Coffee for Consciousness


Book Description

“Live in the Now.” “Don’t worry, be happy.” “Follow your bliss.” These catch-phrase imperatives confront us on a daily basis, but so few of us seem to know how to do any of those things. If you’ve repeatedly tried and failed to manifest your better self or a more resonant life, you might be saying, “You know, it’s not that easy.” Coffee for Consciousness 101 is the instruction book you’ve been waiting for—because you’re right; it’s not easy. Finding yourself takes work, and sharing yourself with the world in love takes even more work…but the rewards are amazing. Our longstanding unhelpful definition of risk and reward is just one of the concepts that author Vito Mucci deconstructs with compassion, humor, and a deep understanding of the ways in which our beliefs about ourselves and the world get in the way of achieving conscious presence in the world, and consciously evolving relationships with ourselves and others. Our beliefs and ideas are the lenses through which we look at the world; this book gives you the idea of Perspectives, a new set of lenses that change what you see, and consequently, who you can be. Rooted in the author’s decades of experience in managing his PTSD and addictions through careful cultivation and alteration of consciousness, Coffee for Consciousness 101 is a fascinating, joyful, and deeply practical exploration of how to read the road map to positive change and greater presence.




The Coffee Book


Book Description

A history of coffee from the sixth century to Starbucks that’s “good to the last sentence” (Las Cruces Sun News). One of Library Journal’s “Best Business Books” This updated edition of The Coffee Book is jammed full of facts, figures, cartoons, and commentary covering coffee from its first use in Ethiopia in the sixth century to the rise of Starbucks and the emergence of Fair Trade coffee in the twenty-first. The book explores the process of cultivation, harvesting, and roasting from bean to cup; surveys the social history of café society from the first coffeehouses in Constantinople to beatnik havens in Berkeley and Greenwich Village; and tells the dramatic tale of high-stakes international trade and speculation for a product that can make or break entire national economies. It also examines the industry’s major players, revealing the damage that’s been done to farmers, laborers, and the environment by mass cultivation—and explores the growing “conscious coffee” market. “Drawing on sources ranging from Molière and beatnik cartoonists to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the authors describe the beverage’s long and colorful rise to ubiquity.” —The Economist “Most stimulating.” —The Baltimore Sun




This Is Your Mind On Plants


Book Description

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES, HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND 'It's a trip - engrossing, eye-opening, mind altering' New Statesman 'Fascinating. Pollan is the perfect guide ... curious, careful, open minded' The Guardian Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos. In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. This ground-breaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.




God in a Cup


Book Description

Follow the ultimate coffee geeks on their worldwide hunt for the best beans. Can a cup of coffee reveal the face of God? Can it become the holy grail of modern-day knights errant who brave hardship and peril in a relentless quest for perfection? Can it change the world? These questions are not rhetorical. When highly prized coffee beans sell at auction for $50, $100, or $150 a pound wholesale (and potentially twice that at retail), anything can happen. In God in a Cup, journalist and late-blooming adventurer Michaele Weissman treks into an exotic and paradoxical realm of specialty coffee where the successful traveler must be part passionate coffee connoisseur, part ambitious entrepreneur, part activist, and part Indiana Jones. Her guides on the journey are the nation’s most heralded coffee business hotshots: Counter Culture’s Peter Giuliano, Intelligentsia’s Geoff Watts, and Stumptown’s Duane Sorenson. With their obsessive standards and fiercely competitive baristas, these roasters are creating a new culture of coffee connoisseurship in America—a culture in which $10 lattes are both a purist’s pleasure and a way to improve the lives of third-world farmers. If you love a good cup of coffee—or a great adventure story—you’ll love this unprecedented up-close look at the people and passions behind today’s best beans. “Weissman illustrates how the origin, flavor compounds and socioeconomic impact of a cup of coffee are relevant now more than ever. . . . Tagging along behind the main characters in today’s specialty coffee scene, [she] travels from the exotic to the expected to artfully deconstruct the connoisseur’s cup of coffee.” —Publishers Weekly




Seven Cups of Consciousness


Book Description

Knowing that you are “a spiritual being having a human experience” is eye-opening and inspiring, but can it tangibly transform your life? Pioneering healer Aleya Dao does more than say yes to this question — she shows you how, with stories and practices that are as potent and fresh as a morning cup of coffee or tea. By turning to your inner world, you can work with the limitless energies that create your outer world, making strides you never thought possible. With the help of your Higher Self, your angelic support Team, and the challenges you encounter every day, you will discover a whole new experience of empowerment, purpose, and joy.




Kale and Coffee


Book Description

Internet celebrity Kevin Gianni was intent on finding the keys to perfect wellness and sharing them with the 10 million viewers of his YouTube show, Renegade Health. So he and his wife bought a 36-foot, bio-fueled RV – dubbed "the Kale Whale" – and spent two and a half years crisscrossing the continent, talking to experts and ordinary folks about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to a healthy life. Gianni drank wheatgrass shots, gave up sugar, said goodbye to coffee, and used himself as a guinea pig to uncover the truths and myths behind every nutrition plan said to guarantee good health. As he cycled through "healthy" diets – vegetarian, vegan, raw foods, and more – he got sicker and sicker. Finally, he hit bottom and had to give up healthy eating to save his life. Kale and Coffee is the often hilarious, picaresque tale of how Gianni went from skinny, raw-food vegan faddist to bloated, out of shape omnivore before finding the middle way to an imperfectly healthy and (more) balanced life. The journey takes him from the Peruvian Andes to salt flats in Mexico to a pig farm and butcher shop near his northern California home. Along the way, he has his brain scanned and his pantry tested for toxic metals, does an all-water fast, runs the grueling Tough Mudder endurance race, and obsesses on the secrets of the world’s longest-lived people. With the humor and practical wisdom that have delighted millions, Gianni shows you how to sidestep the health hype, diet fads, and weight-loss promises littering the path to wellness. Drawing on his own experience and the advice of trusted experts, he guides you in finding your own personal plan for optimal nutrition and fitness. Includes the Kale and Coffee 21-Day Jumpstart




Coffee, Rabbit, Snowdrop, Lost


Book Description

A beautiful, candid picture book for children to understand what happens when a loved one begins suffering from dementia, and how best to care for them.




The Botany of Desire


Book Description

“Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?




Caging the Beast


Book Description

A major obstacle for materialist theories of the mind is the problem of sensory consciousness. How could a physical brain produce conscious sensory states that exhibit the rich and luxurious qualities of red velvet, a Mozart concerto or fresh-brewed coffee? Caging the Beast: A Theory of Sensory Consciousness offers to explain what these conscious sensory states have in common, by virtue of being conscious as opposed to unconscious states. After arguing against accounts of consciousness in terms of higher-order representation of mental states, the theory claims that sensory consciousness is a special way we have of representing the world. The book also introduces a way of thinking about subjectivity as separate and more fundamental than consciousness, and considers how this foundational notion can be developed into more elaborate varieties. An appendix reviews the connection between consciousness and attention with an eye toward providing a neuropsychological instantiation of the proposed theory. (Series A)




Caffeine Blues


Book Description

One of the most accomplished nutritional biochemists and medical writers in his field reveals the truth about caffeine and helps you kick the habit forever. Nearly 80% of all Americans are hooked on caffeine, this country's #1 addiction. A natural component of coffee, tea and chocolate, and added to drugs, soft drinks, candy and many other products, the truth about caffeine is that it can affect brain function, hormone balance, and sleep patterns, while increasing your risk of osteoporosis, diabetes, ulcers, PMS, stroke, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Discover a step-by-step, clinically-proven program that reduces your caffeine intake, and effective ways to boost your energy with nutrients, healthy beverages, better sleep and high-energy habits.