Inprint - New Books of interest by Jeanne Spiro

The Yin Yoga Kit: The Practice of Quiet Power by Biff Mithoefer. (Healing Arts Press, $24.95. Includes book, CD, and cards.)

This introduction to the practice of Yin Yoga emphasizes its meditative roots, focusing on inner work that explores awareness, acceptance, and deep relaxation. It offers an alternative and needed balance to the outwardly oriented yang-style yoga practices most in use today.

Yin Yoga is known as the quiet yoga. Many of the most popular forms of yoga are fundamentally yang in nature, based on rhythmic movement of the muscles and focused on the need for change and attainment. Yin Yoga, in contrast, does not concentrate on the muscles but on connective tissue and bones, the parts of our body that are closest to our core and therefore most critical to our physical well-being and range of emotion.

The postures are all practiced on the floor and each is held for a lengthy period, usually three to five minutes. This intense non-movement allows the practitioner to experience the poses with a deepening awareness that enables the muscles to relax, the nerves to calm, and the surrounding connective tissue to remain healthy and supple. This meditative approach is more akin to those found in the earliest Hatha Yoga traditions.

The Yin Yoga Kit presents fourteen poses and explains each posture’s benefits, including which chakras and meridians will be most positively affected. Included is a 72-minute CD and cards that illustrate each of the postures and provide advanced and modified variations.

The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life by Piero Ferrucci, with forward by H.H. The Dalai Lama (Tarcher/Penguin, $22.95, Hardcover.)

The Power of Kindness is an examination of a simple but profound concept. Dr. Piero Ferrucci, one of the world’s most respected transpersonal psychologists, explores the many facets of kindness and argues that it is this trait, and this trait alone, that will lead not only to our own individual happiness and the happiness of those around us, but will guide us in a world that has become cold, anxious, difficult, and frightening.

Ferucci calls it “global cooling,” a phenomenon of increasingly chilly human relations. Communications are hurried and impersonal. The drive for profit and wealth has become a respected value. And warmth and genuine presence have all but dissolved into a sea of materialism and self-interest.

Being kind, Ferrucci contends, does not mean becoming a doormat or a submissive handservant. And he distinguishes true kindness from self-interested politeness, calculated generosity, superficial etiquette, and even kindness against one’s will. Real kindness is composed of many elements, including characteristics not immediately associated with it: flexibility, honesty, patience, humility, gratitude, attention, forgiveness, and more. And it includes kindness to oneself as well as kindness toward others.

In eighteen chapters, each devoted to a single aspect of kindness, Ferrucci moves from tales of myth and legend to personal anecdotes to scientific research and philosophical treatises. He revels that the kindest people are the most likely to thrive, to enable others to thrive, and to slowly but surely turn our world away form violence, self-centeredness, and narcissism and toward love.

Hereafter: Searching for Immortality by Richard Schweid. (Thunder’s Mouth Press, $15.95, Paperback.)

As long as we have existed, we have wondered what happens when we die. Other than physical form and genetic structure, we hold little in common with our earliest ancestors in terms of how we live our day-to-day lives, but one thing we share across all generations is our fear and helplessness in the face of the fact that this self, which takes so much effort to construct and inhabit and nurture, this body that we’ve worn and washed and lived in, is likely to last, from start to finish, somewhat less than a century.

Responses to the prospect of dying take three principal forms. Some believe that we will be resurrected to pass eternity with intact bodies as the same people we were during our earthly sojourns. Some believe that what survives is a soul or an essence which leaves behind forever the receptacle in which it resided. Some believe that death erases our snowflake lives entirely. Hereafter combines an overview of the history of these theories with a survey of the variety of attitudes toward immortality. It includes interviews with theologians, biotechnologists, farmers, garbage collectors, preachers, rabbis, imams, and soldiers.

Pet Ghosts: Animal Encounters from Beyond the Grave by Joshua P. Warren. (New Page Books, $14.99, Paperback.)

After paranormal investigator Joshua Warren’s miniature dachshund Nellie died, he began hearing strange noises at night—Nellie’s familiar barks and whimpers, her toenails clipping along the hardwood floors. From that point on, Warren ’s home became a laboratory for measuring Nellie’s ghost. Using modern technology and scientific theories, he set out to discover what exactly a pet ghost is, how it can survive physical death, and how it can be contacted.

In Pet Ghosts, Warren shares his incredible findings and explains how pet owners can determine if their departed pets are still around. You will learn how to create the conditions in which spirits are most likely to manifest and discover where to get the simple equipment needed to detect a ghostly presence.

From known creatures to unknown, ancient to modern, anecdote to scientific theory, in text and pictures, this is a comprehensive look at how animal spirits relate to humans, for better or for worse, and how you can document them on your own.

The Life We Are Given: A Long-Term Program for Realizing the Potential of Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul by George Leonard and Michael Murphy. (Tarcher/Penguin, $16.95, Paperback.)

George Leonard and Michael Murphy’s groundbreaking human realization program, Integral Transformative Practice (ITP) has helped thousands of people harness their potential and capitalize on their ability for growth to enrich their lives. Through balanced and comprehensive long-term practice, thousands of people worldwide have transformed their lives. Their book, The Life We Are Given, was originally published ten years ago, and has now been updated for the 21st century.

Drawing on the authors’ combined seventy years of experience in the study of human transformation, The Life We Are Given presents an extensive program for realizing the potential of body, mind, heart, and soul, both for individual actualization and community improvement. Inspiring stories of the struggles and triumphs of ITP workshop students emphasize the great capacity for growth that we all possess. It celebrates the day-by-day joys of this enlightening change process, and opens new vistas to higher-level functioning in all areas of activity and relationships.

The Presence of Love by Paul Ferrini. (Heartways Press, $12.95, Paperback.)

The Presence of Love is the third book in Paul Ferrini’s Mastery Series. Like the previous two books in the series, this book helps us learn how to dissolve the blocks to love’s presence in our lives and to give and receive love without conditions. These books provide us with a rich roadmap for the evolutionary spiritual journey of healing and atonement that we are on individually and collectively.

Ferrini says that we are at a crossroads. We can no longer live as we have lived in the past; we can no longer afford to be sloppy, careless, or impulsive with our creations. We need to create compassionately and be responsible for what we create. He feels that this is a time when the potential for healing and transformation is greater than it has ever been before. We are challenged to build a new world that will be based on love and acceptance rather than the fear driven, shame based one we now have.

Color Magic for Beginners: Simple Techniques to Brighten & Empower Your Life by Richard Webster. (Llewellyn Publications, $12.95, Paperback.)

In almost every culture, color has held symbolic meaning, from elemental associations like red hot to musical references like the blues. Its cultural significance can be traced back at least 4000 years. We live in a world teeming with color, a powerful and magical aspect of our existence often overlooked, yet one that has incredible influence on every aspect of our lives.

Color Magic for Beginners combines a vast survey of color associations across history with a prodigious palette of information on the emotional, healing, and even scientific aspects of color, and shows how to utilize it as a tool for enhancing, empowering, and brightening our personal lives.

Do our color preferences tell us something about ourselves? Are the colors we surround ourselves with at home or at the office having subtle effects on our mood, our emotions, and even our creativity? Once you understand the power behind different colors, you will be able to harness them to achieve your goals.