The Oshun Diaries


Book Description

High priestesses are few and far between, white ones in Africa even more so.When Diane Esguerra hears of a mysterious Austrian woman worshipping the Ifa river goddess Oshun in Nigeria her curiosity is aroused. It is the start of an extraordinary friendship that sustains Diane through the death of her son and leads to a quest to take part in Oshun rituals. Prevented by Boko Haram from returning to Nigeria, she finds herself at Ifa shrines in Florida amid vultures, snakes, goats' heads, machetes, torrential rain and a cigar-smoking god. Her quest steps up a gear when Beyonce channels Oshun at the Grammys and the goddess goes global.




Stroke Diaries


Book Description

A woman recounts the horror of waking up paralyzed, unable to call for help. A man has a mini-stroke and refuses to listen to his doctor, only to suffer a disabling stroke soon after. A physician recalls watching a tiny baby in the throws of a stroke, convulsing violently. A survivor rejoices after finally crossing the street before the pedestrian lights change back. Blending such highly personal and moving stories with crystal clear medical commentary based on first-hand clinical experience, Dr. Olajide Williams demystifies this potentially devastating illness and provides a roadmap to recovery. Indeed, Dr. Williams shows that the majority of strokes are not only preventable, but also treatable. Through compelling stories of patients, survivors and caregivers, woven together by easy-to-understand medical explanations, Dr. Williams provides practical tips on preventing strokes with specific lifestyle prescriptions, on recognizing the different forms of strokes, on managing symptoms after stroke, and on overcoming the psychological burden of stroke. He also reviews the new clot-busting treatments, which have dramatically improved the recovery rate of stroke victims. Combining cutting-edge medicine with the gripping stories of patients, survivors, family members, and physicians, Stroke Diaries strikes a blow against the current public health crisis in stroke.




Cultural Psychology and Acculturation


Book Description

This Element offers a new theoretical model of acculturation within the general framework of cultural psychology. It is divided into four sections. First, cross-cultural and cultural orientations are contrasted. The psychology of economic migration (EARN), separate from the psychology of acculturation (LEARN), is the theme of the next section. Berry's model of acculturation preferences is discussed in section three. It serves as a contrasting reference point for the tripartite model of bicultural competencies, developed in the final section. The three interconnected components are symbols, language, and values/practices characterize both enculturation and acculturation. As a second culture learning process, acculturation is not restricted to immigration. It may take a vicarious (remote) shape in the home country. Reaching bicultural competencies and identities, in the long run, is the proposed outcome of acculturation.




Night Into Light


Book Description

A deeply personal memoir about recovering from bereavement, by a professional therapist and grief counsellorCan a parent ever survive the death of a daughter or son? Drowning in grief and with her life in pieces, psychotherapist Diane Esguerra asks herself this question as she sets off for Peru to scatter the ashes of Sacha, her only child, at the sacred Inca citadel Machu Picchu, a place he loved.Every step of the journey triggers memories of the young man's troubled life of abuse and addiction. As Diane makes connections with other bereaved people in the unlikeliest of settings, she also has mystical encounters that affirm her Buddhist faith and put her on a path to acceptance and healing.The fragments of her life gradually reassemble - in a more meaningful pattern than before.By turns funny, engaging and moving, this richly coloured account of one mother's physical and spiritual journey shows it's possible not only to survive every parent's worst nightmare, but to experience growth and transformation along the way.




The Art of Dying


Book Description

'Parry's Victorian Edinburgh comes vividly alive – and it's a world of pain' Val McDermid 'Brilliantly conceived, fiendishly plotted' Mick Herron SHORTLISTED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2020 A Raven and Fisher Mystery: Book 2 Edinburgh, 1849. Hordes of patients are dying all across the city, with doctors finding their remedies powerless. And a whispering campaign seeks to paint Dr James Simpson, pioneer of medical chloroform, as a murderer. Determined to clear Simpson’s name, his protégé Will Raven and former housemaid Sarah Fisher must plunge into Edinburgh’s deadliest streets and find out who or what is behind the deaths. Soon they discover that the cause of the deaths has evaded detection purely because it is so unthinkable.




Ogbe-Di


Book Description

Ogbe-di - Knowledge is shared between peopleIn the palace of the queen of Iyesa, the beautiful Oshun, a young adviser works who helps her build a better world for her subjects. The arrival of an Olodu, one of the sixteen apostles in whom the deity Olofi distributed all the Knowledge, to be disseminated among the inhabitants of the Earth, is the opportunity for the young counselor to shine in all its splendor, and demonstrate not only his abilities and their Knowledge, but also their unwavering sense of honesty, and most importantly, their loyalty.A fantastic journey through life, love, and service to others, Ogbe-di is a novel full of teachings and, at the same time, an expression of the most beautiful and fruitful search: that of Knowledge. Because it is nothing else but the insatiable thirst for knowledge that the protagonist manifests, which drives his journey through lands and people, but also of experiences and sensations, and which leads to the last of the questions, the most terrible and the most disturbing, that any wise person can be made.Every journey implies being brave on many levels, and from the very beginning, it requires the courage to face the uncertainty of what is coming and its consequences. The one that Ogbe-di will undertake, from the first pages of this exciting work, will demand a lot of that courage, but also daring to avoid falling in the face of adversity and cunning to solve the problematic tests that face him both men and gods. That is what Raúl Domínguez achieves in his novel: drawing a map of the spirit of search and self-improvement that guides the good souls of the world.




Seven African Powers


Book Description

Updated 2023 The Seven African Powers, also known as the Orishas, are spirits from the Supreme Creator in African religion. These spirits are thought to give guidance for life issues and problems. Modern Santeria, Voodoo, and other Caribbean traditions still value this practice today. It can be found in different South American cultures as well. This book will guide you through learning about the Seven African Powers…who they are, what they represent, and how each has a different temperament. You’ll also know how the Orishas can be used in your home and daily routine. Once you discover the Orishas, you’ll be on your way to understanding which one will best help you work through difficulties and move forward in life.




The Things of Others: Ethnographies, Histories, and Other Artefacts


Book Description

The Things of Others: Ethnographies, Histories, and Other Artefacts deals with the things mainly, but not only, mobilized by anthropologists in order to produce knowledge about the African American, the Afro-Brazilian and the Afro-Cuban during the 1930s. However, the book's goal is not to dig up evidence of the creation of an epistemology of knowledge and its transnational connections. The research on which this book is based suggests that the artefacts created in fieldwork, offices, libraries, laboratories, museums, and other places and experiences – beyond the important fact that these places and situations involved actors other than the anthropologists themselves – have been different things during their troubled existence. The book seeks to make these differences apparent, highlighting rather than concealing the relationships between partial modes of making and being ‘Afro’ as a subject of science. If the artefacts created in a variety of situations have been different things, we should ask what sort of things they were and how the actors involved in their creation sought to make them meaningful. The book foregrounds these discontinuous and ever-changing contours.




Notes on Chopin


Book Description

DIVAn inspiring discourse on the power of music from one of the twentieth century’s most important figures, André Gide/divDIV /divDIVAndré Gide, one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century and a devoted pianist, invites readers to reevaluate Frédéric Chopin as a composer “betrayed . . . deeply, intimately, totally violated” by a music community that had fundamentally misinterpreted his work. As a profound admirer of Chopin’s “promenade of discoveries,” Gide intersperses musical notation throughout the text to illuminate his arguments, but most moving is Gide’s own poetic expression for the music he so loved./divDIV /divDIVThis edition includes rare pages and fragments from Gide’s journals, which relate to Chopin and music./div




Diary of a Mistress


Book Description

WHAT SHOULD A WIFE BELIEVE? THE WORDS OF HER HUSBAND OR THE DIARY OF HIS MISTRESS? Monica counts her blessings -- her husband, Carlos, is not only devoted to her but is also a strong, caring father to their twin sons. When Carlos surprises her with an unforgettably romantic getaway, Monica knows he is still very much in love with her -- and she with him. But an unexpected package threatens to change everything Monica's ever believed about Carlos. Angela has adopted a sex-them-and-leave-them attitude toward the married men she's bedded. Then she met Monica's Carlos. Now she will stop at nothing to get him for herself -- even if that means destroying her own life and another woman's family.