This important engaging book records the first acquaintance of poets from American Indian and Native Siberian cultures as they come to recognize their similar cultures, life-ways, and reverence for the natural world. The poetic dialogues contain a mutual recognition of kinsmen across centuries of mutual isolation. Perhaps their chief value is the declaration of fundamental human values, expressing the authors’ deepest aspirations as spokesmen for traditional cultures. As Alexander Vashchenko concludes in his commentary, “This poetic calling-forth offers an important lesson to all of us who live from day to day, with confused priorities, without a thought to eternity; who forsake our original nature—our distant, ancient kinsman, the Bear, that mighty spirit of Mother Nature and powerful symbol of our enormous, universal nation.” The Foreword, Afterword, supplementary notes, and Editor’s Note limn the historical and biographical background that make this text a world’s first, inspiring a call for future intercontinental collaborations of indigenous writers. Contributors include Nathan Romero, Susan Scarberry-Garcia, Claude Clayton Smith, Alexander Vashchenko, James Walter, and Andrew Wiget.

"Records the first acquaintance of poets from American Indian and Native Siberian cultures as they come to recognize their similar cultures, life-ways, and reverence for the natural world"--back cover.

***NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK*** ​Feasting on the Word is one of the most popular lectionary commentary series in use today. This is the first in a new series of daily devotionals that draws from the wealth of writing in the commentaries to present inspirational reflections, responses, and prayers for each day of the lectionary year. Each day of the week contains Scripture passages for the coming Sunday from the Revised Common Lectionary, excerpts from the commentaries for reflection, a response, and a prayer. Additional material is provided for each Sunday.

Stories of the primordial woman who married a bear, appear in matriarchal traditions across the global North from Indigenous North America and Scandinavia to Russia and Korea. In The Woman Who Married the Bear, authors Barbara Alice Mann, a scholar of Indigenous American culture, and Kaarina Kailo, who specializes in the cultures of Northern Europe, join forces to examine these Woman-Bear stories, their common elements, and their meanings in the context of matriarchal culture. The authors reach back 35,000 years to tease out different threads of Indigenous Woman-Bear traditions, using the lens of bear spirituality to uncover the ancient matriarchies found in rock art, caves, ceremonies, rituals, and traditions. Across cultures, in the earliest known traditions, women and bears are shown to collaborate through star configurations and winter cave-dwelling, symbolized by the spring awakening from hibernation followed by the birth of "cubs." By the Bronze Age, however, the story of the Woman-Bear marriage had changed: it had become a hunting tale, refocused on the male hunter. Throughout the book, Mann and Kailo offer interpretations of this earliest known Bear religion in both its original and its later forms. Together, they uncover the maternal cultural symbolism behind the bear marriage and the Original Instructions given by Bear to Woman on sustainable ecology and lifeways free of patriarchy and social stratification.

Author and meditation tutor Shelley Wilson takes you on a magical journey to a calm and happy place that you and your child will love. Children of all ages can learn and enjoy the benefits of meditation. Designed to help access creative abilities through relaxation and imagination, these stories help develop the necessary tools needed at a young age for lifelong healthy habits of managing stress and anxiety while also improving learning skills. Meditation for Children is a simple way to introduce children to mindfulness through guided visualization. Includes a handy reference guide and instructions.