Midwest prairie grass has many leaves and many moods, and each of the sixteen short stories of this collection graphically conveys the challenge, pathos, and beauty evoked by that dramatic setting. "Prairie Voices" speaks through the voices of early pioneers, while "Songs of Experience" adapts Blake's poems to contemporary gender relationships. "What is Unspoken" transforms the prairies into a surreal and terrifying world, where yet humor might just -- just might --surface. "Places of the Heart" discovers those secret places in which the spirit may find home, not in a barren landscape, but one teeming with life, growth, and revelation. A richly varied series in its detailed setting and imagery, deeply satisfying in its in-depth depiction of characters and fast-moving narrative.
Midwest prairie grass has many leaves and many moods, and each of the sixteen short stories of this collection graphically conveys the challenge, pathos, and beauty evoked by that dramatic setting. "Prairie Voices" speaks through the voices of early pioneers, while "Songs of Experience" adapts Blake's poems to contemporary gender relationships. "What is Unspoken" transforms the prairies into a surreal and terrifying world, where yet humor might just -- just might --surface. "Places of the Heart" discovers those secret places in which the spirit may find home, not in a barren landscape, but one teeming with life, growth, and revelation. A richly varied series in its detailed setting and imagery, deeply satisfying in its in-depth depiction of characters and fast-moving narrative.
In this young adult historical novel, surging river currents turn deadly when a young pioneer girl comes too close. Their eerie sounds send out a cryptic message, which might save her life if she could decipher it. That will require a dangerous journey across the Dakota prairies and into the mysterious world of native American spirituality.
A moment like this becomes extraordinary,/when I think of how easily/it could have been overlooked; claims Kristin Laurel in her poem Ordinary Bliss. How lucky we are that Laurel refuses, over and over, to overlook the ordinary. This is a truly wonderful collection of poems that looks unflinchingly at the full spectrum of human pain and trauma, at the violence we do to ourselves and each other, and at the violence that the world inflicts on each and every one of us. What I admire above all is their tenderness and their hard-won humor: here is a poet who has seen as mother, lover, ER nurse and survivor the best and the worst we have to offer. To steal a phrase from Yeats, here is the world in all its terrible beauty. Here is a world of cut lilacs and metal, of broken minds and bodies, of bullets and vomit and “unhindered sky.” These are poems that resist easy redemption or absolution. Instead, they present the complex reality of what it means to be human, and they implore and challenge us, in their refusal to turn away, to stay human and to live with compassion. -- Jude Nutter, author of I Wish I Had A Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman and The Curator of Silence.
From admired historian—and coiner of one of feminism's most popular slogans—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich comes an exploration of what it means for women to make history. In 1976, in an obscure scholarly article, Ulrich wrote, "Well behaved women seldom make history." Today these words appear on t-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers, greeting cards, and all sorts of Web sites and blogs. Ulrich explains how that happened and what it means by looking back at women of the past who challenged the way history was written. She ranges from the fifteenth-century writer Christine de Pizan, who wrote The Book of the City of Ladies, to the twentieth century’s Virginia Woolf, author of A Room of One's Own. Ulrich updates their attempts to reimagine female possibilities and looks at the women who didn't try to make history but did. And she concludes by showing how the 1970s activists who created "second-wave feminism" also created a renaissance in the study of history.
This work explores what it means to be modern and what it means to be Korean in a culture where courtship and marriage are often the crucible in which notions of gender and class are cast and recast. Touching on a number of important issues--identity, romantic love, women's work, marriage negotiations, and wedding ceremonies--Laurel Kendall gives us a new appreciation for how Koreans have adapted this pivotal social practice to the astounding changes of the past century. Kendall attended her first Korean wedding in 1970, soon after she arrived in the country with the Peace Corps. Years later, as a seasoned anthropologist, she began interviewing both working-class and middle-class couples, matchmakers, purveyors of dowry goods, and proprietors of wedding halls. She consulted etiquette handbooks and women's magazines and analyzed cartoons, photographs, and weddings themselves. The result is an engaging account of how marriage matches are made, how families proceed through the rites, how they finance ceremonies and elaborate exchanges of ritual goods, and how these practices are integral to the construction of adult identities and notions of ideal women and men. The book is also a reflection on what it means to write "Korea" in a complex and ever changing social milieu.
Shamans walking on knives, fairies riding on clouds, kings with dragon mounts: They are gods and they are paper images. Some are repulsed and unsettled by shaman paintings, some cannot stop collecting them, and some use them as sites of veneration. Laurel Kendall, Jongsung Yang, and Yul Soo Yoon explore what it is that makes a Korean shaman painting magical or sacred. How does a picture carry the trace of a god and can it ever be “just a painting” again? How have shaman paintings been revalued as art? Do artfulness and magic ever intersect? Does it matter, as a matter of market value, that the painting was once a sacred thing? Navigating the journey shaman paintings make from painters’ studios to shaman shrines to private collections and museums, the three authors deftly traverse the borderland between scholarly interests in the material dimension of religious practice and the circulation of art. Illustrated with sixty images in color and black and white, the book offers a new vantage point on “the social life of things.” This is not a story of a collecting West and a disposing rest; the primary collectors and commentators on Korean shaman paintings are South Koreans re-imagining their own past in light of their own modernist sensibility. It is a tale told with an awareness of both recent South Korean history and the problematic question of how the paintings are understood by different South Korean actors, most particularly the shamans and collectors who share a common language and sometimes meet face-to-face.
A fascinating family saga set in the 1860s prairie of Minnesota and the Dakotas. Pioneer and Civil War veteran Henry Morgan sets out on a dramatic journey that takes him through mazes, river currents, down dangerous trails, and up against dead ends. From an unlikely beginning, Morgan's hasty marriage to the young and illiterate Agnes Guyette has unforeseen consquences. As they attempt to claim a government land grant two hundred miles away in Green Prairie, MN, they must fight local Indians, hostile wilderness, and desperados determined to steal their land. Filled with nonstop action and unexpected plot twists and turns, this novel is a roller coaster ride of action, intrigue and high adventure.
Samantha Bennett's life was a nightmare. Dealing with the untimely death of her mother and the abuse of her cruel father was too much for teenager Samantha Bennett to handle. But, for the first time in her life, this courageous, rodeo-riding young woman is finally learning what it means to be loved and to be part of a real family. Samantha is more than ready to begin a new chapter of her life. But when her past comes back to haunt her, will anyone be able to save her? In Earthbound Child of God, author Laurel Payne tells the story of the beautiful restoration and healing that can only come from the love, grace and compassion of Jesus Christ. Full of exciting adventures and set against the backdrop of the fast-paced rodeo environment, it shows that no matter where you come from or what you have been through, God loves you. Even in the midst of your struggles, He is always there. He hears your cries and will come to your rescue when no one else can. Earthbound Child of God will touch your heart and fill you with hope, reminding you that you are loved and are worth much more than you think.
Most introductory textbooks in theology see their primary task as explaining Christian doctrines that no one quite understands anymore. While this is one of theology's jobs, it is by no means the only, nor even the most important, one. Theology has also been called to change the world, to help people connect deeply rooted beliefs about the world's source and goal to questions of personal meaning and communal thriving. Theology is here to help us make sense of the complex, flawed world into which we've been thrust and to assist us in our attempt to love our neighbors and live toward the common good. For more than forty years, the Workgroup on Constructive Theology has brought the liberal and liberationist theological traditions into creative encounter with lived human experience. In this introduction to the methods and tasks of theology, they invite a new generation of readers, many who will have little or no exposure to Christian doctrine, to see theology as a partner in the struggle for a better world. They demonstrate how theological ideas have "legs," playing themselves out not only in religious communities but in the public square as well. Theology, the authors tell us, is constructive when it joins in God's work of building human lives and human societies. Readers will learn to think about all of life in light of their religious commitments and to see theology as an essential tool for a life well lived.
This little book is a delightful revelation of the deeper meaning of Christmas and of the symbols of Christmas.Many people use this book as a guide for their children to understand why we have a Christmas Tree or the Yule Log. For children and for adults this little book brings a richness and beauty into the Christmas Season and to help us understand the meaning of the ?Birth of the Sun? in ancient times which now is also the ?Birth of the Son? and what it means in our lives.
What Is Smart? There's evidence of so much more than "reading, writing, and 'rithmetic" in every child -- at least seven distinct intelligences, according to the theory of multiple intelligences, developed by Harvard's Dr. Howard Gardner. In Seven Times Smarter, veteran educator Laurel Schmidt offers a parent-friendly explanation of this theory and of the ways that kids are -- simply put -- word smart, picture smart, music smart, body smart, logic smart, people smart, and self-smart. These intelligences aren't fixed at birth. They can be nurtured and strengthened, meaning that in the right environment, kids get smarter. Seven Times Smarter, an invaluable resource for parents, teachers, and caregivers, provides the perfect way to create this environment. Unlike other craft or activity books that just fill time and keep kids busy, Seven Times Smarter prompts kids aged six to fourteen to work their brains and cultivate new skills using recycled or low-cost materials found in every home -- and enjoy it! It offers an exploration of what it means to be smart, checklists to recognize the seven intelligences in your child, book lists to develop and celebrate all the ways your child is smart, and fifty creative, constructive activities that are good for kids playing alone or in a group, supervised or independently, including: * Memory Tours -- If a memory book is too straightforward for your artistic child, try an un-book, a memory box, or a calendar. * Hanging Gardens -- Indoors or out, even the smallest garden plot can yield a bumper crop of mathematical, linguistic, scientific, and kinesthetic skills. * The Boredom Brigade -- Boredom is a springboard for imagination; imaginary structures, identities, occupations, and friends are just some of the ways kids develop their inter- and intra-personal intelligences. * Junk Yard Genius -- There's an education in junk; in fact, it's easy to turn your broken radio, alarm clock, fan, blow-dryer, or scale into a project that could fascinate kids for days.
How to Be Dead - A Love Story by Laurel Schmidt explores what it means to be fully alive - even in the afterlife. A tale told with humor, heart and intelligence, it celebrates the power of memory and the lifesaving potential of an excellent espresso. Frances Beacon, longevity guru and best-selling author of Sex, Drugs and Social Security, is at the peak of her second career when a New York City cab catapults her into the afterlife. Shocked, confused, and royally pissed, all she wants is to go home. Instead, she's enrolled in the University of the Afterlife, where this over-achiever turns into a dropout after being hit with a tsunami of obstacles. Frances spars with a host of bureaucrats, misogynists, and a mysterious Court that can condemn her to frigus repono - permanent cold storage. But her fiercest opponent is her own heart, the thing she must explore and embrace to win her freedom. In this compassionate, comedic saga of self-discovery, Frances learns that the only way to live again is to learn how to be dead.
This book takes up the question of Christian queer theology and ethics through the contested lens of "redemption." Starting from the root infinitive "to deem," the authors argue that queer lives and struggles can illuminate and re-value the richness of embodied experience that is implied in Christian incarnational theology and ethics. Offering a set of virtues gleaned from contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and asexual (LGBTIQA) lives and communities, this book introduces a new framework of ethical reasoning. Battered and wrongly condemned by life-denying theologies of redemption and dessicating ethics of virtue, this book asserts that the resilience, creativity, and epistemology manifesting in queer lives and communities are essential to a more generous and liberative Christian theology. In this book, queer "virtues" not only reveal and re-value queer soul but expose covert viciousness in the traditional (i.e., inherently colonial and racist, and thus ungodly) "family values" of dominant Christian ethics and theology. It argues that such re-imagining has redemptive potential for Christian life writ large, including the redemption of God. This book will be a key resource for scholars of queer theology and ethics as well as queer theory, gender and race studies, religious studies, and theology more generally.
Thirty years ago, anthropologist Laurel Kendall did intensive fieldwork among South Korea’s (mostly female) shamans and their clients as a reflection of village women’s lives. In the intervening decades, South Korea experienced an unprecedented economic, social, political, and material transformation and Korean villages all but disappeared. And the shamans? Kendall attests that they not only persist but are very much a part of South Korean modernity. This enlightening and entertaining study of contemporary Korean shamanism makes the case for the dynamism of popular religious practice, the creativity of those we call shamans, and the necessity of writing about them in the present tense. Shamans thrive in South Korea’s high-rise cities, working with clients who are largely middle class and technologically sophisticated. Emphasizing the shaman’s work as open and mutable, Kendall describes how gods and ancestors articulate the changing concerns of clients and how the ritual fame of these transactions has itself been transformed by urban sprawl, private cars, and zealous Christian proselytizing. For most of the last century Korean shamans were reviled as practitioners of antimodern superstition; today they are nostalgically celebrated icons of a vanished rural world. Such superstition and tradition occupy flip sides of modernity’s coin—the one by confuting, the other by obscuring, the beating heart of shamanic practice. Kendall offers a lively account of shamans, who once ministered to the domestic crises of farmers, as they address the anxieties of entrepreneurs whose dreams of wealth are matched by their omnipresent fears of ruin. Money and access to foreign goods provoke moral dilemmas about getting and spending; shamanic rituals express these through the longings of the dead and the playful antics of greedy gods, some of whom have acquired a taste for imported whiskey. No other book-length study captures the tension between contemporary South Korean life and the contemporary South Korean shamans’ work. Kendall’s familiarity with the country and long association with her subjects permit nuanced comparisons between a 1970s "then" and recent encounters—some with the same shamans and clients—as South Korea moved through the 1990s, endured the Asian Financial Crisis, and entered the new millennium. She approaches her subject through multiple anthropological lenses such that readers interested in religion, ritual performance, healing, gender, landscape, material culture, modernity, and consumption will find much of interest here.
‘ Summers in Laurel Canyon is a broad collection of poems, including sestinas, sonnet, rhyming, prose and free verse poetry which covers poet life struggles, growth, perseverance and changings and difficulties he faced after his mother passed, in what circumstances he leave California, ins and outs in his life from homelessness to missing home and everything in between like the most importantly when he knew about himself that he is a transgender. How he handled this change from hardships to make it manageable and acceptable for himself and for others it’s like Trans when ideology meets reality and I should say Trans like me conversations for all of us. My Poetry is not a luxury but my poems that touch the heart. “Today was every yesterday Recalling is not a necessity” In this deeply poetry compilation about Trans life and love collection anthology classic book, Author’s searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, expressing the absurdity of sitting within grief while being resolute to survive beyond it. The Poems start towards the beginning of the Author's Journey before he realized he was transgender, go on through his progress and transition, and end at where he is today. This assortment and collection of poems offers a confrontationally legitimate look what it's like to be transgender. This book leads the reader through the Author's Journey, showing a close look at what it resembles inside a transgender mind. Poems to break your heart to the poetry of presence an anthology of mindfulness poems of the man god, it’s also a self-love poetry for thinkers and feelers. These are the poems that could end your previous world and bring you to the new one. This poetry speaks who I am who you will be, in simple words its trans meditation. Author burn poetry on fire with clarity and connection how you bring your transgender regrets into your strengths and overcome your stress and improve your mental health. This book spoke the truths of being trapped in the wrong body and the battles we fight daily both internal and external and the fears we have when out in public. This is a powerful classic poetry LGBTQ transhumanism book and one’s personal look into the heart and mind of transgender. A highly recommended to everyone. Author’s explores themes of hardship, love, gender, homelessness, gender change, family, and forgiveness with spectacular imagery and a readiness to delve into the consideration of what it means to heal and adopt change in his life. Summers in Laurel Canyon, illustrate with beautiful messages in the form of poetry that you are big enough to wake even the sleepiest heart of yours. “Spencer Vigil” in his astonishing, debut poetry collection “Summers in Laurel Canyons” also share his intergenerational trauma in order to alter our understanding of freedom, Power, authority, and control. In his Tran’s poems he clarify the complex and disturbing developments of reckoning and recovery, heightened by original poetry that reflect the nonlinear emotive and psychological experiences of trauma survivors. This book help you in reviving and reconfiguring the self love, and finally becomes the vital testimony to the human capacity for resilience, fortitude and love. “Awake, nightmares sweaty, at night. Looks for a way to quiet noise inside” Supernatural, deep-rooted, painful, exuberant, and rapturous; visions of the body, our genders, and our very identities from across the spectrum of living real and motivated poetry come together in this epic intersectional Trans anthology where verse, story and healing unite in spectacular new ways. There are poems that made you cry and some that made you think. As this poetry reminds you: Living your real you is never easy; but it is possible.
In Religious, Feminist, Activist, Laurel Zwissler investigates the political and religious identities of women who understand their social-justice activism as religiously motivated. Placing these women in historical context as faith-based activists for social change, this book discusses what their activities reveal about the public significance of religion in the pluralistic context of North America and in our increasingly globalized world. Zwissler's ethnographic interviews with feminist Catholics, Pagans, and United Church Protestants reveal radically different views of religious and political expression and illuminate how individual women and their communities negotiate issues of personal identity, spirituality, and political responsibility. Political activists of faith recount adventurous tales of run-ins with police, agonizing moments of fear and powerlessness in the face of global inequality, touching moments of community support, and successful projects that improve the lives of others. Religious, Feminist, Activist combines religion, politics, and globalization--subjects frequently discussed in macro terms--with individual personalities and intimate stories to provide a fresh perspective on what it means to be religiously and politically engaged. Zwissler also provides an insightful investigation into how religion and politics intersect for women on the political left.
For the house of wisdom that already exists in the beyond – in the unconscious – to truly manifest within an individual human being, the whole of a person is required, along with all their four psychic functions of consciousness. This encounter with wholeness – with the divine – is a shocking event that leaves both parties – the human and the divine – renewed. The cover image of this volume portrays precisely this kind of event. It was painted by a Sicilian artist, Antonello da Messina (15th century) and it depicts l’Annunciata, The Annunciation of Mary, the fateful moment in which Mary encounters the Archangel Gabriel and becomes aware of her destiny. The angel is not depicted; we see only Mary and the shock she experiences in her encounter with the divine. The essays in this volume by Marie-Louise von Franz, Rivkah Schärf Kluger, Gotthilf Isler, and Laurel Howe revolve around this encounter. They detail the possible union of the opposites – the divine with the human, the feminine with the masculine, the demonic with the redemptive. Ultimately, they are all about a new god-image in which the feminine – Wisdom in its feminine form – is united with the masculine. This development has been in the making within the collective unconscious for centuries and it wants to become a reality in our time. This volume includes an original contribution by Marie-Louise von Franz, as well as other essays on Jungian Psychology. The main focus is upon aspects of the feminine and their psychological interpretation. Contents: Regine Schweizer-Vüllers, Foreword Rivkah Schärf Kluger, The Queen of Sheba in Bible and Legends Laurel Howe, Redeeming Mary Magdalene – The Feminine Side of the Death and Resurrection Archetype Marie-Louise von Franz, Rumpelstiltskin Gotthilf Isler, “The Cursed Princess” – The Redemption of the Feminine in Folk Tales.
Excerpt~ “Just deserts”—just as in justice. “Just Deserts” means something good or bad. Note One: In the Holy Bible there are four Gospels of Jesus Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Out of the four Gospels there is only one Gospel that has this sentence, it is the last sentence in the Book of John. Jesus says to Thomas the Doubter, “Those who believe without having to see, are far closer to my father.” This is known as blind faith.Laurel Marie Sobol Amazon Bookstorehttp://astore.amazon.com/httpswwwcreat0a-20
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