Includes quotations from the Bible.

Richard M. Moss, David Spero, Master Charles Cannon, and Swami Shankaracharya. This book contains intimate encounters with four modern spiritual mentors who have each undergone a radical process of "energetic" spiritual awakening, often termed Kundalini Awakening and who each teach with a strong emphasis on the awakening of the deeper energies inherent in Consciousness. In a way the spiritual teachers featured herein are the modern equivalent of the ancient Tantric Masters of the East. Energetic Spiritual Awakening is the movement of the innate spiritual energy (Life Force) dwelling within all human beings. It is, quite literally - the Dance of Stillness, the decent of grace, bringing about in its wake the dissolution of the small sense of self (ego) into the Infinite Ocean of Being (True Nature) and the subsequent full embodiment of that Divine Awakening in daily life. As the process of conducting the intimate interviews featured in this book unfolded, (during a month long trip to the USA from Australia) a unique pattern emerged. During pivotal periods of their awakenings, each of the teachers had been graced with a profound encounter with the Divine Feminine. While the Divine Feminine, as such, is not the specific focus of this book, it does form an intrinsic part of the total weave, and is indeed a deep undercurrent theme in the spiritual journeys of each of the teachers featured herein. In this uncommon book you will come to see that there is no one set fixed pattern to the awakening process. You will gain a glimpse into the mystery of the Divine Feminine, Mother Shakti, as She unfolds her power within these four unique spiritual aspirants. Bringing in her wake, the dissolution of the small sense of self, into the fathomless ocean of Life Itself, Here Now!

From the bestselling social commentator and cultural historian comes Barbara Ehrenreich's fascinating exploration of one of humanity's oldest traditions: the celebration of communal joy In the acclaimed Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich delved into the origins of our species' attraction to war. Here, she explores the opposite impulse, one that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for it: the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. Although sixteenth-century Europeans viewed mass festivities as foreign and "savage," Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West, from the ancient Greeks' worship of Dionysus to the medieval practice of Christianity as a "danced religion." Ultimately, church officials drove the festivities into the streets, the prelude to widespread reformation: Protestants criminalized carnival, Wahhabist Muslims battled ecstatic Sufism, European colonizers wiped out native dance rites. The elites' fear that such gatherings would undermine social hierarchies was justified: the festive tradition inspired French revolutionary crowds and uprisings from the Caribbean to the American plains. Yet outbreaks of group revelry persist, as Ehrenreich shows, pointing to the 1960s rock-and-roll rebellion and the more recent "carnivalization" of sports. Original, exhilarating, and deeply optimistic, Dancing in the Streets concludes that we are innately social beings, impelled to share our joy and therefore able to envision, even create, a more peaceable future. "Fascinating . . . An admirably lucid, level-headed history of outbreaks of joy from Dionysus to the Grateful Dead."—Terry Eagleton, The Nation

Abandoned by God and her husband, twin totems of her life to date, Morna Gordon embarks on a voyage of discovery, travelling first to California where she undergoes a series of extraordinary experiences, ending up in Disneyland, ‘the happiest place on earth’ – though not for her. Shaken, she flees to a near-deserted island in the Hebrides where David, historian and researcher, is working on the Life of a seventh-century saint. Morna, translator by profession, has to learn, through David and his saint, a new interpretation of the world. Her contribution to his work helps forge a powerful bond between them, and slowly, movingly, and despite the still smarting slap-down of the Catholic Church, they discover body as well as soul. The novel also explores the lives of Morna’s mother and daughter, charting Bea’s private crisis of faith and Chris’s stormy journey to maturity. Complex ties and tensions bind these three generations of women, all of whom suffer a ‘sea-change’. The Stillness The Dancing juxtaposes youth with age, the rational with the numinous, subatomic physics with ancient pagan ritual, the grab-all twentieth century with the hair-shirt idealism of the Age of the Saints. It is a novel full of contrasts – switching boldly from humour to tragedy and broaching vital themes of faith and doubt, sham and self-delusion, while losing nothing of the uninhibited exuberance for which Wendy Perriam is known. ‘Unashamedly sexual, yet profoundly spiritual . . . a remarkable novel. It must be read.’ Fay Weldon

A Girl Called Rumi, Ari Honarvar’s debut novel, weaves a captivating tale of survival, redemption, and the power of storytelling. Kimia, a successful spiritual advisor whose Iranian childhood continues to haunt her, collides with a mysterious giant bird in her mother’s California garage. She begins reliving her experience as a nine-year-old girl in war-torn Iran, including her friendship with a mystical storyteller who led her through the mythic Seven Valleys of Love. Grappling with her unresolved past, Kimia agrees to accompany her ailing mother back to Iran, only to arrive in the midst of the Green Uprising in the streets. Against the backdrop of the election protests, Kimia begins to unravel the secrets of the night that broke her mother and produced a dangerous enemy. As past and present collide, she must choose between running away again or completing her unfinished journey through the Valley of Death to save her brother.