A text guide covering conception, pregnancy and childbirth, for Parents, Birth workers and those interested in Transforming Our World through Birth....

An authoritative guide to natural childbirth and postpartum parenting options from an MD who home-birthed her own four children. Sarah Buckley might be called a third-wave natural birth advocate. A doctor and a mother, she approaches the question of how a woman and baby might have the most fulfilling birth experience with respect for the wisdom of both medical science and the human body. Using current medical and epidemiological research plus women's experiences (including her own), she demonstrates that what she calls "undisturbed birth" is almost always healthier and safer than high-technology approaches to birth. Her wise counsel on issues like breastfeeding and sleeping during postpartum helps extend the gentle birth experience into a gentle parenting relationship.

This book reveals how giving birth is an inherently safe, relatively painless process that is best performed without the assistance of doctors or midwives, and how confidence and a positive attitude reduces fear—and therefore the pain—of labor. According to Laura Kaplan Shanley, a renowned leader in the natural-birth movement, human birth is inherently safe and relatively painless—provided we refrain from physical or psychological interference. The problems often associated with birth can be traced to three main factors: poverty, unnecessary medical intervention, and fear. When these causes are eliminated, most women can give birth either alone or with the help of a partner, friends, or family. This second edition of Unassisted Childbirth leads with a history of childbirth and then describes how most deliveries occur today, detailing why these processes don't serve mothers or babies. The information in this unique book gives women yet another legitimate choice in childbirth that doesn't rely on doctors and technology, and allows parents, birth professionals, and general readers to reexamine their most basic ideas about birth and learn to think in new ways.

Often we sit wondering, “Is this all there is?” We so much need to find out what brings real peace. How and where could we begin to find the honest and genuine meaning to our existence? Many of us realize that something is missing. We look for magic answers and when they run their course we feel even emptier. If we are looking in the right places we realize there is another dimension, a spiritual dimension. When one searches in the spiritual dimension there is a time when a spiritual rebirth is sought and realized—a spiritual rebirth that creates in us a new existence, a new life. It is where belief, emotions, and the spiritual experience become one within. This can happen to a searcher when that person realizes the validity of spiritual truths and allows them to unite within. We can have this experience as a Buddhist, a Jewish or Kabbalist believer, a Christian, Muslim, Native American, or cult believer. This experience can have a life changing effect on the person. What happens is the new belief brings a realization that old habit patterns, appetites, desires, and ways of living have brought about emptiness and darkness. The new belief shines its light on the darkness. These spiritual truths give us another way to think about our life. Our emotions are brought to a higher level. As we live our new life we are transformed.

For readers of Thomas Moore, James Hillman, and Pema Chodron-a timely handbook for these troubled times that shows how to bring depth and meaning to our lives through cultivating our connection with something greater than ourselves. Can changing our view of ourselves and others affect the world? Bestselling author Stephanie Dowrick's major new book is a compelling look at how we can transform the world by seeing the extraordinary everywhere we look, both without and within. Through her intimate, beautiful, and encouraging writing, Dowrick shows that it is only in altering our perception-seeing all of life as sacred-that we will challenge the usual stories about who we are and what we are capable of being. At a time when religion is increasing seen as a cause of prejudice and division, or as irrelevant to our most pressing concerns, the eternal truths of a genuinely inclusive spiritual wisdom have never been more urgently needed or sought. In Seeking the Sacred, Stephanie Dowrick invites us to go beyond cultural divisions and religious dogma and to discover what makes our lives sacred, satisfying, and meaningful. Weaving personal stories-including her own-with an inspired vision of life's most healing possibilities, she reveals how the sacred can transform the way we understand and value life, changing forever how we interact with others and care for ourselves. Seeking the Sacred is a provocative and accessible read for those contemplating God, faith, spirituality, and the nature of belief in twenty-first-century life. This is a book for the spiritually curios as well as those already engaged in the deeper questions. Richly hopeful and uplifting, Seeking the Sacred unravels some of our most complex contemporary dilemmas and speaks to the heart of our deepest yearnings.

Explores the evolution of life and consciousness according to the cosmology and psychology of Fire, viewing Fire not only as a material but also as a spiritual principle.

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE presents traditional oral Native American sacred teachings from the Iroquois, Lakota, and other traditions. The author has been receiving these teachings from elders since his youth. The wisdom embraces cosmology, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, sociology, psychology, healing, dream interpretation, and more.Audlin calls himself neither a spiritual teacher nor an authority, but a conduit through which these oral traditions can be presented meaningfully to people in a modern world. He outlines universal principles common to many traditional peoples worldwide.The Red Road is available to all --regardless of religion or ethnicity -- willing to follow its paths. These paths, however, are often not easy and require deep personal and spiritual commitment. Audlin says in his introduction: "If this book serves any purpose, let it be to help us bring the Sacred Hoop of All the Nations back together again, so we and all that lives may stand as one in silent awe before that Great Mystery."

Hermead of Surazeus is an epic poem about the development of philosophy over 600 years in the lives and ideas of 26 of the greatest philosophers who contributed to the growth of civilization. This single volume edition presents in 126,680 lines of pentameter blank verse the tales of Hermes, Prometheus, Kadmos, Asklepios, Zethos Hesiodos, Thales, Anaximandros, Pythagoras, Herakleitos, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Leukippos, Philolaos, Demokritos, Aristokles Platon, Aristoteles, Demetrios Phalereus, Epikouros, Arkhimedes, Ktesibios, Eratosthenes, Krates, Hipparkhos, Philodemos, and Lucretius.

Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna, b. 1949) has long been a significant contributor to modern American Indian literature. In this landmark volume, leading scholars from Europe and North America assess her career and growing legacy, focusing especially on her visionary novel,Gardens in the Dunes. Topics include the power of modern resistance, indigenous feminism, the role of history, the effects of European culture and history on her work, and the force of storytelling and nonlinear narration. These essays variously and insightfully illuminate the work and life of a remarkable Native writer in the twenty-first century.

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