Along the oldest river in North America, New River, Zoe and Tod take a vacation with their teenage daughter Diana, who is experiencing a heartbreak. The beauty of Appalachia presents a new world in many ways, with intimations of the past and future mixing together. When Diana is swept down river due to unknown causes, an unexpected world opens up. Laden with dangers and tests, the question arises whether another world can help bring love to this one.

A wave of authoritarianism is sweeping the planet, tempting people to choose a dark path. It would be in our interest to know the traits of empires, so we can be alert to its dangers, to prevent and control its rise. Yet we are not taught to name the reality or to identify empire's basic traits. Thus, this work seeks to make clear the traits of the empire path. Then, this work wrestles with questions "Is there a good empire? Is a more utopian vision possible? And, if we are in an empire, how do we resist and build to a better future? We invite you to read this work to understand the flow of history and to gain hope that our world and its children can live in a richer, freer world.

The stories in this work describe depth psychological experiences of persons who often ended up in psychiatric hospitals. Beyond suffering and pain, these person's stories show a spirit and courage which led them to become advocates or artists. Many of the authors are well known and part of a national and international movement, advocating for rights of those in the psychiatric system. This work also includes a handful of professionals who may not have been hospitalized, but have found effective methods to help those in distress. Read this work if you want to see what happens in intense psychological experiences, and how the path to healing has been discovered.

In the outback of tropical Queensland, Australia. Finn discovers an archaic preserve. There, a Giant Salamander takes him on an evolutionary adventure through ancient eras that culminates in the time of the dinosaurs. This story embraces the paradox of how smaller animals, like mammals, survived. At the end Finn lives to tell his story and is coaxed back to his sanity, as he explains his wounds to his friends. Read this story to have a fun adventure and deeper insight into our evolutionary and personal journey.

This work is a satire, interpreting current events from an atypical, what-if vantage. What if we take our goal to be hurling to our destruction? Why go slow and prolong the pain and suffering of collapsing structures and deteriorating surroundings? Things can be ended more quickly. This is a satirical guide to how to accomplish this, which hopefully calls into questions many commonly held attitudes and behavior.

This work invites us to enter the world of mementos, as to their significance and hidden meaning. By way of example, the author describes ten mementos from his own desk. His "first reflections" describe the object and the immediate story behind them. In his "second reflections," the author ventures into the philosophic and metaphysical domains to consider each memento's meaning. The ordinary world of mementos may not give us much pause during the course of the day. Yet they are in front of us and telling us something important about ourselves and our lives You are invited to take a journey into this world of mimentos, so you may begin to explore the meaning of yours, and discover what is being said to you.

People often appear in gospel stories, with no more than a few sentences. This work seeks to open up their inner worlds, including a soldier who guards a dead body, a madman who lives among tombs, and a woman battles seven demons. What surprises us is not only how much can be imagined, but how much courage and a fierce love are present in these stories.

This work exposes us to the Amerindian world view, offering six awarenesses and six practices. An awareness, such as being in touch with the "shamanic bone soul" and actions such as "mandalic walking" can gift us with an enriching and complimentary world view. Drawing upon the author's own symbolic experiences and after years of study, he presents the essence of what he has learned. This work also draws upon two recent projects, interpreting markings on a stone tablet found near the Shenandoah River in Virginia, as well as a stone formation at Penn Bluff, Alabama, which resonates with Eastern Woodland symbolism. We are invited to enter into the Indigenous worldview, so that we may expand our sense of possibilities in the universe and live a fuller life.

This work offers an alternative paradigm for viewing life and its dynamic capacity for change. Rather than looking at the end result of evolution with concepts such as fitness, we focus on the actual process of change, which is fragile. Using plain-spoken language and based on an earlier scholarly work, six biological domains which exhibit fragility and make for evolutionary novelty are examined. 1) the organism's dynamic genome, which exhibits a remarkable fluidity and interactivity with the environment; 2) Symbiosis, which involves the creative merger of two types of organisms; 3) Sexuality, in which sexes merge to produce unique offspring; 4) Multicellularity, which makes for most of earth's macroscopic life; 5) Development, which are changes during the fragile period of immaturity. 6) The principle of the "head", a holistic/controlling dimension of the organism, which is inherently fragile and dynamic; 7) The social dimension, with both fragile cooperative and competitive interactions, and; 8) The ecological dimension with its interwoven, delicate web of connections. To this we can add a cumulative dimension, embraces a spirituality of biology. Instructing youth and having the public become aware of models, which consider the fragility and sacrificial dimension of dynamic change, would enhance our personal lives and increase the chances for humanity's and the biosphere's survival on earth. Read this work to gain a healthy view of the reality of biological organisms and how dynamic change occurs.

This book offers ten sayings the author has found himself using to guide himself during the course of his life. They range from becoming young and renewing, to helping you overcome obstacles during difficult times. Take this journey of interesting reflections and add them to your own sayings, discovering the ones that will help you lead a fuller life.