Wickedly entertaining, insightful, and always surprising, Nita Brooks delivers a delicious new novel about a celebrity perfume designer forced to add a daring new ingredient to her carefully curated life . . . Among the uber-famous, she’s the most highly sought-after fragrance maker—and a well-kept secret. But designing a scent for pop’s newest superstar could take Nicola King and her family’s business from elite to downright legendary. Of course, mystery is part of Nicola’s brand—so no one knows she’s actually an over-cautious person who always puts her own life on permanent hold. Until her ultra-personal list of regrets is accidentally put on a social media blast—and she’s challenged to go after everything she really wants . . . From finding a hobby to reconnecting with a family member, Nicola’s getting some surprising results. But when she reveals her deepest, darkest secret of all to her troubled sister, the fallout threatens her budding romance, her career, and her reputation. Now between ambition, heartbreak, and hard truths, Nicola must risk the courage to fix the damage—and decide what success truly means . . .
Whether a painting, a sculpture, or a building, works of art in early modern Europe must achieve the highest degree of perfection. If in the Middle Ages perfection is mostly perceived as a technical quality inherent in craftsmanship--a quality that can be judged according to often unspoken criteria agreed upon by the members of a guild--from the fifteenth century onwards perfection comes to incorporate a set of rhetorical and literary qualities originally extraneous to art making. Furthermore, perfection becomes a transcendent quality: something that cannot be measured only in terms of craftsmanship. In the Baroque period, perfection turns into obsession as a result of the emergence of historical models of artistic evolution in which perfection is already historically embodied--in the first place, Vasari's investiture of Michelangelo as a universal canon for painting, sculpture, and architecture. This book aims to define, analyze, and reassess the concept of perfection in the arts and architecture of early modern Europe. What is perfection? What makes a work of art unique, emblematic, or irreplaceable? Does perfection necessarily relate to individuality? Is the perfect work connate with or independent from its author? Can perfection be reproduced or represented? How do artists react to perfection? How do post-Vasarian models of art history come to terms with perfection? To what extent perfection in early modern Europe is the matter of rhetoric, literary theories, theology, and even scientific observation?
Smile aims is to promote health and ease sufferings and offers sensible solutions for life’s problems! If understood with an open mind, may upgrade one to any level. The mind takes initiative in all activities and the body follows that! Emotions are stronger than physical matter. Corrections of emotional misbalance lead to harmony on the physical level. Smile is the strength that stays in the very moment like the verses of imagination whenever one perceives in the interaction with another and the joy becomes an infinite spirit of living. In religion, one remains as a Hindu, Mohammedan or Christian and so on, as we are afraid because our religion is based on beliefs. So, everybody is trying to protect their flock by encountering others. When anyone feels, there is religious fragrance but no religion as such; that is total freedom. Liberation is practically possible in the ‘smile’ state, beyond any belief.
"This book is about taking the head off an evil witch". With these words Marion Woodman begins her spiral journey, a powerful and authoritative look at the psychology and attitudes of modern women. Marion Woodman continues her remarkable exploration of women's mysteries through case material, dreams, literature and mythology, in food rituals, rape symbolism, Christianity, imagery in the body, sexuality, creativity and relationships.
Ex nihilo nihil fit. Philosophy, especially great philosophy, does not appear out of the blue. In the current volume, a team of top scholars-both up-and-coming and established-attempts to trace the philosophical development of one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Featuring twenty new essays and an introduction, it is the first attempt of its kind in English and its appearance coincides with the recent surge of interest in Spinoza in Anglo-American philosophy. Spinoza's fame-or notoriety-is due primarily to his posthumously published magnum opus, the Ethics, and, to a lesser extent, to the 1670 Theological-Political Treatise. Few readers take the time to study his early works carefully. If they do, they are likely to encounter some surprising claims, which often diverge from, or even utterly contradict, the doctrines of the Ethics. Consider just a few of these assertions: that God acts from absolute freedom of will, that God is a whole, that there are no modes in God, that extension is divisible and hence cannot be an attribute of God, and that the intellectual and corporeal substances are modes in relation to God. Yet, though these claims reveal some tension between the early works and the Ethics, there is also a clear continuity between them. Spinoza wrote the Ethics over a long period of time, which spanned most of his philosophical career. The dates of the early drafts of the Ethics seem to overlap with the assumed dates of the composition of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well Being and precede the publication of Spinoza's 1663 book on Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. For this reason, a study of Spinoza's early works (and correspondence) can illuminate the nature of the problems Spinoza addresses in the Ethics, insofar as the views expressed in the early works help us reconstruct the development and genealogy of the Ethics. Indeed, if we keep in mind the common dictum "nothing comes from nothing"-which Spinoza frequently cites and appeals to-it is clear that great works like the Ethics do not appear ex nihilo. In light of the preeminence and majesty of the Ethics, it is difficult to study the early works without having the Ethics in sight. Still, we would venture to say that the value of Spinoza's early works is not at all limited to their being stations on the road leading to the Ethics. A teleological attitude of such a sort would celebrate the works of the "mature Spinoza" at the expense of the early works. However, we have no reason to assume that on all issues the views of the Ethics are better argued, developed, and motivated than those of the early works. In other words, we should keep our minds open to the possibility that on some issues the early works might contain better analysis and argumentation than the Ethics.
These teachings on Dzogchen, the heart essence of the ancient Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, were given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Western students in Europe and North America. He offers the reader an unprecedented glimpse into one of Buddhism's most profound systems of meditation.
In the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, the Great Perfection is considered the most profound and direct path to enlightenment. The instructions of this tradition present a spiritual shortcut—a radically direct approach that cuts through confusion and lays bare the mind's true nature of luminous purity. For centuries, these teachings have been taught and practiced in secret by some of the greatest adepts of the Buddhist tradition. Great Perfection: Outer and Inner Preliminaries contains detailed instructions on the foundational practices of this tradition, from "The Excellent Chariot," a practice manual compiled by the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche. Distilling the teachings of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis into an accessible, easy-to-practice format, The Excellent Chariot leads the reader through the entire Buddhist path, starting with basic Buddhist contemplations that work to dislodge deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behaving, and continuing on to the most advanced and secret meditative practices of the Great Perfection. The teachings in this volume are drawn largely from the writings of the great Nyingma master Longchenpa and the root texts of the Heart Essence of the Dakinis itself. The Third Dzogchen Rinpoche begins by discussing the correct way to study and practice the Great Perfection teachings before presenting an overview of the Great Perfection lineage and an explanation on the meaning and importance of empowerment. In the chapters that follow, he presents practical instructions on the outer and inner preliminaries, the so-called "ngöndro" practices. These practices enable the practitioner to transform and purify the mind, preparing it for the advanced Great Perfection meditation of Trekchö and Tögal, the breakthrough and direct leap. In addition to the translation mentioned above, Great Perfection: Outer and Inner Preliminaries contains a beautiful introduction by the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, a contemporary Great Perfection master, and an extensive glossary of key Great Perfection terminology.
Designed to facilitate a thoughtful and informed reading of Spinoza's Ethics, this anthology provides the Ethics, related writings, and two valuable appendices: List of Propositions from the Ethics, which helps readers to trace the development of key themes; and Citations in Proofs, a list of all the propositions, corollaries, and scholia in the Ethics, together with all the definitions, axioms, propositions, corollaries, and scholia to which Spinoza refers in the proofs--thus, readers can locate, for a given item, each instance where Spinoza refers to it.
