting out of technique-obsessed culture)
     *Wait (the lost value of open questions and not-knowing)

“Karma” is in our vocabulary, but we don’t know what it means.

The word is everywhere—not just in alternative spirituality, and among Hindus and Buddhists, but in news reports, ads, sitcoms, sports columns, and the everyday conversations of people who wouldn’t know the Upanishads from Us Magazine. Stephen Colbert invokes the term on TV, and Taylor Swift summons it in song. iTunes in fact lists more than 150 karmic song titles.

This book highlights karmic belief and practice throughout history and how they came to the West, then applies the principles of these ethics to relationships, life decisions, health, death, and all aspects of self-development.

“We’re always planting karmic seeds,” writes Philip Goldberg.

Karma is a profoundly useful idea, and Karmic Relief is a profoundly useful book. It offers a blueprint for building a fulfilling life and a way to reconcile some of life’s most vexing conundrums.

“A must-read for anyone on the path of awakening.” —Roshi Joan Halifax

A raw and revelatory spiritual memoir that chronicles a woman’s quest for love, healing, and awakening across multiple continents.

From the emotional barrenness of a postwar German childhood to the false promise of guru culture, the ecstasy of mystical experience, and the crucible of human intimacy, Annette Knopp’s unflinchingly honest account illuminates both the pitfalls and rewards of the spiritual path and her work as a teacher assisting others in navigating the path to wholeness.

Struggling with depression and lack of meaning prompts the author to leave her fiancé and successful career in Spain to travel to the Osho ashram in Pune. Her journey takes her further to the Dalai Lama in Northern India, the nightclubs and Shinto shrines in Japan, facing a female Buddha in New Zealand, working nightshifts in an opal mine in Australia’s outback, diving into somatic therapy and Tibetan Buddhism in Amsterdam, shamanism in Peru, teaching in the US, until the opening of a retreat center with her husband in Costa Rica.

Annette experiences profound shifts of spiritual awakening and the shattering of illusions in her encounters with various teachers and traditions. Her path takes a dark turn when she is sexually assaulted by a trusted spiritual mentor, plunging her into a crisis of faith and a deep descent into unresolved trauma. With unflinching honesty and vulnerability, she illuminates the complexities of the teacher-student relationship, the dangers of spiritual bypassing, and the importance of personal empowerment and discernment on the spiritual path. Sharing her healing and integration process, Knopp weaves insights from Eastern contemplative traditions, Western psychology, earth-based wisdom practices, and somatic approaches to trauma resolution.

Replicable experiences of God according to Francis of Assisi, offered on the 800th anniversary of his death.

Never have we needed more to experience God—to feel God. Francis of Assisi was spiritual before anyone used that word, and he was religious in the best ways. We love him because he cut through the paraphernalia to get back to religion where it belongs: working in the human heart, making a difference in everyday life.

Anyone can do the things Francis did, summarized in these 36 ways of experiencing God. Examples offered through anecdote, text, and explanation include “Free captive creatures,” “Pray alone in the woods,” “Allow yourself to weep,” “Stand between those who fight,” “Make a cross with your arms,” and “Pray ‘Who are you, God? And who am I?’” Sweeney introduces each with faithful attention to the original sources, and comparisons to spiritual teachers from other traditions, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Roshi Bernie Glassman, Evelyn Underhill, Richard Rohr, and Mary Oliver.

Offers letters of the Sanskrit alphabet as key to understanding Yoga and the Divine

These original meditations on the Sanskrit letters range from personal narratives to metaphysical and theological speculations, linguistic play, and inter-spiritual allusions to other works and traditions, all relevant to living a contemplative life in the contemporary world.

Sowder’s book is anchored in the devotional Tantrik, Śaiva-Śakta tradition, focused on the Divine Feminine, but allusions to western mystics (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) also appear frequently. No other book like this exists.

“Julia Walsh gives me hope for a future with religious women changing the world. She tells a story all her own, but I felt her doubts, questions, and passion each step of the way. Highly recommended.” —Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and River of Fire

A questioning novice nun’s coming-of-age story. Readers will be moved to reflect on the universal human experiences of being broken and the pull to be part of something bigger than themselves.

At the age of 25, just a month into her novitiate as a Franciscan Sister, Julia Walsh fell from a cliff and became disfigured. While working toward healing, she felt pulled to religious community life, but also toward unresolved feelings regarding her own sexuality, identity, and injustice.

For Love of the Broken Body is a story of pain, questioning, recovery, and discovery. What does it mean to exist as a broken body? Why would a young woman dedicate herself to the Catholic Church—to a life as a Franciscan Sister—while others are leaving churches in droves?

The number of women choosing to enter religious life across the U.S. is shrinking rapidly, so Walsh encounters a lot of curiosity about her choice. In this memoir, she writes honestly about feeling drawn to men and to sex, as well as what it means, in this age of self-discovery and hook-ups, for a young woman—physically broken and still very much attracted to the world—to join a celibate, religious community.

2020 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD: GOLD IN PSYCHOLOGY
FOREWORD REVIEWS 2019 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS FINALIST IN BOTH THE RELIGION AND SELF-HELP CATEGORIES

Our past does not simply disappear. The painful history of our ancestors and their rich cultural wisdom intertwine within us to create the patterns of our future. Even when past trauma remains unspoken or has long been forgotten, it becomes part of us and our children—a legacy of both strength and woundedness that shapes our lives.

In this book, Tirzah Firestone brings to life the profound impact of protracted historical trauma through the compelling narratives of Israeli terror victims, Holocaust survivors, and those whose lives were marred by racial persecution and displacement. The tragic story of Firestone’s own family lays the groundwork for these revealing testimonies of recovery, forgiveness, and moral leadership. Throughout, Firestone interweaves their voices with neuroscientific and psychological findings, as well as relevant and inspiring Jewish teachings.

Seven principles emerge from these wise narratives—powerful prescriptive tools that speak to anyone dealing with the effects of past injury. At the broadest level, these principles are directives for staying morally awake in a world rife with terror.

2021 International Book Awards - Religion: General - Award-Winner
2021 International Book Awards - Spirituality; Inspirational - Award-Winner
2021 International Book Awards - Social Change - Finalist

“Rabbi Dosick has written more theological books than this one, but none wiser or more courageous. While his idiom here is Jewish, my liberal Catholic heart is cheering.” —Jon M. Sweeney, coauthor, Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart, and translator, Francis of Assisi in His Own Words

For many of us, it feels as if our world is breaking apart. Long-held, comfortable beliefs are being shattered, and we face unprecedented questions and challenges. How do we heal the harsh divisions of class, race, religion, and cultures that plague us? How do we vanquish sexism, rigid fundamentalism, unabashed nationalism, senseless hatred, and violent terrorism? How do we save our precious planet from the threats to its very existence?

In this book is a bold, visionary, Spirit-filled blueprint for the redemption, transformation, and evolution of our emerging new world through radical loving and a day-to-day sense of the sacred. With age-old wisdom wrapped in contemporary garb, sweet, inspiring stories, keen insights, and gentle guidance, Radical Loving is a call to renewal and to Oneness—a promise that Earth can be Eden once again.

“Between God and the soul, there is no in-between,” said Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century mystic, and that idea frames the poems in this collection.

Norris’ central idea is that mystery is the core of being. It is in us and around us. Given a chance, something deep inside will show up as longing, something that can’t be explained but needs expression. This is what she begins to call “soul singing.”

A well-known writer and poet now in her eighties, Gunilla Norris offers this collection of short prayers, tender moments of awareness, even humming, that express her yearning for and experience of connecting with the Source of all. Norris’ expressions have a universal feel, and speak across a spectrum of traditions. Above all, Soul Songs shows how sometimes we simply can’t help but lift our hearts and sing for the soul’s sake.

A daughter’s search for her deceased mother brings her face to face with the gods, ghosts, and saints of Cuba. 

“My Mother in Havana lifts the veil between the living and the dead and makes believers of us all. This story of a mother's absence and a daughter's need is written with a lyricism that filled my heart with beauty while also making it ache for loved ones lost. This is a stunning debut.” —Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Bright Forever

“I closed this book believing more than ever that the people we love, including the people we’ve been, never really leave us.” —Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful

Spirituality that draws on ancient wisdom and modern pop culture to help anyone connect with their true calling

"A lighthearted, upbeat take on questions that have churned within human minds for millennia."―Spirituality & Health Book Review

“With a balance of careful scholarship and refreshing irreverence, Spiritual Rebel offers a treasure map to the best of the wisdom traditions.”―Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy

“A must-read for anyone seeking to find or deepen their spiritual path.”―Francesco Mastalia, author of Yoga: The Secret of Life

Bringing together insights from a wide range of traditions―from Taoism to Jediism to Yoga to Science to Christianity and more―Spiritual Rebel encourages readers to explore their own personal spiritual style and life purpose.

Mining the world’s philosophical, scientific, and wisdom traditions, Spiritual Rebel offers a three-week program of unconventional spiritual practices. Each day readers choose from a variety of creative activities to try out including forest bathing, meditation with animals, visio divina, kirtan, sacred reading, and visiting spiritually charged locations, just to name a few.

Throughout the book, Sarah divulges juicy tidbits from her own spiritually rebellious journey. A preacher’s kid originally inspired by the Force of Star Wars, she confesses her challenges with her birth religion, descent into addiction, and recovery into a life where everything can be sacred.

Combining pop culture with ancient wisdom, Spiritual Rebel draws on the interfaith wisdom of Wayne Teasdale, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Dr. Andrew Newberg, A.H. Almas, David Spangler, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Neil deGrasse Tyson, John Muir, Dr. Qing Li, Sarah Wilson, Leonard Felder, Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Diane Berke, Thich Nhat Hanh, Madeleine L'Engle, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Krishna Das, Phyllis Curott, Belden C. Lane, Albert Einstein, and many others.

An indispensable guide for seekers, those in spiritual communities, agnostics, atheists, mystics, and the spiritual-but-not-religious, Spiritual Rebel is for anyone who desires meaningful experiences without having to commit exclusively to one path or fear they might be “doing it wrong.” The diverse collection of interspiritual practices and resources will inspire the Force within you, by whatever name you call it.

"It's hard to know when you're having a breakdown in New York City. The symptoms of living here, succeeding here, and losing your mind here are almost identical." So begins Matousek's 1996 breakout memoir about leaving a fast-track publishing life (working for pop artist Andy Warhol at Interview Magazine) and hitting the dharma trail in search of a meaningful life and spiritual wisdom. Hailed by Publisher's Weekly as "brave, beautiful, and brilliantly observed," Sex Death Enlightenment became an international best seller (published in 10 countries). Like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love and Paul Monette in Borrowed Time, Matousek takes the reader on an insightful, rollicking search for answers to life's deepest questions in this landmark memoir.

“Mark Matousek takes you everywhere his title promises – and then some. Sex Death Enlightenment is the most gripping and elegantly written memoir I’ve read in ages. It tugged me onward like the best suspense novel, though I couldn’t help lingering time and again to savor its wisdom.” —Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City

“An extraordinarily articulate chronicle of how the sickness of our time can spawn spiritual awakening and compassion.” —Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now and Grist For the Mill

“Brave, beautiful and brilliantly observed.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

2023 Foreword INDIES Award Winner | Silver: Travel

A pilgrimage-turned-adventure story in pursuit of a pagan mystery on the Camino de Santiago across France and Spain

"In Beebe Bahrami’s The Way of the Wild Goose, a mystery, the wild feminine, and trail magic come together on the Camino de Santiago....Bahrami affirms that the Camino is more than a mere road—it’s an initiation. With skill and insight, she details the joys, challenges, and human kindness she experienced on this ‘great leyline forged from the mix of natural earth energies with the human imagination’ that became her road to self-discovery and a heart-centered life." —Foreword Reviews; starred review

With three pilgrimages across southern France and northern Spain defining author and anthropologist Beebe Bahrami’s single journey on the Camino de Santiago, The Way of the Wild Goose recounts an inner and outer journey full of wild nature, ancient roads and history, quirky pilgrims, wise and humorous locals, and mysterious folklore. It’s a compelling tale of quest, initiation, and transformation following the Way of Saint James.

The book is also a detective story that reveals an old mystery: Why is the goose associated with the medieval Camino de Santiago, and how did it come to preserve a whole universe of pagan, pre-Christian lore in one innocent symbol? Longtime trekker Bahrami decided to find out, and unknowingly catapulted herself into a true wild goose chase, unearthing a magnetically alive and meaningful long walk on the ancient roads in France and Spain—and a journey into the Self.

Braided medieval and modern stories of an anchoress, her handmaiden, and the adjunct professor searching for them across centuries as they each navigate ambition, confinement, and the patriarchy.

“The modern and medieval stories spiral in and out of each other, intricate and vivid as the letters of illuminated manuscripts, connected by the mysteries of paradox: confinement and freedom, loss and fulfillment.” —Elizabeth Cunningham, My Life as a Prayer and The Maeve Chronicles

 “Holt-Browning is adept at honing in on the passion for life, nature, and language that can sustain a person through the hardest times.” —Nerissa Nields, Plastic Angel and All Together Singing in the Kitchen

Twelve-year-old Elinor is enclosed with an anchoress, Lady Adela, in a cell at Wenlock Abbey, 14th century England. Centuries later, an adjunct professor of medieval studies discovers Elinor’s long-lost book of hours on a research trip to England. Holt-Browning explores women’s timeless struggle for personal agency as her unforgettable characters discover the burdens and rewards of faith and devotion. A must-read for fans of Julian of Norwich.

Wise, compassionate advice from one of the nation's most trusted grief counselors to help heal emotional wounds that prevent us from leading fulfilling lives.

Renowned grief counselor Stephen Levine tells us that long after an initial loss has passed and the period of grieving has ended an unattended sorrow lingers, accounting for a host of physical, emotional and spiritual maladies. It is not uncommon then for those with unresolved grief to lean toward addictions or dangerous behaviors or other forms of self-destruction. In Unattended Sorrow, Levine addresses the grief from fresh loss but also attends to the pain and troubles caused by the unresolved anguish, sadness and delayed stress than can accumulate over a lifetime. He notes that we may never entirely overcome sorrows but we can confront them with mercy and self-acceptance that smooths the path to healing the heart.

 “There is no one better to turn to in times of loss than Stephen Levine. This book is an invaluable tool for anyone recovering from any type of major loss. A must, must read.”—Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

“Stephen’s work is magic. His work with the grieving and dying is among the most skillful and compassionate that I am aware of.”—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 

2023 IPPY Gold Award Winner | Animals/Pets

An elegant manifesto for improving life―and death―for all beings on sacred Mother Earth

"If there is one book you choose to read about how to enjoy and improve your relationships with animals and fully appreciate who they truly are, this is the one." ― MARC BEKOFF, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals and other books; Professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder

Combining humorous anecdotes and thought-provoking research, Sacred Sendoffs explores human relationships with beloved pets, wild creatures, animal astronauts, marine life, farmed animals, and other sentient beings. Along the way, animal chaplain Sarah Bowen shares insights for sustaining their lives, honoring deaths, and managing the emotions that arise when we lose an animal we love. While many books focus exclusively on pet loss, animal welfare, or environmental issues, Bowen’s ever curious and playful style takes on all three, revealing their unavoidable entanglement. Sacred Sendoffs helps animal lovers uncover practical actions and everyday opportunities for helping the more-than-human world thrive.

“Bowen covers a great deal of ground here, creating a new paradigm for thinking about the way we treat our closest companions and fellow beings. And she offers hope for the future, reminding us that learning to value animals in life and death may be the first step toward saving our beloved planet.” ― Book Review, Spirituality & Health Magazine

“Wounds into Wisdom is for anyone who has suffered trauma, either directly or in a family whose generational trauma is buried. It helps readers uncover suffering and use it to help others―the final stage of healing. We may not be able to control what happens to us, but we can control what happens next.” ―Gloria Steinem

• 2020 Nautilus Book Award―GOLD/Psychology
• 2020 Book Award from the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology
• 2019 Book of the Year Award Finalist in Religion and Self-Help categories

Longtime Zen abbot shares the wisdom of his teacher, who brought Zen to the West and wrote the classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Les Kaye studied Zen with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in the 1960s and is now abbot emeritus of Kannon Do Zendo in Mountain View, California (where Norman Fischer is acting abbot). Born and raised in Manhattan, Kaye moved to what is now Silicon Valley in his twenties to work for IBM. While working full-time in the corporate world, he practiced Zen sitting and mindfulness, became an ordained disciple of Suzuki Roshi and the head of practice at what became Kannon Do.

I Had a Good Teacher interweaves dharma talks with personal stories to reveal the subtleties of integrating Zen practice into a life of work and family. It includes fascinating memories of Suzuki Roshi and short writings about events at the zendo, including the time Steve Jobs visited Les for guidance integrating work and spiritual practice.

Compiled and edited by Les’s disciple Giuseppe Prisco, an Italian tech entrepreneur and Zen priest, I Had a Good Teacher is an introduction to Zen in daily life, a warm portrait of a great Zen teacher, and a reminder to meditators to return to basics, to keep their meditation real, and to practice awareness all day long.

Following Rilke’s advice to “live the questions," this book invites us to draw upon his startling insights and often unconventional wisdom to see ourselves as ripening, unfolding, and always becoming.

“This is a book to savor, soaking up the rewards of stories, insights, and provocations about the passage of our lives." —Sally Gillespie, author of Climate Crisis and Consciousness: Re-imagining our World and Ourselves

"You Are the Future beckons us to discover a wise way to live a life in the company of self and others.” —Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, peace activist, and host of On Being’s “Poetry Unbound”

Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry has inspired readers for more than a century, and never more so than now. His rare spiritual vision speaks uniquely in a time when many are seeking freedom of thought and a more wholistic way of living. Written by two award-winning writers who have journeyed deeply with Rilke, this book invites readers—with Rilke—to “live” the deep questions facing us in our day, embracing the poet’s refusal to reach for simplistic “answers.” Through the originality and insight of their writing, Burrows and Dowrick honor readers’ own experiences and, in conversation with Rilke, invite them to examine their lives and “desire the change,” as the poet put it. In so doing, they bring sublime poetry into the heart of daily life, where the gifts it carries are most needed. All translations are by Mark S. Burrows, a widely respected Rilke scholar and translator.

2022 Foreword INDIES Award Winner | Silver: Body, Mind  Spirit

2023 IPPY Award Winner | Bronze: New Age/Mind, Body, Spirit

Hidden in the darkness is an ancient secret suppressed by every aspect of our light-drunk modern world—there is a Great Mother from the bottom of time who has always guided us through perils and calamities. Now is the hour of Her return.

“An exigent, affecting summons to rediscover the night.”—Kirkus Reviews

Is darkness synonymous with ignorance and evil? Or is it the original matrix from which all life emerges, and the Mother to whom it returns? Higher and higher levels of artificial illumination have suppressed our contact with the numinous since the Industrial Revolution, with dire consequences for society, our planetary ecology, and our souls. This mystical testament weaves together paleobiology, memoir, history, science, and spiritual archaeology to lead readers back into the lost mysteries of the dark. Not since The Teachings of Don Juan or Ishmael has a book diagnosed with such urgency and cultural coherence the problems at the heart of modern life.

In Waking Up to the Dark, Clark Strand offers penetrating insight into the spiritual enrichment that can be found when we pull the plug on our billion-watt culture. He argues that the insomnia so many of us experience as “the Hour of the Wolf” is really “the Hour of God”—a wellspring of rest and renewal, and an ancient reservoir of ancestral wisdom and inspiration. And in a powerful yet surprising turn, he shares with us an urgent message for the world, received through a mysterious young woman he calls Our Lady of Climate Change (aka THE VIRGIN MARY), about the challenges we all know are coming.

“A great way to deepen your spiritual life is to take a deep dive into a tradition other than your own—especially if you have a competent guide, and Rabbi Rami is an extraordinary guide. Not into Zen? Not a Jew? Not a problem. Anyone on any path will benefit enormously from this profoundly illuminating book.” —Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West

With reference to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Rami Shapiro begins with beginner’s mind as “empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.” Then, Rami ponders beginner’s mind in the child of the Passover Haggadah “who knows not how to ask.” The parents of this child are told to open (patach) the child to the art of questioning. Asking questions is key to Jewish mind.

The questioning perennial beginner is central to both Zen and Jewish, Rami demonstrates: a daring, iconoclastic, often humorous mind devoted to shattering the words, texts, isms, and ideologies on which expert mind—closed to inquiry—depends.

Zen Mind / Jewish Mind is not a scholarly study of anything, let alone Zen or Judaism, and despite all the footnotes, the book rests solely on Shapiro’s fifty-plus years of playing in the garden of Judaism, Zen, and advaita/nonduality. Chapters include “Dharma Eye, God’s I” (1), “Koan and Midrash” (4), and “The Yoga of Conversation” (7).

“Beautiful, generative, loving, and deep: this may be the wisest Tarot book ever written. Gil Stafford finds the folly of the Cross in the journey of the Fool, and reminds us that ‘Life is a pilgrimage on the path of wisdom’s way.’” —Lisa Freinkel Tishman, author of Mindful Tarot

This book is a portal for those interested in the Bible and curious about the Tarot, for both those who might read the Bible daily as well as those who know very little about it but are not averse to it.

The first two chapters provide background that place the two mystical texts in conversation with each other. The vast and complex mythos of the Bible with its complex characters, actors, symbols, stories, and parables, are the backstory of the magnificent creatures of the Tarot’s inner psychic world.

A book for spiritual explorers, reading the Bible and the Tarot hand-in-hand can expand the imagination. It explores how to read the Tarot and the Bible to provoke the unconscious, the dream world, and expand the imagination. By the final chapter, readers are able to connect the mysteries of the Bible with the psychological magic of the Tarot.

While researching celestial mythology at Brigham Young University, John McHugh stumbled upon the arcane code that is the template for the legends and miracles in all Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scriptures.

This code was embedded in the archaic Mesopotamian belief system that conceptualized the astral sky as the “heavens,” and its constellations and planets as deities inhabiting this divine realm. Celestial tableaux were understood as historical scenes that had once taken place on earth. Mesopotamian astronomers were regarded as magicians, the magi, whose task was to interpret and elaborate secretly on this “Heavenly Writing”— the literal writing of the gods. The Celestial Code of Scriptures is the first book to present and explain this secret Mesopotamian cipher.

Epistolary biography of a bridge-building 20th century Christian-Hindu spiritual leader

This fascinating biography of Swāmī Abhishiktānanda (Henri Le Saux) is based on a vast collection of letters written to friends and family over his twenty-five years in India.

Swāmī Abhishiktānanda (1910-1973)—a French Catholic monk, who came to India in 1948 and settled there till the end of his life in 1973—was one of the most fascinating spiritual figures of the twentieth century and a bridge-builder between Christian and Hindu traditions. After nineteen years of living in a Benedictine monastery in France, his passionate longing to realize the Truth brought him face-to-face with Indian spirituality and paved the way for him to meet one of the greatest contemporary sages of India, Shri Ramana Maharshi.

This book illustrates the spiritual trajectory of an extraordinary pioneer of interreligious dialogue and a bridge-builder between Christian and Hindu traditions, from his first arrival in South India in 1948 towards his spiritual Awakening in Rishikesh on July 14, 1973.

Healing Racism Within: A Lightworker’s Guide is a book for our times—it goes beyond naming the cultural demons that hold together White America’s historical racist fabric, and boldly offers techniques and exercises for looking deeply within, both psychologically and spiritually, to confront and transform internalized racism, and bring about positive change within oneself and then out in world.

The book draws upon author Brett Bevell’s own journey to heal the psycho-spiritual baggage of early childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and growing up within a racist community. Bevell shares key insights that were essential to his personal transformation along with haunting stories about his childhood experiences, including witnessing a race-based murder when he was a toddler and being sent as a young boy on fishing expeditions with a known racist murderer. Bevell infuses his insights with user-friendly exercises which most anyone can access—journal writing, art therapy, affirmations, lofty questions, exercises in gratitude, energy healing, both Buddhist Tonglen and shamanic meditations, and ancestral lineage healing rituals—to mine one’s inner landscape regarding race and transform the self. From this new vantagepoint, we learn to become our own better angels by finding the courage to speak out, be in service to the cause of social justice, and marry the paths of internal and external actions to create a better world.

Mother Teresa’s collected writings offer inspiration and guidance for all spiritual seekers.

“This book’s contents and title say it all. Mother Teresa is a role model for each of us. Pray we may become as she was, and heal the world by using prayer to lead us on the path to spirituality and God.” —Bernie Siegel, M.D.

St. Teresa of Calcutta, the woman we all knew as Mother Teresa, was a devout Catholic nun, deeply devoted to Jesus. She expressed her ceaseless devotion in many ways, central among them her well-known work with the poor and the sick. Her lesser-known expressions of faith included her deep respect for all religions and her burning wish for all people to grow closer to God. With a longing to reach as many souls as possible, she wrote, “I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic.”

This carefully arranged collection of Mother Teresa’s writings promises to both inspire and guide all people, from any or no faith tradition, who are seeking to find and walk a spiritual path.

“This book is a treasure-chest of wisdom and beauty and fun. Brother Paul’s delight in the world, and his gift for putting words to wonder, would make his old novice master Thomas Merton beam. Best of all, a deep sense of contentment and peace arises from these pages that can remind the monk in every one of us how we might choose to live.” —Pico Iyer, author of The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise

A contemplative monk’s musings on living a “useless life.”

“Brother Paul bears witness of being keenly aware that every aspect of his monastic vocation has been carefully crafted to nurture and protect the contemplative way of life in which one is called to seek and to find and give oneself to God who is wholly poured out and given to us in the gift of life itself.” —James Finley, author of The Healing Path

In the spirit of Thomas Merton’s The Sign of Jonas come five decades of life at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky from the private journals of one of Merton’s former novices, Brother Paul Quenon.

Readers are introduced to multiple aspects—the inwards and outwards—of a monk’s life. Reflections, meditations, insights, and wanderings are mingled with outward experiences in nature, community, and sketches of monks—saintly, comical, or strange—poetic moments. Remarks are made on world events, seen from a local and momentary perspective, such as the war in Iraq, or the end of the war in Vietnam. Private discoveries of animal behavior, and magical locations for prayer are experienced with wonder. No daily chronology is followed, but entries are arranged from the 1970s to the 2000s according to the decade they occurred in, including the visit of the Dalai Lama and other occasions when this contemplative’s life has intersected with spiritual teachers outside the monastery. Overall, a multi-colored, diverse, and surprising display of what it is like to live “an enclosed life.”

Strand’s mystical poems to Ma Kali, the Dark Goddess of India, as occasioned by his encounters with the material dealt in depth in both Waking Up to the Dark and the Way of the Rose.

“A treasure of mystical poetry, these poems pulsate with truth.” —Carolyn Myss, author of Intimate Conversations with the Divine and Anatomy of the Spirit

In the early hours of June 16, 2011, Clark Strand witnessed a startling apparition of the Divine Feminine in the form of a young woman with an X of black electrical tape over Her mouth. Strand removed the tape, and She began to speak of a coming age of chaos and collapse in which the world of humankind would be severely chastened so that Her world—the world of Nature—could be renewed. Overwhelmed by the presence of One so fully Other, Strand found that love was the only language that would suffice. Drawing inspiration from Song of Songs and the Bengali mystics Ramprasad and Sri Ramakrishna, he began a series of poems to Ma Kali, the Dark Goddess of India, the words to which often came from the Great Mother Herself.

Locates mysticism as the essential experiential center of any Christian faith

“Herein lies support for your deepest self. Mark illuminates for you that in the ordinary aspects of life there is an extraordinary way to live. Drink from these reflections and prepare to be awakened and transformed.” —Phileena Nikole, author of Pilgrimage of a Soul

The Holy Ordinary takes its inspiration from mystics, modern prophets, and saints, with surprising insights from Christian scriptures. “Mysticism is a stream of the experiential, flowing from the hearts of those who knew and know God,” explains Mark Longhurst, demonstrating the availability to every person of a mystical life.

Through topics such as “How to be contemplative and active” and “Live green like Hildegard of Bingen,” Longhurst speaks to each person’s need for transformation. This book is both profound and practical, a reflective guide for anyone—Nones, Dones, former Christians, and Christians open to learning from people of all backgrounds—seeking a vibrant, just, and inclusive spirituality.

“For years, I’ve been wishing for a book that could introduce ordinary people to the spiritual life in a healthy, honest, accessible way. Mark Longhurst has written what I’ve been waiting for.” —Brian D. McLaren, author of Faith After Doubt

“This disturbing but very important book makes clear we must dig deeper than the normal solutions we are offered.”—Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia Works

"Bright Green Lies exposes the hypocrisy and bankruptcy of leading environmental groups and their most prominent cheerleaders. The best-known environmentalists are not in the business of speaking truth, or even holding up rational solutions to blunt the impending ecocide, but instead indulge in a mendacious and self-serving delusion that provides comfort at the expense of reality. They fail to state the obvious: We cannot continue to wallow in hedonistic consumption and industrial expansion and survive as a species. The environmental debate, Derrick Jensen and his coauthors argue, has been distorted by hubris and the childish desire by those in industrialized nations to sustain the unsustainable. All debates about environmental policy need to begin with honoring and protecting, not the desires of the human species, but with the sanctity of the Earth itself. We refuse to ask the right questions because these questions expose a stark truth—we cannot continue to live as we are living. To do so is suicidal folly. ‘Tell me how you seek, and I will tell you what you are seeking,’ the German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said. This is the power of Bright Green Lies: It asks the questions most refuse to ask, and in that questioning, that seeking, uncovers profound truths we ignore at our peril.”—Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of America: The Farewell Tour

While Chaim Potok is most famous for his novels, particularly his first book The Chosen (1967)—which was listed on The New York Times bestseller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies—he also wrote plays, which are collected and published here for the first time. Rena Potok edited the collection and wrote the introduction. This book features all five of Potok’s plays, production notes on each of the plays, prefaces by the directors, and the transcript of a post-performance discussion on Out of the Depths featuring Chaim Potok and Prof. David Roskies, which appears for the first time in print, in this volume.

Includes:

Out of the Depths (Performed in Philadelphia in 1990. The last version was a 1990 video of the staged workshop performance. The play was reconstructed for this collection by Rena Potok and David Bassuk, the play’s director and co-creator, based on the video and on the final rehearsal script.)

Sins of the Father: The Carnival and The Gallery (Performed in Philadelphia in 1990. Adapted from scenes in Chaim Potok’s novels The Promise and My Name is Asher Lev.)

The Play of Lights (Performed in Philadelphia in 1992. Adapted from Chaim Potok’s novel The Book of Lights.)

The Chosen (Premiered in 1999 and performed widely since then. Adapted from the novel of the same name into a play by Chaim Potok and Aaron Posner. This volume contains the most recent authorized version of the play.)

A memoir about how solitude can deepen a life.

In his twenties, writer and activist Michael McGregor traveled to the remote Greek island of Patmos to spend two months alone. It was 1985, before cellphones or the internet, when even a phone call home was costly. Those days transformed his understanding of himself, his God, and his purpose—and in this book he offers, for others, how finding a place of solitude can change a life.

McGregor had spent three years writing about the world’s poorest people and five months traveling when he chose, at 27, to live for two months in total solitude, 6,000 miles from home. He went primarily to write a novel, but from the moment he stepped onto the ferry to begin the 11-hour ride to Patmos, he knew his time would be meaningful. As he settled into a routine that included hours of writing each day, walks through fierce wind in the evenings, and nights that brought on dreams, memories, and unexpected spiritual encounters, he soon realized that solitude can be difficult and even dangerous but also awe-inspiring and life-altering.

McGregor immerses the reader in particulars of the simple life he lived for two winter months on an island where he knew no one. He reflects on authors and spiritual teachers before showing the ways in which his returns to solitude in subsequent decades reflected or altered his earlier experiences of being alone.

In the book’s final section, McGregor returns to Patmos during the same January dates he visited four decades earlier. He attempts to replicate his earlier experience. His reflections on the changes in his life, the island world, and his understanding of both God and solitude add another dimension to this multifaceted book.

This bilingual edition of St. Teresa of Avila’s poems with commentary engages readers with all facets of the Saint’s life: the mystic and monastic reformer, the artist and proto-feminist, and the philosopher with a penchant for paradox.

“What a gift then to read Dana Delibovi’s translations of St Teresa d’Ávila’s complete poems—sweet treasure!—so elegant and concise, the language lyrical yet simple and accessible, the music of the stanzas and the profundity of her voice carried into English. I also appreciated Delibovi’s curation: the short introductions and thematic arrangement of the poems—nothing overly ponderous and academic. It’s as if we are on a pilgrimage into the heart and soul and song of this amazing woman and spiritual leader and poet.” —Julia Alvarez, poet, novelist, and essayist; author of The Cemetery of Untold Stories

“Saint Teresa has, at last, found an English translator who has deeply penetrated the poet’s essence, her revelatory reverence and rapturous beauty.” —Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, author of Night Suite, Remission, and A Continual Pilgrimage: American Writers in Paris, 1944-1960

St. Teresa of Avila’s poems, written in the 16th century, speak to the spiritual longing of our times and invite us to find peace amid turmoil. St. Teresa walked a path of grace, seeking the divine within the human soul, and her poetry lights this path for all of us. This is the first translation of St. Teresa’s poetry by a woman poet and captures the saint’s spiritual vigor and famously conversational tone in English. That voice is echoed in well-researched commentary strengthened by the translator’s willingness to share her spiritual journey.

This guide to Integrative Medicine, based on quantum science, combines studies in consciousness, with alternative systems of healing such as Ayurveda and Yoga to produce a new science of health which sees disease as a health disorder. Required reading for health professionals and anyone looking for a deeper understanding of wellness.

Inspired by the Dalai Lama to apply the integrative ideas of quantum science to practical everyday problems in people’s lives, famed physicist Amit Goswami began working in 1999 in the field of health and healing. His first task was to use the new quantum metaphysics to provide a basic science for the systems of alternative medicine and thus begin a tentative integrative medicine. This was accomplished in The Quantum Doctor, first published in 2004. 

What was still lacking was a unified theory of health leading to a new science of heath which would treat disease as a health disorder. Much more expertise in specifics was needed for such a project. In 2016, Goswami partnered with Valentina Onisor, MD, trained in both allopathic and most systems of alternative medicine as well including Ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, aromatherapy, and homeopathy. This book is the culmination of their efforts to date. It is intended for both laypeople and health professionals.

Nautilus Book Awards 2022 Silver Award Winner in Religion/Spirituality of Western Thought

“In The Divine Heart, Colette Lafia invites us to enter the vastness and intimacy of God’s love, offering seven simple yet powerful ways to deepen our awareness and open our hearts. This small book with a big heart shows us how to live in the flow of Divine love.” — Richard Rohr, author of The Universal Christ, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation

“During these turbulent times, we need the steadying voice of feminine wisdom more urgently than ever. In this luminous book, spiritual guide Colette Lafia offers the fruits of her tenderly cultivated inner life to feed people of all genders who thirst for a direct encounter with the embodiment of love, which she recognizes as our own true nature.” — Mirabai Starr, translator of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, author of Wild Mercy

In The Divine Heart, spiritual director Colette Lafia shows how we can live in an ever-flowing love relationship with God, realizing that God is in us and we are in God. Beautifully expressed, sharing examples of her own journey, The Divine Heart offers seven “invitations” that can awaken us to this abundant flow of love at the core of our being.

Weaving prayers and practices, along with relevant contemporary and mystical teachings, Colette Lafia invites us to explore how connecting to Divine love helps us trust our own spiritual experiences and inspires us toward hope, healing, and wholeness.

The Divine Heart is a timely offering, outlining ways we can integrate loss and pain, and renew ourselves in the power and presence of love.

Authoritative edition of Hafiz’s most important poems, including original Persian and brilliant English translations

Recent translations of Hafiz have been controversial. Omid Safi, an Islamic studies scholar at Duke, notes that “there are so many fake translations of Hafiz floating around, offering ‘versions’ that have no earthly connection to anything that the Persian poet and sage of Shiraz named Hafiz ever said. Elizabeth Gray offers us something different: poetic translations rooted in close readings of the original Persian, developed in consultation with a native speaker scholar.”

A “ghazal” is usually understood to mean lyric poetry concerned with love. But what had been a courtly love lyric concerned with wine and physical beauty became, in the hands of Sufis like Farid ud-Dín ‘Attar and Jalal ud-Dín Rumi, a way to describe a mystic’s relationship with God. Ghazals also became a means of veiling from theological and political conservatives the Sufi belief in the possibility of an intuitive, personal union with God.

Háfiz became the greatest of all Sufi poets, called the “Tongue of the Invisible” and the “Interpreter of Mysteries.” His command of the ghazal’s traditional imagery and themes blends eroticism, mysticism, and panegyric into verse of unsurpassed beauty. His eighty ghazals are presented in this book. Persian originals appear on facing pages to brilliant English translations of Gray and Anvar.

In the afterword, Persian scholar Daryush Shayegan notes how “there is no antagonism between the earthly wine and the divine wine, just as there is none between profane love and the love of God, since one is the necessary initiation to the other.”

One of the “10 Best Books of 2024” —Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A memoir for the bookish-inclined, using personal stories to demonstrate how books have a magical way to move a person from one stage of life to the next.

“This is a small gem of a book, tender, humble, loving.” —Mary Gordon

“Sweeney makes a charming companion, telling stories in joyful reflection.” —Jeff Deutsch, author of In Praise of Good Bookstores

Former bookseller, longtime publisher and author Jon M. Sweeney shows—with history and anecdotes centering around books such as Thoreau’s Journal, Tagore’s Gitanjali, Martin Buber’s Hasidic Tales, and Tolstoy’s Twenty-three Tales—what it means to be carried by a book. He explores the discovery that once accompanied finding books, and books finding us. He ponders the smell of an old volume, its heft, and why bibliophiles carry them around even without reading them. He demonstrates how and why there is magic and enchantment that takes place between people and books.

Weaves Jewish sacred texts, mysticism, human rights, and a modern voice of radical love, taking readers on a path of healing from brokenness to wholeness. 

This poetry addresses the interconnection of individual, communal, and global trauma, towards collective liberation. In Hebrew, the words for wilderness, speaker, and speaks are spelled the same and share the same root letters. Goodman Herrick’s title, from a poem in the collection, references the Torah’s BaMidbar (in the wilderness or desert) and her ancestor’s ritual practice of elevating etymology, roots, and folk word associations as spiritual meditation. The author returns to her roots and original wholeness through reconnecting language: “Wilderness speaks/ A speaker is a wilderness.”

Goodman Herrick survived sexual assault in her teens by a classmate, and left home at 14. The grandchild of an Auschwitz survivor, she’s been a New York City club kid, MTV writer-producer, a peacemaker around the world, nun at a Vedanta convent, and student of Chassidic rabbis. This expansiveness lives in her poems. The book invites readers to reconsider prayer and blessing as an ongoing, fluid, language, holding space for the reverent and irreverent as prophetic. 

How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere captures for a general audience the spiritual shift away from a God “up there” and “out there” and towards an immanent divine right here. It’s built around the personal journeys of a close-knit group of prominent contributors. Their spiritual visions of immanence, sometimes called “panentheism,” are serving as a path of spiritual return for a growing number of seekers today. Contributors include Deepak Chopra, Richard Rohr, Matthew Fox, Rupert Sheldrake, Cynthia Bourgeault, Ilia Delio, Keith Ward, John B. Cobb Jr., Loriliai Biernacki, Marjorie H. Suchocki, and Rabbi Bradley Shavid Artson.