Inprint - New Books of interest by Jeanne Spiro

A Mystic Garden: Working with Soil, Attending to Soul by Gunilla Norris. (BlueBridge, $18.00, Hardcover.)

Spiritual writer Gunilla Norris shares with us a year’s time in her New England garden, and shows that all she observes there illuminates the sacredness of the everyday. She shares with us the serene silence and darkness of winter, when the world is suspended in cold white beauty, the trees empty and the flowerbeds stark. Then the return of spring and light, of birds’ songs and snowdrops on a frosty fresh morning, the color of crocuses and daffodils and tulips, and the smell of heavy wet earth. With summer’s glorious richness comes digging, snipping, weeding, and watering. And the golden ripeness of autumn, with days getting shorter and the air cooler, harvesting and raking, cutting and cleaning up. The brown stems of the black-eyed susans and the wilted leaves of daylilies are the remains of a year in the garden.

A Mystic Garden is a lyrical primer on the spirituality of gardening, affirming the garden as a soulful space where people can take root and experience the changing seasons and the enduring cycle of renewal. Any time we make a garden, even a tiny one, we are both working the soil and cultivating our inner ground, and can become aware of the great gift of life and the earth that sustains us. Filled with the joy of living, A Mystic Garden will speak to all those who yearn to find the holy in the place they call home.

The DNA of Healing: A Five-Step Process for Total Wellness and Abundance by Margaret Ruby. (Hampton Roads, $14.95, Paperback.)

A question for the ages: What’s really holding us back? What is it that keeps us from overcoming the past and unveiling our full potential? Why, despite our intense quest for the breakthroughs promised by the latest seminars and hundreds of self-help books do we continue to live unfulfilled lives?

Revolutionary scientific research is showing that our emotions and thoughts can impact our health and shape the course of our lives. But if a positive attitude is all we need to live a healthier and happier life, why don’t we change, heal and find fulfillment more quickly?

In The DNA of Healing, Margaret Ruby states that the answer lies deep in our DNA. Along with the color of our eyes and the shape of our nose, we have inherited the emotional patterns and beliefs of our ancestors, all of which powerfully impact our health, wealth, and relationships.

The good news is that we have a choice. We don’t have to be prisoners of our genetic code. Ruby has discovered that our code is not set in stone, and that we all have the power to change the stories written in our genes, and therefore change our lives beyond what we ever though possible.

Simple Truths: On Values, Civility, and Our Common Good by Steven Bauman. (Abingdon Press, $19.00, Hardcover.)

Simple truth is often hidden in plain sight. The task that Stephen Bauman takes on in this book is to speak to things that are right in front of us today, though they may be buried in the noise of daily life or obscured by thoughtless or selfish action. It’s what he’s been doing for ten years on his radio spots in New York. In one minute, he cuts through the noise, the hurry, and the troubling headlines with a calm, unhurried observation of life, meaning, values, and how we live together.

Bauman reminds us of the elemental truths that undergird healthy, productive living—how things like human dignity, integrity, and mature love are essential for vital communities and individual lives full of meaning.

The Ten Commitments: Translating Good Intentions into Great Choices by David Simon, M.D. (Health Communications, Inc., $16.95, Hardcover.)

A commandment comes down from an outside authority. A commitment, on the other hand, arises from within you. That’s one reason why David Simon, M.D., cofounder of The Chopra Center, believes that a commitment is a more powerful catalyst for change than a commandment.

In The Ten Commitments, Dr. Simon has crated a ten-step primer for practical change. Instead of preaching “Thou shalt not,” he introduces ten positive calls to action, with concrete ways to jump-start personal growth and achieve a new level of happiness and fulfillment. This concise and elegant little book dedicates a chapter to each commitment, with the idea that you can practice them one by one until new behaviors, feelings, and attitudes become natural and feel automatic.

Illustrating his principles with the real-life stories, myths, and parables from Eastern religions, and even observations form the world of neurobiology and physics, Dr. Simon offers a new perspective on what it means to make a contract with yourself.

Yoga Therapy for Overcoming Insomnia by Peter Van Houten, M.D., and Gyandev Rich McCord, Ph.D. (Crystal Clarity Publishers, $14.00, Hardcover.)

The latest medical research and the time tested science of yoga come together in this book to help you overcome insomnia. An experienced medical doctor and a professional yoga teacher share the ingredients that support a good night’s sleep. They also introduce you to Ananda Yoga, a system that includes gentle stretching, affirmations, and breathing exercises, all of which have been proved to be helpful in insomnia treatment.

You’ll discover everything you wanted to know about sleep and the types, causes, and treatments of insomnia. You will also learn how to create good sleep habits and simple yoga postures and breathing exercises that lead you into sleep. Affirmations are also included to relax your mind and body.

Welcome to Your Crisis: How to Use the Power of Crisis to Create the Life You Want by Laura Day. (Little, Brown and Company, $23.95, Hardcover.)

The moment your life falls apart is also the moment your new one begins, says Laura Day. It is the moment when illusion and deception fall away and naked truth emerges. Crisis can be extraordinarily painful, but when approached head-on, it can also be a source of power, hope, and vision, and the start of the life you really want.

Day has helped countless individuals through their worst moments: the death of a loved one, the end of a marriage or friendship, the loss of a job. In this inspirational book, she draws from that depth of experience to guide you out of crisis and toward a more meaningful life. Getting through crisis is part acceptance and part reinvention. Through exercises, rituals, and other activities, Welcome to Your Crisis provides invaluable lessons for closing one chapter and beginning the next.

The Knights Templar in the Golden Age of Spain: Their Hidden History in the Iberian Peninsula by Juan Garcia Atienza. (Destiny Books, $16.95, Paperback.)

The rise and fall of the Templar Order constitutes a fundamental and decisive episode in medieval history, and the destruction of the Order constitutes a pivotal point that altered the direction of society. While much is known about the history of the Templar Order in France and in the Latin States of the Middle East, their contribution to events in Spain has remained obscure and unexplored.

Juan Garcia Atienza reveals the important role the Templars played in the Reconquista that saw the Moors driven out of Spain, and demonstrates the great influence they exerted in the kingdoms of Castille and Navarre and the territories of Catalonia and Aragon. He examines the mysterious connections between the Templars and the Cathars and troubadours as well as the mystery surrounding the location of all the Templar enclaves in the Iberian peninsula. He also unveils the important role the Templars had as teachers of the Spanish king James I, known as the Conqueror, whose attempt to establish a universal theocratic empire may have been a reflection of Templar ambitions, and explores the Order’s suppression in Spain and how it survived in Portugal by simply changing its name.