Following on from the success of Theresa Cheung's previous 21 Ritual series comes a nature-based daily practice book. It contains 21 simple, easy daily rituals to help you tune into the natural world around you helping you to feel more grounded and connected to yourself and others. It is well known that spending time in nature increases our health, vitality, and sense of wellbeing. Some researchers have linked obesity, ADHD, and other health conditions to a disconnection from nature (what Richard Louv calls ‘nature-deficit disorder’). The problem is that our society has never been as far removed from nature or our natural affinities with the nonhuman world as we are today. Spending more time in nature is an obvious solution to feelings of disconnection. Drawing on what science and psychology teach us about the benefits of connecting more to the living power of nature and how to strengthen it using the life changing power of ritual this book offers 21 powerful rituals that don’t necessarily require a wilderness trek or trip to the countryside. Readers will be encouraged to perform 21 ‘connecting with nature’ rituals every day over a three-week period as research shows that it takes around three weeks to ensure a daily ritual becomes entrenched at neural level. Some of the rituals will need to be performed outdoors in easy to find locations but others can be performed in your home or office. The first week will focus on connecting with nature indoors, the second in the fresh air and the third at a specific location so the progression to ‘wild’ nature is accessible. The rituals are very easy to understand and incorporate into everyday life; some in a matter of moments and others a little while longer.

* Invites readers to connect worship with ecological stewardship * Assesses and reconfigures Christian attitudes toward nature * Proposes a new understanding of liturgy and Eucharist

In Nature's Honor explores the eight solar holidays that mark the turning of the Wheel of the Year. Each chapter begins with a history of the holiday--the ways in which it has been celebrated from ancient to modern times, its relationship to other religious and secular celebrations and its cultural and mythological foundations. This history is followed by recommendations for specific activities to celebrate the season that individuals, families or small groups can enjoy. The chapters conclude with formal rituals suitable for use in larger faith communities. These include scripted narration, songs, dramatic enactments, litanies of seasonal blessings, readings from poetry and mythology and suggestions for ceremonial food. In Nature's Honor reconnects the modern spiritual seeker with the earth-centered practices of our ancestors. This work explores the seasonal rituals that celebrate the earth and our connection to it--which is not just physical but profoundly spiritual. FROM THE AUTHOR From the Authorz In writing this book, I discovered the most important theme running through the history of rituals related to the earth's seasons is renewal. The wheel turns and the old season gives way to the new, the old year to the new, the old life to the new. Each planting of seeds promises new possibilities. Each harvest brings sustenance for yet another year. Each fallow time regenerates the life of the soil. The sun deities retreat and return. The grain goddesses are lost and restored. The vegetation gods die and rise again. The cycle of life goes on and on, birth after death after birth. Perhaps what all the rituals celebrate is this ongoing-ness of life: the miraculous natural world that makes it possible and our abiding connection to it. For the ancients, the interdependence was clear. When the people fasted on the eve of a new season's beginning, they purified not just their own bodies, but the land itself. The fires that encouraged the fecundity of the land also made its people fertile. For us moderns distanced from the earth by technology, the interdependence is not as clear. And we are paying the price: in polluted air and water, in soil erosion, in deforestation, in global warming. How different the condition of the planet might be if we allowed ourselves to be renewed at each turning of the wheel of the year, if we took the time periodically to celebrate the beauty and bounty of nature.

In this volume, distinguished philosopher Antonio S. Cua offers a collection of original studies on Xunzi, a leading classical Confucian thinker, and on other aspects of Chinese philosophy.

Wild Rituals explores how embracing the rituals of the animal kingdom can make us more connected to ourselves, nature, and others. Behavioral ecologist and world-renowned elephant scientist Caitlin O'Connell dives into the rituals of elephants, apes, zebras, rhinos, lions, whales, flamingos, and many more. This fascinating read helps us better understand how we are similar to wild animals, and encourages us to find healing, self-awareness, community, and self-reinvention. • Filled with fascinating stories on 10 different animal rituals • Features original full-color photos, from the Caribbean to the African savannah • Demonstrates the profound way we are similar to the wild creatures who captivate us Wild Rituals journeys into the desert, tundra, and rainforest to reveal the importance of rituals and how they can help us find a simpler, more meaningful way of living. In a culture of technology where we find ourselves living at a greater distance from nature and each other, this remarkable book taps into the unspoken languages of creatures around the world. • Caitlin O'Connell is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and an award-winning author who spent more than 30 years studying animals in the wild. • Makes a great gift for anyone curious about nature, animals, and how humans compare to and interact with both • Add it to the shelf with books like Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina; Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal; The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion—Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben; and The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery.

Northup offers a captivating, in-depth examination of many of the issues regarding women's ritualizing -- such as the common patterns and images used, the construction of sacred space and time, the value of narrative, and the patterns of politics and social action. A fascinating, definitive study of post-modernism and universality in the context of women's worship.

Theologians working on the doctrine of creation are compelled to wrestle with Karl Barth's explication of this doctrine. And yet, studies on Barth have not paid a significant amount of attention to this aspect of his theology. To help fill this gap, Gabriel introduces and clarifies Barth's doctrine of creation by outlining its contours and evaluating three prominent critiques of Barth--critiques that focus on questions regarding the place of nature, the Trinity, Jesus, and history in his doctrine. Gabriel finds value in these critiques, while also identifying ways in which Barth's theology sometimes adequately addresses them. Through this, Gabriel mines insights from Barth that can contribute to a theology of nature or ecological theology and a Trinitarian theology of creation.