This exquisite book is a rare jewel in the literature of Mexico and its little-known peninsula, Baja. Describing her adventures on this austere and beautiful slip of land, C. M. Mayo creates a multi-layered map of place filled with daredevil aviators, sea turtle researchers, Stone Age cave painters, and countless other colorful characters. Covering Baja from Cabo San Lucas to Tijuana, Mayo's wit and curiosity help her weave a story that seamlessly combines history, myth, art, and local color.
In this luscious collaboration poet Lynley Edmeades and painter Saskia Leek explore ideas of the quotidian and its everyday miracles. Their close, intense domestic observations merge with the philosophical, in a quest for deeper meaning. Leek's high-colour palette and symbolic investigation of the domestic provide Edmeades with a starting point, to which she writes back with a chromatic and vivid pen.In repetitive and evolving processes, artist and poet speak to each other through a prismatic renewal of familiar objects and images -- fruit bowls, ceramic cups, sleeping babies, the view from a window -- holding them up to the light and presenting them anew.This fourth book in the korero series of 'picture books for grown-ups', edited by Lloyd Jones, is as surprising, engaging, and delightful and its predecessors.
Regardless of where you are in life—whether you’re celebrating new beginnings, mourning a loss, weathering a hardship, or seeking inspiration—you will find this book of prayers to be the perfect companion. At seventeen, Mitra Rahbar left her homeland due to political unrest. However, she would soon find her way in an unfamiliar land through an ever-deepening prayer life that led her to her soul’s core. Turning outward, she pursued a life of service—first as a social worker and then as a spiritual teacher, healer, and guide. Having worked with students from many walks of life for more than thirty years, Rahbar has a deep understanding of what spiritual seekers long to learn and how best to teach them. In Miraculous Silence, she takes us on a journey into the sacred space of prayer and spiritual healing, providing practical guidance on how to pray and meditate, as well as many of her own prayers to inspire and encourage us. Rahbar also suggests images to visualize and meditate on, mantras to recite in every situation, and stones to aid in the healing process. In these practices, prayers, and inspirations, you will find comfort, illumination, and renewal.
A Los Angeles Latina woman living in poverty and hoping for miracles “comes to stunning and heartbreaking life” in this novel from an award-winning author (Newsday). On a hot, still day in May, Amalia Gómez sees—or thinks she sees—a large silver cross in the sky. Does this vision foretell a miracle? The pragmatic, twice-divorced Amalia is doubtful . . . Amalia’s neighborhood—a decaying area near a shabby part of Hollywood Boulevard—is under attack from gang wars and the police. Her live-in boyfriend is behaving suspiciously, her “fast” teenage daughter Gloria has become too much to handle, and her teenage son is hinting he’s in serious trouble. Most of all, Amalia is haunted by thoughts of her past and her first-born, dead in jail under mysterious circumstances. As the epiphanies and small omens of Amalia’s day build to a climax as wondrous as it is shattering, PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award–winning author John Rechy takes us into the complicated life of a Chicano family living in Los Angeles—in all its spirited, gritty reality, giving us “a novel with more truth in it than a carload of best-sellers” (The Washington Post). “A fierce book . . . [told in] tough, uninhibited prose.” —Hartford Courant “A vivid and touching novel . . . Rough, heartbreaking . . . Rechy is masterful.” —San Antonio Express-News “A triumph, a sad, beautiful and loving book rooted in cultural experience as well as deep intuition.” —Newsday “[An] ardently feminist piece of writing. By portraying her abusive past, the poverty and the narrow choices facing Amalia G[ó]mez, Rechy illuminates the plight of certain minority women who remain locked in the dark ages of female emancipation, shut off from any help . . . Amalia G[ó]mez may be the main character, but poverty and ignorance, injustice and fear, are the real subjects of this engaging novel.” —Los Angeles Times
William Taylor explores the use of local and regional shrines, and devotion to images of Christ and Mary, including Our Lady of Guadalupe, to get to the heart of the politics and practices of faith in Mexico before the Reforma.
Edward Tulane, a cold-hearted and proud toy rabbit, loves only himself until he is separated from the little girl who adores him and travels across the country, acquiring new owners and listening to their hopes, dreams, and histories. Jr Lib Guild. Teacher's Guide available. Reprint.
The 25th Anniversary ebook, now with more than 50 images. 'Touching the Void' is the tale of two mountaineer’s harrowing ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. In the summer of 1985, two young, headstrong mountaineers set off to conquer an unclimbed route. They had triumphantly reached the summit, when a horrific accident mid-descent forced one friend to leave another for dead. Ambition, morality, fear and camaraderie are explored in this electronic edition of the mountaineering classic, with never before seen colour photographs taken during the trip itself.
Mexican American folk and religious healing, often referred to as curanderismo, has been a vital part of life in the Mexico-U.S. border region for centuries. A hybrid tradition made up primarily of indigenous and Iberian Catholic pharmacopeias, rituals, and notions of the self, curanderismo treats the sick person with a variety of healing modalities including herbal remedies, intercessory prayer, body massage, and energy manipulation. Curanderos, “healers,” embrace a holistic understanding of the patient, including body, soul, and community. Border Medicine examines the ongoing evolution of Mexican American religious healing from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. Illuminating the ways in which curanderismo has had an impact not only on the health and culture of the borderlands but also far beyond, the book tracks its expansion from Mexican American communities to Anglo and multiethnic contexts. While many healers treat Mexican and Mexican American clientele, a significant number of curanderos have worked with patients from other ethnic groups as well, especially those involved in North American metaphysical religions like spiritualism, mesmerism, New Thought, New Age, and energy-based alternative medicines. Hendrickson explores this point of contact as an experience of transcultural exchange. Drawing on historical archives, colonial-era medical texts and accounts, early ethnographies of the region, newspaper articles, memoirs, and contemporary healing guidebooks as well as interviews with contemporary healers, Border Medicine demonstrates the notable and ongoing influence of Mexican Americans on cultural and religious practices in the United States, especially in the American West.
