Circles of Meaning, Labyrinths of Fear


Book Description

You’ve heard of sacred places, writings, relics, and rituals, holy days and magical times of year. But these are actually representations of relationships that people have with each other and the elements of the world. Some of these relationships environmental: they involve landscapes, animals, and the streets of your home town. Some are personal, such as families, friends, and elders. Some are public, involving musicians, storytellers, medical doctors, and even soldiers. This book studies twenty-two relationships, from a variety of traditions, and shows their place in ‘the good life’. Yet these relations are always fragile, and threatened by fears, from the fear of loneliness, to the fear of the loss of personal or political freedom, to the fear of death. To escape from these fears, people often trap themselves into ways of life that are bad for everyone, including themselves. This book studies how that happens, and how to prevent it. More than beliefs, laws, and teachings, our relationships are the true basis of spirituality, and freedom.




Reclaiming Civilization


Book Description

What is civilization, and is it a good thing? It’s a name for the most glorious of humanity’s monuments and cultural achievements; yet it also speaks of the conquests, oppressions, and empires which make their glory possible. This book explains the essence of civilization, then asks what’s wrong with it, and considers what can be done about it.




Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans


Book Description

Even in pagan antiquity, there were those who, while participating in the community's religious life, did not believe in literal gods. In the centuries that followed the Christian domination of the West, the epithet "godless pagan" was leveled at a wide variety of people. In the 1960s, there emerged a community of people who sought to reclaim the name "pagan" from its history of opprobrium. These Neo-Pagans were interested in nature spirituality and polytheism, and identified with the misunderstood and persecuted pagans of antiquity. While many Pagans today believe in literal gods, there are a growing number of Pagans who are "godless." Today, the diverse assemblage of spiritual paths known as Paganism includes atheist Pagans or Atheopagans, Humanistic and Naturalistic Pagans, Buddho-Pagans, animists, pantheists, Gaians, and other non-theistic Pagans. Here, their voices are gathered together to share what it means to be Pagan and godless.




Interpretation and Method


Book Description

Exceptionally clear and well-written chapters provide engaging discussions of the methods of accessing, generating, and analyzing social science data, using methods ranging from reflexive historical analysis to critical ethnography. Reflecting on their own research experiences, the contributors offer an inside, applied perspective on how research topics, evidence, and methods intertwine to produce knowledge in the social sciences.




Circle of Fear


Book Description




Labyrinths from the Outside in (2nd Edition)


Book Description

The user-friendly, interfaith guide to making and using labyrinths--for meditation, prayer and celebration--updated, revised and expanded A labyrinth is a circuitous path that people have used as a form of prayer and meditation for thousands of years--a path that is being rediscovered as a spiritual tool in our own day. There are now thousands of labyrinths in North America, made of stone, cement, sunflowers, grass or canvas; indoors and outdoors; in Christian, Pagan and even nonreligious settings; and adaptable for use by people of all spiritual backgrounds. This guide explains how the labyrinth is a symbol that transcends traditions, and how walking its path brings us together. Here is your entry to the fascinating history and philosophy of the labyrinth walk, with directions for making a labyrinth of your own or finding one in your area, and guidance on ways to use labyrinths creatively for: Prayer - Stress reduction - Meditation - Commemorating personal or family milestones - Faith rituals - Celebrations of all kinds Labyrinths--a twenty-first century method of approaching the sacred--are a spiritual practice more ancient than Stonehenge or the ruins of Troy. This practical and inspiring guide will help you to explore them.




Circles Without Center


Book Description




Mothers and Daughters and the Origins of Female Subjectivity


Book Description

Mothers and Daughters and the Origins of Female Subjectivity challenges the theory of the Oedipus complex, which permeates psychoanalytic theory, psychology, semiotics and cultural studies. The book focuses on the re-examination of women’s development through the theories of primitive mental states. Women’s subjectivity has been profoundly limited by continuing anxieties about the mother’s body. Jane Van Buren describes how women are gradually escaping the curse of inferiority and finding a voice, enabling the mother to provide their daughters with a legacy of rightful agency over their bodies and minds. Drawing on the theories of Klein, Bion and Winnicott, and incorporating recent developments in psychobiology, this book provides a novel approach to subjects including the dreams, myths and phantasies of individuals, the nature of mother and daughter relationships, sexuality, pregnancy, menstruation and the idea of the mother’s body as problematic and dangerous. This interdisciplinary investigation into curtailed female subjectivity and its many ramifications in society, culture and individual mental growth will be of great interest to all practising psychoanalysts, and those studying psychoanalytic theory and gender studies.




House of Leaves


Book Description

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.




The Circle


Book Description

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A bestselling dystopian novel that tackles surveillance, privacy and the frightening intrusions of technology in our lives—a “compulsively readable parable for the 21st century” (Vanity Fair). When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.