We live in a world where there never seems to be enough time for all we want and need to do. In Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life, Christine Valters Paintner guides us as we move beyond our own lives and embrace a world that urges us toward rest, reflection, and growth. In Sacred Time, Paintner, abbess of the online Abbey of the Arts, shows us how by becoming in tune with the rhythms of the natural world, we can live more intentionally and experience a conversion toward a more expansive way of being. Paintner introduces us to the eight cycles of sacred time that exist in our everyday lives. These cycles that can ground us through our busy lives are breath, rhythms of the day, weekly rhythms and Sabbath rest, waxing and waning lunar cycles, seasons of the year, seasons of a lifetime, ancestral time, and cosmic time. Each cycle encourages us to mindfully consider the time that passes as quickly as each breath and as slowly as the passing of generations. Within each cycle, we find wisdom from sacred tradition and the saints, including St. Benedict, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. Hildegard of Bingen; room for growth; and the presence of the Divine. Along the way, we are also given scriptural guidance, and we are invited to spiritual practices and creative explorations that will help deepen our understanding of each cycle, allow that understanding to take root in our lives, and expand our lives beyond the pressures of each day.

Christine Valters Paintner, author of Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire, invites readers to discover and develop their creative gifts in a spirit of prayer and reflection. This twelve-week course draws on the insights and practices of Benedictine spirituality to explore the interplay between contemplation and creativity. Summarized in the phrase "pray and work," The Rule of St. Benedict provides the inspiration for Christine Valters Paintner's newest exploration of the mutually nourishing relationship between contemplative practices and creative expression. Artists of all stripes and stations in life--poets or painters, potters or photographers--will discover how traditions of Benedictine, Celtic, and desert spirituality can offer new sources of inspiration for their work. Through this twelve-week course, themes like "Sacred Tools and Sacred Space," "Creative Solitude and Community," and "Nature as a Source of Revelation and Inspiration" are enriched by Paintner's perceptive discussion and enhanced by insightful quotations from well-known artists and writers. Each week offers suggestions for grounding both the creative and the spiritual life through three basic practices: walking, lectio divina, and journaling. In sync with Paintner's vibrant Internet presence, The Artist's Rule is supplemented with online resources, including guided meditation podcasts, video lessons, and discussions.

The "tell-all" memoir takes on new meaning in the work of poet William Kloefkorn, whose accounts of the moments and movements of life touch on everything that matters, the prosaic and the profound, the extraordinary in the everyday, and the familiar in the new and strange. The fourth and final installment in Kloefkorn's reflections, Breathing in the Fullness of Time, departs from the elements ruling the other volumes--water, fire, and earth--and floats its insights and observations, its memories and anecdotes on the now wild, now whispering element of air. "Kloefkorn is a consummate storyteller," Publishers Weekly has said, noting his "keen eye and a gift for language that is beautiful in its simplicity." In this final volume, the poet uses those skills and his characteristically droll sense of humor to recapture time that, once experienced, is never really lost. His remembrances include a foray into college football, a stint in the Marines, a drift in a twelve-foot johnboat on the Loup River, learning to get a hog's attention, marriage at last to a childhood sweetheart, a sojourn in California, and a return to Nebraska to teach. The moments, large and small, sad and funny and fine, multiply to become a moving picture of life caught in the act of passing by.

The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1991-1992, volume 1, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee from January 3 through December 17, 1991. In 1991 and 1992 Brother Lee spoke one hundred sixty-two messages that were published in the Life-study of Job, Life-study of the Psalms, Life-study of Isaiah, Life-study of Jeremiah, Life-study of Lamentations, Life-study of Daniel, Life-study of Hosea, Life-study of Joel, Life-study of Amos, Life-study of Obadiah, Life-study of Jonah, Life-study of Micah, Life-study of Nahum, Life-study of Habakkuk, Life-study of Zephaniah, Life-study of Haggai, Life-study of Zechariah, and Life-study of Malachi. These messages are not included in The Collected Works of Witness Lee. From January through August 1991, Brother Lee was in Anaheim, California. During that period he visited Los Angeles and Alhambra, California, in April. At the end of August he traveled to Berkeley, California. In early September he returned to Anaheim and remained there until the end of November. During that time he visited Huntington Beach, California. At the end of November Brother Lee traveled to Reston, Virginia, for the Thanksgiving weekend conference. In early December he returned to Anaheim and remained there until the end of the year. The contents of this volume are divided into ten sections, as follows: 1. Two messages given in Anaheim, California, on January 3 and 4. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The God-ordained Way and the Eldership. They are included in The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1989, volume 4, as chapters 9 and 10 of Elders' Training, Book 10: The Eldership and the God-ordained Way (2). Therefore, they are not printed in this volume. 2. Seven messages given to the full-time trainees in Anaheim, California, on February 4 through December 17. These messages are included in this volume under the title Fellowship to the Full-time Trainees in Anaheim. 3. Thirty-one messages given in Anaheim, California, on February 17 through December 15. One message was spoken in Chinese. These messages are included in this volume under the title Various Meetings in Anaheim. 4. Thirteen messages given in Anaheim, California, on February 23 through July 7. These messages were previously published in a book entitled Elders' Training, Book 11: The Eldership and the God-ordained Way (3) and are included in this volume under the same title. Chapters 12 and 13 were also published in a small book entitled Further Consideration of the Eldership, the Region of Work, and the Care for the Body of Christ. 5. A message given in Los Angeles, California, on April 7. This message is included in this volume under the title A Capturing Vision of the Lord's Recovery in Three Aspects. 6. Four messages given in Anaheim, California, on May 25 through 27. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The World Situation and the Direction of the Lord's Move and are included in this volume under the same title. 7. A message given in Anaheim, California, on June 30. This message is included in this volume under the title Fellowship on the Lord's Move to Spread the Gospel of the Kingdom to Europe. 8. Two messages given in Anaheim, California, on July 6 and 7. These messages were previously published in a book entitled Further Consideration of the Eldership, the Region of Work, and the Care for the Body of Christ. They are included in this volume as chapters 12 and 13 in the section entitled Elders' Training, Book 11: The Eldership and the God-ordained Way (3). Therefore, they are not included in this volume as a separate section. 9. Twenty-eight messages given in Anaheim, California, on August 27 through December 17. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The Central Line of the Divine Revelation and are included in this volume under the same title. 10. Two messages given in Berkeley, California, on August 30 and September 2. These messages are included in this volume under the title Laboring Organically to Practice the God-ordained Way.

Qigong, a holistic approach to health and wellness, focuses on gentle movement, breathing, and meditation. Qigong Basics teaches you all the fundamentals of this ancient Chinese discipline in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. Related to tai chi, this practice engages the mind and body, while helping to strengthen muscles, find balance, and reduce stress. This introductory book contains the following vital information: The origins of Qigong--its philosophy, history, and different styles How to find a teacher and a class that are right for you Getting ready for your first class--what happens in a Qigong class? The essential elements--breathing, stances, grounding and expansions How to complement your Qigong training with meditation and qi exercises Powerful ways to promote health and well-being through specific sequences Resources to help you develop your knowledge and understanding of Qigong Whether you're just getting started, or you've already been training for a year or two, Qigong Basics offers an easy to read, yet comprehensive introduction to the sport.

A road-map to living an in-spired life and a step-by-step manual that invites us to align ourselves with the rhythms of the natural world - and then shows us how. Open to the beauty and substance of the breath as a vehicle for awareness and as a tool for a vibrant life. Use the focus for each week of the year to more fully inhabit each inhale, pause and exhale!

Breath in Action looks at the significance of breath to human life - not just the simple fact that if we stop breathing, we die, but also the more subtle ways in which our breath interacts with our voice and our being. Written by experts in vocal and holistic practice, the book is divided into four sections: Breath and the Body; Breath and the Mind; Breath and Holistic Practice; Breath and Performance. It offers the latest theories from a variety of disciplines on how we can be taught to breathe better so as to communicate better, act or sing better, feel better, live better. Combining theory with practice, many of the chapters also offer clearly laid out breathing exercises and techniques. Interdisciplinary in its focus, Breath in Action adds to specialist knowledge in the performance field, whilst also offering enlightening information for those interested in therapeutic and healing processes, movement, and voice and speech sciences.

These books are about listening. It addresses the wisdom already within you. It was there before you were born, and it will be there after you leave. It is beyond the distractions of the body, conflicts with the emotions, and the contradictions of the mind. It is about you, who you are, and listening to who you are. It is to help you to find your own direct knowledge with your energy and truth in creating abundance and balance in your life. It is about the stillness of your soul and all its inner harmonies that are your spiritual expression. It brings forth your innocence, truth, blessings, miracles, consecration, grace, and living love. You are a creative being whose keys to your emergence lies deep within you. This emergence is beyond space and time and its plays as your inner verse. You are poetry of being. It is time for you to claim it and to love yourself and all others with the sources within you. It is your soul awareness.

A revisionist study of Mansfield as a profoundly colonial yet daringly experimental writer, at the forefront of modernism. The essays in this volume draw on the complete journals, letters and stories, to reveal Mansfield as a modernist who transcended her artistic influences through a supreme understanding of voice, being and subjectivity.