READING LIST: EXPLORING SPIRITUALITY
Books that have changed the way I think of the world, love and relationships. Plus the relationship to spirit.
A New York Times bestseller and enduring classic, All About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks' "Love Song to the Nation" trilogy. All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.
“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, renowned scholar, cultural critic and feminist bell hooks offers a proactive new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness—not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, and unity. People are divided, she declares, by society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love.
As bell hooks uses her incisive mind to explore the question “What is love?” her answers strike at both the mind and heart. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation. The Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the “100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life.” All About Love is a powerful, timely affirmation of just how profoundly her revelations can change hearts and minds for the better.
Becoming Wise bY krista tippett
In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind, into what it means to be human. The book is a master class in living, individually and collectively, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of a teaching faculty. Wisdom emerges through the raw materials of the everyday.
Williamson reveals how we each can become a miracle worker by accepting God and by the expression of love in our daily lives. Whether psychic pain is in the area of relationships, career, or health, she shows us how love is a potent force, the key to inner peace, and how by practicing love we can make our own lives more fulfilling while creating a more peaceful and loving world for our children.
AS YOU ARE BY RAINIER WYDLE
At a moment in which the world can feel more uncertain and despairing than ever, Rainier Wylde writes about falling in love with the tragedies and triumphs of being alive, ultimately becoming something solid—a process he calls selfing.
With passion, irreverence and the sacred wonder that has thrilled his daily readership, he writes about loss and fear and romance and a deep connection in every domain of life. He also explores how we as individuals can utilize relationship as a spiritual path.
As You Are collects thirty-one inspiring and intimate teachings together and presents them in a bold and unconventional way, daring us to embody these words in our own life. Wylde shatters the expectation that enlightenment belongs to the religious or the esoteric, but instead is a kind of radical acceptance of what is alongside of profound self-compassion.
THE BOWL OF LIGHT BY HANK WESSELMAN
In 1996, a revered Hawaiian elder befriended an American anthropologist, and from their rare and intimate rapport, something miraculous emerged. Through the words and teachings of the kahuna wisdom-keeper Hale Makua, Dr. Hank Wesselman was gifted with an enhanced perspective into the sacred knowledge of ancient Hawaii.
Before his passing, elder Makua encouraged Dr. Wesselman to convey much of what had passed between them to the wider world, giving him permission to share his spiritual knowledge. Now, with The Bowl of Light, you are invited to share in the sacred wisdom of one of the world's most powerful indigenous traditions, including:
The Bowl of Light―how we can restore our natural divine radiance
• The three directives of the spiritual warrior―love with humility, live with reverence, and know with self-discipline
• Rituals for communing with nature, receiving wisdom from the spirit world, purifying our consciousness, and more
• The Ancestral Grand Plan―exploring the path our ancestors set in motion millennia ago, and how the Plan is playing out across the world todaya
LETTING GO BY DAVID R. HAWKINS
Letting Go describes a simple and effective means by which to let go of the obstacles to enlightenment and become free of negativity. During the many decades of the author's clinical psychiatric practice, the primary aim was to seek the most effective ways to relieve human suffering in all of its many forms. The inner mechanism of surrender was found to be of great practical benefit and is described in this book.
The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international best seller, millions of fans have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today - or perhaps even more so - than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.
THE DANCE OF INTIMACY BY HARRIET LERNER
The Dance of Intimacy takes a careful look at relationships where intimacy is most challenged by too much emotional distance, too much intensity, or simply too much pain. In clear, direct, and dramatic terms, Dr. Lerner illustrates how we can move differently in these relationships, be they with a distant or unfaithful spouse, a depressed sister, a difficult mother, an alcoholic father, an uncommitted lover, a dying parent, or an estranged family member. And she teaches us about "the differences that make a difference": the changes we can make in one or two significant relationships that will affect our capacity for intimacy and selfhood for a lifetime.
The Dance of Intimacy offers no "quick fix" for the human dilemma that we all confront. Instead, Dr. Lerner offers us the most solid, respectful, and helpful insights on intimate relationships that both men and women may ever encounter. Picking up where the best-selling The Dance of Anger left off, Dr. Lerner redefines the meaning of intimacy for today, and shows how good relationships can be strengthened and difficult ones healed.
Ano 'Ano: The Seed has become a classic in Hawai'i and around the world. It tells of a group of seekers who are offered a "code of life": a way in which the suffering of mankind can be overcome. It's two sequels, The Mana Keepers and The Fire Lily are included in this volume. These collective works remind men and women of their oneness with nature and that they are "the Keepers of the Sacred Earth." Conflicting fires within us all are revealed, shadow-selves and ancient patterns are examined and understood, finally leading to the dawn of inner peace.
THE KEEPERS OF EARTH BY KRISTIN ZAMBUCKA
Zambucka reminds a group of seekers of the triune nature of man. This lost code of "the three levels of consciousness within" has appeared in many of the world's great religions... but has often been unwritten. It was frequently veiled in allegory or parable... to be understood by few.
Soul Mates explores how relationships of all kinds enhance our lives and fulfill the needs of our souls. Moore emphasizes the difficulties that inevitably accompany many relationships and focuses on the need to work through these differences in order to experience the deep reward that comes with intimacy and unconfined love.
Love Without End BY GLENDA GREEN
For almost two thousand years devoted believers, mystics, innocents, and even non-believers have reported to have near-to-life, fully perceptual, visitations with Jesus Christ. In 1992 He appeared to Glenda Green and spoke with her daily for almost four months. The expressed purpose of their visit was to paint His portrait, but nothing in the history of her career as an artist or university professor had prepared her for the life transformation that was about to take place. During this time, they spoke...as friends do, of many wonderful things miraculous and practical. Nothing would ever be the same. Her penetrating report of this experience is sincere, unbiased, and free of religious contrivance. In many ways her perceptions provide a bridge to the new millennium. Never before has language or a state of consciousness been present to examine the nature of such a miraculous occurrence as well as to develop the profound implications of it. Here is a brilliant glimpse of eternity, rich with practical applications to life. These messages are sparkling and direct with great contemporary relevance, Imparting in every way the impact of Divinity in communion with a thoughtful and well educated woman of our generation. Amazing answers are given to more than 300 penetrating questions.
