"This powerful trinity of Black authors invites us into the living room of their hearts, affirming who we are with earthy straight talk, textured diversity, and wise tenderness."—Ruth King Real talk on living joyfully and coming home to ourselves—with reflective self-care practices to help us on our interconnected journeys of liberation Join three friends, three Black women, all teachers in the Plum Village tradition founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, in intimate conversation, touching on the pain and beauty of their families of origin, relationships and loneliness, intimacy and sexuality, politics, popular culture, race, self-care and healing. No subject is out of bounds in this free-flowing, wide-ranging offering of mindful wisdom to nourish our sense of belonging and connection with ancestors. Authors Valerie Brown, Marisela Gomez, MD, and Kaira Jewel Lingo share how the Dharma's timeless teachings support their work for social and racial equity and justice in their work and personal lives. The book offers insights in embodied mindfulness practice to support us in healing white supremacy, internalized racial oppression, and social and cultural conditioning, leading to a firm sense of belonging and abiding joy.

In a deeply heartfelt way, Jerry Jampolsky and Diane Cirincione share stories of their spiritual journey, detours they've taken, and people who have impacted them along their life trail. Using the Hawaiian tradition of ''talking story,'' Jerry and Diane demonstrate the daily application of spiritual principles and practical spirituality. Individually and together, they weave their journey for us as it continues to evolve from the influences around them. They inspire us to embrace and share our own stories of peaks and valleys that make up our journeys. The authors' honest and vulnerable style of communicating continues to reveal their life purposes in the choices they make and the lessons they've learned. ''Each day still provides challenges and circumstances that call to those parts of us that want to judge others or ourselves,'' they write. ''What is different now is that we more quickly recognize when we're lost and the choice we have to return to the path of unconditional love. Once we remember that our purpose is service and helping others, as well as letting go of our judgments and grievances by practicing forgiveness, the path is easier, the direction clearer, and the destination of peace achievable. ''

This is a book that does not deny the valid presence of struggle in our lives but rather encourages the viewpoint that there is indeed a healthy way to struggleone that accepts the closeness of God, the process that is recovery, and the joy to which we are being called. Seeing recovery from the inside out, the author is able to share how to embrace the struggle while also accepting the outstretched hand of God.

In this time of ecological crisis, all that is holy calls us into a more intimate partnership with the diverse and beautiful beings of this earth. In Finding Our Way Home, Myke Johnson reflects on her personal journey into such a partnership and offers a guide for others to begin this path. Lyrically expressed, it weaves together lessons from a chamomile flower, a small bird, a copper beech tree, a garden slug, and a forest fern, along with insights from Indigenous philosophy, environmental science, fractal geometry, childhood Catholic mysticism, the prophet Elijah, fairy tales, and permaculture design. This eco-spiritual journey also wrestles with the history of our society's destruction of the natural world, and its roots in the original theft of the land from Indigenous peoples. Exploring the spiritual dimensions of our brokenness, it offers tools to create healing. Finding Our Way Home is a ceremony to remember our essential unity with all of life.

A product of twenty-five years of archival and primary research, Sounding Our Way Home: Japanese American Musicking and the Politics of Identity narrates the efforts of three generations of Japanese Americans to reach “home” through musicking. Using ethnomusicology as a lens, Susan Miyo Asai examines the musical choices of a population that, historically, is considered outside the racial and ethnic boundaries of American citizenship. Emphasizing the notion of national identity and belonging, the volume provokes a discussion about the challenges of nation-building in a democratic society. Asai addresses the politics of music, interrogating the ways musicking functions as a performance of social, cultural, and political identification for Japanese Americans in the United States. Musicking is an inherently political act at the intersection of music, identity, and politics, particularly if it involves expressing one’s ethnicity and/or race. Asai further investigates how Japanese American ethnic identification and cultural practices relate to national belonging. Musicking cultivates a narrative of a shared history and aesthetic between performers and listeners. The discourse situates not only Japanese Americans, but all Asians into the Black/white binary of race relations in the United States. Sounding Our Way Home contributes to the ongoing struggle for acceptance and equal representation for people of color in the US. A history of Japanese American musicking across three generations, the book unveils the social and political discrimination that nonwhite immigrants and their offspring continue to face when it comes to finding acceptance in US society and culture.

For millennia, humans have grappled with the mystery of what happens after death. What becomes of our essence? Do we extinguish completely when our physical bodies cease to exist, or is there something beyond the physical; a soul that never dies? Sue Varley shares her experiences with the spiritual world in her memoir My Way Home. From childhood, Sue saw and felt things that were otherwise considered outside the realm of possibility. These paranormal events occurring in her life, pushed her forward on a spiritual journey. This journey eventually led her to become an intuitive reader, a medium, and a Reiki practitioner. As Sue opened her heart, mind, and spirit to the metaphysical world, she gained a clearer understanding of our physical world. We all hope that when our loved ones die, there is a better existence out there for them. Sue’s many experiences show proof of life after death and that the veil between these two worlds is thinner and more accessible than we could ever imagine. Her life’s path helps to ease our concerns about where our loved ones go, and what we can expect when it is our time to return . . . Home.

Finding Our Way Home: Women’s Accounts of Being Sent to Boarding School shares the personal stories of sixteen women, all of whom were sent away to board at an early age. Their accounts delve into the depths of long suppressed emotions and feelings, and the lifelong impact that the early separation from their families has had. Much has been written about the impact of ‘boarding school syndrome’ on male boarders, but less about their female counterparts. This book is the first to explore the experience from a purely female perspective, and offers an intriguing insight into the world of boarding schools and the upbringing of girls born in the mid-to-late 20th century. Finding Our Way Home is a book for everyone who ever attended boarding school, as well as psychotherapists and counsellors working with boarding school survivors.