Drawing from the Bible, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud and Midrash, the kabbalistic literature, medieval folklore, Hasidic texts, and oral lore collected in the modern era, Schwartz has gathered together nearly 700 of the key Jewish myths. For each myth, he includes extensive commentary, revealing the source of the myth and explaining how it relates to other Jewish myths as well as to world literature --from publisher description
A murky past. A forbidden love. A deathly power. When the river spits Umbra onto its bank, naked and shivering, the only clue to her identity is the arcane brand seared into her skin. A brand hunted by both a murderous necromancer and a handsome stranger. A brand that thrusts Umbra into a simmering conflict between the ascendant Clans and the nomadic Gherza. A brand that may make her the key to averting all-out war. The Tree of Souls weaves an intimate tale of dark sorcery, doomed love, and implacable revenge, amid an age-old clash of nations, with all the souls of the living hanging in the balance.
The first vampire. The last Nephilim. The end of a saga. The epic battle between angel and vampire begins in this third installment in The Blood Dagger series. Ever since his meeting with a group of all-powerful angels calling themselves the Grigori went awry, things aren't looking up for Corinth Taylor or his best friend, Larna Collins. After Corinth was almost stabbed to death, Alastair Iszler, Corinth's brother-in-arms, heroically stepped in to save Corinth's life—thereby sacrificing his own in the process. Larna, still reeling after losing the love of her life, has only one mission in mind: kill the vampire who tortured Corinth. Sarah. But things aren't so cut and dry anymore when friends turn into enemies and enemies turn into friends. Trusting Gabriel Stanton, the leader of one of the most powerful vampire clans in the world, might be enough to cause his downfall by her hands. Especially since she has the worst kind of history with him—the killing-your-father kind. Will Corinth make it through his transition to become a vampire? Will the Grigori's plan at world domination come to fruition? Can they pull together in time to stop the threat? Find out in the last and most action-packed novel in The Blood Dagger series. It will not disappoint—a must-read from start to finish.
As a Catholic boy raised on a rural dairy farm in Wisconsin, author Keith Francis Organ was taught that killing was something you never did--not even to an unborn child. Until he was nineteen, he believed people in the world were mostly good. Getting drafted into the Vietnam War forces a dismantling of that belief and renders him capable of killing. After combat in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam in 1968-69, killing seems normal--and most of his humanity is suppressed. When an injury from a booby trap sends him to a field hospital for amputation of his left leg, he is faced with starting the process of reinstalling his humanity. Once home, he finds a sympathetic mother but an insensitive environment that doesn't support the veterans of the Vietnam War and a veterans administration that allows unqualified employees to treat his injuries. His reaction is anger, isolation, and bitterness. The Tree of Souls portrays one man's journey of disillusionment and eventual enlightenment and includes recommendations to improve our society. It's a raw, honest portrayal of the experience of many during the Vietnam War and the aftermath of life once they returned home.
« My dear Gaia, When you will ask me how I met your father, you shall know that you both were gifted to me by Santiago. At the end of my old life, the Way gave me a new one: I fought against the wind and the rain, against the sun and pain, crossed a whole country by foot to prove myself I was alive. The Camino Frances is the place where anything is possible. We found each other with dad to become one, to create true love. At the end of the road, I found myself. » Honorable Mention, writing contest « 100 Caminos in 100 stories » in Chile.
The most comprehensive introduction available to the Golden Dawn system of initiation. An ideal introduction to the numerous complex and obscure mystical writings of Aleister Crowley. Includes practical exercises for developing the will and the imagination.
The tree of life is an iconic visual symbol at the edge of religious thought over the last several millennia. As a show of its significance, the tree bookends the Christian canon; yet scholarship has paid it minimal attention in the modern era. In The Tree of Life a team of scholars explore the origin, development, meaning, reception, and theology of this consequential yet obscure symbol. The fourteen essays trek from the origins of the tree in the texts and material culture of the ancient Near East, to its notable roles in biblical literature, to its expansion by early church fathers and Gnostics, to its rebirth in medieval art and culture, and to its place in modern theological thought.
The Tree of Life and Arboreal Aesthetics in Early Modern Literature explores the vital motif of the tree of life and what it meant to early modern writers who drew from its long histories in biblical, classical and folkloric contexts, giving rise to a language of trees, an arboreal aesthetics. An ancient symbol of immortality, the tree of life was appropriated by Christian ideology and iconography to express ideas about Christ; however, the concept also migrated beyond religious doctrine. Ideas circulating around the tree of life enabled writers to imagine and articulate ideas of death and rebirth, loss and regeneration, the condition of the political state and personal states of the soul through arboreal metaphors and imagery. The motif could be used to sacralise landscapes, such as the garden, orchard or country estate, blurring the lines between contemporary green spaces and the spiritual and poetic imaginary. Located within the field of environmental humanities, and intersecting with ecocriticism and critical plant studies, this volume outlines a comprehensive history of the tree of life and offers interdisciplinary readings of focus texts by Shakespeare, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Aemilia Lanyer, Andrew Marvell and Ralph Austen. It includes consideration of related ideas and motifs, such as the tree of Jesse and the Green Man, illuminating the rich histories and meanings that emerge when an understanding of the tree of life and arboreal aesthetics are brought to the analysis of early modern literary texts and their representations of green spaces, both physical and metaphysical.
