At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New Yorkk, to be reunited with a mother she barely... remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti-to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.

According to the Buddha’s teaching in the Anapanasati Sutra, maintaining awareness of our breathing is a means of awakening to the true nature of all... things and arriving at spiritual liberation. Breathe, You Are Alive outlines 16 exercises of conscious breathing that were taught by the Buddha, together with commentaries and further exercises for practicing them every day and in any situation. Thich Nhat Hanh’s insights and explanation give the reader access to the profound nurturance available when we slow down and get in touch with our in-breath and out-breath. He walks the reader through the progression of exercises — from awareness of the physical plane, to the mental and spiritual planes — in a clear and concise manner that is easy to implement. This 20th anniversary edition includes updated commentaries and practices on the awareness of breathing meditation, as well as the author's "Breathing and Walking" Gatha (practice verse) set to music.

Now in paperback comes the moving account by an extraordinary young woman who mounted a daily struggle with cystic fibrosis in an effort to lead an... ordinary life.Twenty-one-year-old Laura Rothenberg had always tried to live a normal life -- even with lungs that betrayed her and a constant awareness that she might not live to see her next birthday. Like most people born with cystic fibrosis, the chronic disease that affects primarily the lungs, Laura struggled to come to grips with a life that had already been compromised in many ways. Sometimes healthy and able to attend school, other times hospitalized for weeks, Laura found solace in keeping a diary. In her writing, she could be open, honest, and irreverent, like the young person she was. Yet behind this voice is a penetrating maturity about her mortality, revealing a will and temperament that is fierce and insightful.

Keeping a notebook may be the single best way to survive as a writer. It encourages a greater sensitivity to your world, inside and out. It serves as a... haven for new ideas until they are strong and mature enough to face the harsh light of rational judgment. It gives you a quiet place to catch your breath and begin writing. Breathing In, Breathing Out is a book for the writer in each one of us, however lost, however buried. Ralph Fletcher takes a probing look into the nature of a writer's notebook, examining what it is, how writers use it, and what makes it tick. You will discover why writers like Naomi Shihab Nye and Dorothy Allison consider their notebooks so important to the work they create. You will also read snippets from Fletcher's notebook, where he reveals the "displayed self" of a writer whose innermost workings he knows best. To Fletcher, keeping a writer's notebook is as natural an activity as breathing so he has organized his book in a way that illuminates two basic aspects of the process. Breathing In refers to the way the notebook can serve as a receptacle for selected insights, lines, images, dreams, and fragments of conversations. In this way it helps you pay closer attention to your world. Breathing Out is intended to suggest the notebook as an ideal place to use what you have collected and spark your own original writing. This book is for new writers as well as those who may have once loved to write but have lost the spark along the way. It will help you find a natural rhythm for using a notebook and in the process start living the life of a writer.

Deep within California’s golden agricultural heartland lies a rotten core: the fictional farming community of Catela, where the desperate realities of... poverty, drug abuse, violence, and bigotry play out in the lives of cucarachas and coyotes, tweekers and strippers, wetbacks and white trash. Seventeen-year-old Tlaloc, namesake of the Aztec god of fertility and destruction, has grown up among the migrant-worker communities that follow the seasons from Wyoming’s beet fields to the vineyards and packinghouses of the Central Valley. Bearing witness to a gritty landscape of wrenching contrasts, Loc narrates the bitter desires and crushed hopes of his friends and family: his father’s absence and his grandparents’ deaths, Zeta’s reckless abandon, Arturín’s path to prison, Norma’s tragic alienation, the farmworkers’ final tributes to Cesar Chavez, Talina’s choices and compromises. Even so he dares to dream, sensing that somewhere within the cruel beauty that surrounds him may lie his own redemption. Tim Z. Hernandez’s land of pain and plenty, his Catela, evokes the essence of the migrant underclass experience. But more, his stories take us there, into the streets and into the groves, into the back rooms of the carnicerias and the panaderias, onto the tracks, onto the thirsty highways, in scenes that unfold with graphic, breathtaking honesty.

(Applause Books). Breathing, Movement, Exploration is a groundbreaking approach to how to use your body. Barbara Sellers-Young combines body mechanics... and eastern and western philosophy to create a new visceral awareness of the performance process. Its simple, step-by-step structure enables the reader to learn the concepts of Laban and Stanislavski while exploring eastern ideas of breath and energy. Breathing, Movement, Exploration is a useful blueprint for how to use your body on stage. It speaks to professionals as well as anyone fascinated by the inner-process of an actor's training or to gain cognitive and physical insight into one's own self.

Taking cues from current theoretical perspectives and capitalizing on the strengths of new and sophisticated methods of analysis, Breathing New Life... into the Evidence of Death showcases the vibrancy of bioarchaeological research and its potential for bringing new life to the field of mortuary archaeology and the study of human remains. These new trajectories challenge old stereotypes, redefine the way research of human remains should be accomplished, and erase the divide that once separated osteologists from archaeologists. Through case studies ranging from body piercing in prehistoric Chile to Christian burials in early Medieval Ireland, the contributors to this book take a broad and deep look at themes including archaeologies of identity, the contemporary sociopolitical effects of bioarchaeological research, and materiality in the mortuary record.

Breathing Space is the story of Heidi Neumark and the Hispanic and African-American Lutheran church-Transfiguration-that took a chance calling on a... pastor from a starkly different background. Despite living and working in a milieu of overwhelming poverty and violence, Neumark and the congregation encounter even more powerful forces of hope and renewal.This story of a community creating space for new life and breath is also the story of a young woman-working, raising her children, and struggling for spiritual breathing space. Through poignant, intimate stories, Neumark charts her journey alongside her parishioners as pastor, church, and community grow in wisdom and together experience transformation.

Allergy is the sixth leading cause of chronic illness in the United States. More than fifty million Americans suffer from allergies, and they spend an... estimated $18 billion coping with them. Yet despite advances in biomedicine and enormous investment in research over the past fifty years, the burden of allergic disease continues to grow. Why have we failed to reverse this trend?Breathing Space offers an intimate portrait of how allergic disease has shaped American culture, landscape, and life. Drawing on environmental, medical, and cultural history and the life stories of people, plants, and insects, Mitman traces how America’s changing environment from the late 1800s to the present day has led to the epidemic growth of allergic disease. We have seen a never-ending stream of solutions to combat allergies, from hay fever resorts, herbicides, and air-conditioned homes to numerous potions and pills. But, as Mitman shows, despite the quest for a magic bullet, none of the attempted solutions has succeeded. Until we address how our changing environment—physical, biological, social, and economic—has helped to create America’s allergic landscape, that hoped-for success will continue to elude us.

The health you enjoy today, and for the rest of your life, begins with your next breath. In fact, breathing is so crucial to your body's ability to heal... and sustain itself that Dr. Andrew Weil says: "If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly." On Breathing: The Master Key to Self Healing, listeners will learn a complete course of eight breathing exercises that Dr. Weil uses in his own life, and has prescribed to hundreds of patients over the past two decades, Dr. Weil reports that these breathing exercises get more favorable response from patients than anything else he teaches. To learn the art of healthy breathing, Dr. Weil turned to Eastern traditions, including yoga, which view the breath as a vital link to the prana, or energy of the universe. In easy-to-follow language, he explains the secret of breathwork's power over your health, and its remarkable ability to influence - and even reprogram - the nervous system. From increasing energy - to lowering blood pressure - to improving circulation - to beating anxiety disorders without drugs - Breathing is a practical introduction to the benefits of breathwork, presented by the bestselling author and physician who has taken the miracle out of self healing, and made it available to all.

This moving and charged novel by Lurlene McDaniel, the bestselling author of inspirational fiction for young adults, presents ethical as well as moral... dilemmas and explores the harsh reality of making a choice that, once made, can never be undone. Travis Morrison knows how good his life is. He’s a champion diver and one of the most popular kids at school. He has Darla, the girl he loves; Emily, his kid sister, whom he actually doesn’t mind hanging out with; and Cooper, his best friend.On the first day of summer vacation, all four go boating on the lake, and everything feels perfect. They cut the motor and drift toward their favorite spot, where cliffs abound—nature at its finest. Travis’s friends ask him not to try the diving stunt, but he can’t resist a challenge.Travis’s silly stunt dive goes wrong, and he fears he has broken his leg. Instead, his trip to the hospital reveals devastating news. In an instant, Travis’s life and the lives of everyone around him are forever changed.Travis understands that his parents believe they’re doing what’s best for him. But he’s always been sure of himself, and he’s sure of one thing now—that he and only he should decide the course of his life. He has a plan, but he can’t carry it out alone. How will he convince the three people he feels he can count on most to help him? And when things get even worse, who will fulfill his most important request?In this honest and probing novel, Lurlene McDaniel tackles a controversial subject, sensitively exploring the issues of personal choice and quality of life, and poignantly reminding readers that every individual deserves to be treated with dignity.

Dialogues with Mooji"You wake up each day from the dream; but to be free, you must also wake up from the waking state." - Mooji
In Breath of the... Absolute, Mooji invites you to take a fresh look at yourself. Of all the subjects debated within the scope of human interest, the one undisputed fact is that we exist. What is not questioned is: As what do we exist? In this book, Mooji will push your mind beyond conceptual bickering into the pulsating clarity of the Unthinkable.
"The words in this book, emanating from Silence, are an act of living grace. When Consciousness speaks, that which speaks and that which listens are One. There's no seeker, no beloved. Only... Pure Awareness flowing as Love."
- Pamela Bloom, Author of The Power of Compassion
"The two people in whom I have most experienced the presence of what we call the Divine are His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mooji."
- Isabel Losada, Broadcaster and Internationally Bestselling, Author of The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment

Always a poet of memory and invention, Philip Levine looks back at his own life as well as the adventures of his ancestors, his relatives, and his... friends, and at their rites of passage into an America of victories and betrayals. He transports us back to the street where he was born “early in the final industrial century” to help us envision an America he’s known from the 1930s to the present. His subjects include his brothers, a great-uncle who gave up on America and returned to czarist Russia, a father who survived unspeakable losses, the artists and musicians who inspired him, and fellow workers at the factory who shared the best and worst of his coming of age. Throughout the collection Levine rejoices in song–Dinah Washington wailing from a jukebox in midtown Manhattan; Della Daubien hymning on the crosstown streetcar; Max Roach and Clifford Brown at a forgotten Detroit jazz palace; the prayers offered to God by an immigrant uncle dreaming of the Judean hills; the hoarse notes of a factory worker who, completing another late shift, serenades the sleeping streets. Like all of Levine’s poems, these are a testament to the durability of love, the strength of the human spirit, the persistence of life in the presence of the coming dark.