Inprint - New Books of interest

Eve’s Revenge Women and a Spirituality of the Body by Lilian Calles Barger. (Brazos Press, $14.00, Paperback.)

What women have gained in terms of education, power, status, and sexual freedom is rendered meaningless in our society unless they can also be young and beautiful, says cultural critic Lilian Calles Barger. In her new book, Eve’s Revenge, she seeks to liberate women from a culture that asks them to be “Barbies on steroids.” She offers as an alternative a holistic spirituality that redeems the entire self while seeking justice and community.

“The pursuit of physical beauty has swallowed up the pursuit of transcendent beauty,” Barger says. “This prevents the body from fulfilling its true spiritual role of pointing to God.” While many women desire a meaningful spiritual life, they often neglect the pursuit because of daily struggles with the reality of the body, from its reproductive implications to pressures to look a certain way.

Making the choice to invest in community improvement instead of self-improvement is a powerful antidote to the beauty culture and disconnectedness that surround us. Drawing inspiration from Jesus’ healing work and ministry, Barger encourages women to practice what she calls “small acts of resistance.” By caring for the weak, comforting the brokenhearted, and loving the unlovely, one sees oneself in the faces of others, in the sacred community.

In Eve’s Revenge, Barger traces the meaning of the female body in Western culture, philosophy, and religion. She shows how the body/spirit divide can be overcome with a redemptive spirituality that honors the body and its vulnerability without reducing us to it. From Eve to Mary of Nazareth she explores the possibility of an embodied faith. She deconstructs Eve’s legacy as the most maligned woman in history and recovers her from centuries of misreadings. In Mary, Barger finds not the perpetual virgin but the archetypal Everywoman who offers a new vision for spirituality.

Yearning for the Wind, Celtic Reflections on Nature and the Soul, by Tom Cowan. (New World Library, $14.95, Paperback.)

In Native American tradition, the wind brought healing and insight, and this new book shows readers how they can find both healing and insight in the natural world. Shaman Tom Cowan explores the mystical pathways of the spirit through Celtic and other traditions. He weaves together chapters about the interplay of soul and nature, and describes how this interplay creates mystical pathways between the human and nonhuman worlds. Throughout the ages, shamans and mystics have recognized that all created things share some level of consciousness, and that ordinary and non-ordinary realities do interact. This book explores those interactions and those interconnected pathways. It conveys the interdependence of our material life with the life of nature and with our inner life.

Each chapter is a small window into the mysteries of nature and soul, a meditation on Spirit infusing our daily lives. By looking closely at some object or creature in the natural world, Cowan seems to open our eyes inward, to truths that wait within. The book is both an intimate portrait of one shaman talking to nature and a teaching on the universal qualities of our lives and the way we live in our world, spiritually and physically. Cowan draws on the teachings of medieval mystics, legends of fairies, Celtic songs, present-day poets and seekers, and Native American stories.

The Power of Patience: How to Slow the Rush and Enjoy More Happiness, Success, and Peace of Mind Every Day by M. J. Ryan. (Broadway Books, $22.95, Hardcover.)

Speed dials, lightning-quick modems, fast food on the run, road rage, blowups on the job, domestic violence … these are among the hallmarks of frenetic everyday life in the twenty-first century. While technology and the media play a role in the relentless rush and incessant urgency, a driving culprit for our hazardous state is the simple lack of patience.

A founding mother of the Random Acts of Kindness phenomenon, R.J. Ryan presents an inspirational and practical alternative to the high-velocity, perpetual-motion, insta-results madness of our age. She illuminates the vital importance of this time-honored virtue and shows how to harness its life-changing force in the midst of our hectic lives. “If we want to live wider and deeper lives, not just faster ones, we have to practice patience — patience with ourselves, with other people, and with the big and small circumstances of life itself,” Ryan maintains. “Indeed, the longer I study and practice patience, the more I’ve come to see that it is a crucial factor in whether we have satisfying lives or not.”

The Power of Patience begins with a fresh look at what patience is and what it can accomplish. As Ryan makes clear, patience is not an inherent trait but a habit of heart and mind anyone can develop. Drawing from centuries of wisdom on the topic from around the world, as well as her own experiences, Ryan reveals the rewards of patience, and mental outlooks proven to strengthen the habit. She also offers practical ways to act with patience during the ordinary stressful situations of daily life — from waiting on hold to waiting for love, from crawling in traffic to dealing with active kids and aging parents.

Compass of the Soul: 52 Ways Intuition Can Guide You to the Life of Your Dreams by Lynn A. Robinson. (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $14.95, Paperback.)

Intuition is an innate source of direction, a trustworthy guide to help us realize our dreams — a compass of the soul. Many people think of intuition as the domain of a gifted few, but for intuition expert Lynn A. Robinson, it is a natural skill that with time, can be cultivated into a finely tuned life-affirming and life-changing guide.

In Compass of the Soul, Robinson creates a framework that allows readers to step confidently into the life they were born to live. Each chapter consists of an inspirational quote, motivational text, intuition exercises, and journal questions. Each chapter is filled with practical, down-to-earth advice on how to tune in to what Robinson describes as our inner success coach. Readers learn how to take steps to create positive spiritual, personal, and financial changes, use their thoughts, beliefs, and expectations to change their lives, discover their purpose in life and work to achieve life goals, and shed self-sabotaging behavior and nurture an attitude of gratitude.

The Kabbalah of the Soul: The Transformative Psychology and Practices of Jewish Mysticism by Leonora Leet. (Inner Traditions, $18.95, Paperback.)

Working from an original synthesis of the major kabbalistic traditions of cosmology derived from the Bible, the Zohar, and the school of Isaac Luria, Le*nora Leet has erected a new framework for understanding the mechanism of the transformative spiritual work that enables the human soul to reach increasingly higher dimensions of consciousness. She develops a powerful meditative technique called “the Transformative Moment,” whose workings are exemplified by Jacob and Joseph and that allow the individual to progress through all the higher levels of the soul, even possibly to attain the miraculous powers of the legendary spiritual masters.

She correlates the hierarchy of soul levels with Ezekiel’s Throne vision to show the various paths the soul may travel toward self-realization: sex, love, power, knowledge, holiness and unification. The first four paths relate to the four-faced living creatures — the bull-ox, lion, eagle, and man. The final two paths correlate to the prophet and the envisioned man on the throne whom he recognizes to be his divine higher self, the knowledge that defines the secret doctrine of the whole of the Jewish mystical tradition culminating in the Kabbalah.