The world of Celtic Christianity explored.

Cutting through the mists of Celtic myth, this historical account introduces the saints to us as real men and women in pursuit of holiness. The Celtic period began in 435 and ended in 715; this work tells the stories of the various branches of the Celtic church in this period.

This book aims to 'show us the holy sites of Britain Ireland and mainland Europe through Celtic eyes', which means that it inevitably takes a somewhat spiritual 'mind body and spirit' tone. That said it offers a fascinating introduction to oral traditions of celtic religion and its ties to the landscape.

Most books about Celtic saints are based on their legendary medieval lives. This book, however, focuses on the sites where these early Christians lived and worked. Archaeology, combined with early inscriptions and texts, offers us important clues which help us to piece together something of the fascinating world of early Christianity. The book is illustrated with the author's own evocative photographs of the sites where the Celtic saints of Wales worked and prayed. The reader is therefore drawn into the beautiful world which these men and women inhabited. 'Celtic Saints of Wales' includes accounts of most well-known saints, and a number of less famous individuals. It is not, however, exhaustive: lack of historical data means that there are hundreds more Celtic monks and nuns, of whom we know little beyond their names. The book is easy to read, with an Introduction and maps to pinpoint the sites described and photographed. It is aimed at a broad reading public. Since it is both readable and fully illustrated, it will appeal to anyone interested in history, landscape or spirituality, and to Welsh tourists. Based on sound scholarship, it will also be of value to students of history, religion and culture.

Carrying only basic camping equipment and a collection of the world's great spiritual writings, Belden C. Lane embarks on solitary spiritual treks through the Ozarks and across the American Southwest. For companions, he has only such teachers as Rumi, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Thomas Merton, and as he walks, he engages their writings with the natural wonders he encounters--Bell Mountain Wilderness with Søren Kierkegaard, Moonshine Hollow with Thich Nhat Hanh--demonstrating how being alone in the wild opens a rare view onto one's interior landscape, and how the saints' writings reveal the divine in nature. The discipline of backpacking, Lane shows, is a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Just as the wilderness offered revelations to the early Desert Christians, backpacking hones crucial spiritual skills: paying attention, traveling light, practicing silence, and exercising wonder. Lane engages the practice not only with a wide range of spiritual writings--Celtic, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi Muslim--but with the fascination of other lovers of the backcountry, from John Muir and Ed Abbey to Bill Plotkin and Cheryl Strayed. In this intimate and down-to-earth narrative, backpacking is shown to be a spiritual practice that allows the discovery of God amidst the beauty and unexpected terrors of nature. Adoration, Lane suggests, is the most appropriate human response to what we cannot explain, but have nonetheless learned to love. An enchanting narrative for Christians of all denominations, Backpacking with the Saints is an inspiring exploration of how solitude, simplicity, and mindfulness are illuminated and encouraged by the discipline of backcountry wandering, and of how the wilderness itself becomes a way of knowing-an ecology of the soul.

This book seeks to address the journeying context of pilgrimage within the landscapes of Medieval Britain. Using four case studies, an interdisciplinary methodology developed by the author is applied to four different geographical and cultural areas of Britain to investigate the practicalities of travel along the Medieval road network.

This book surveys the influence of the middle ages, and of medieval attitudes and values, on later periods and on the modern world. Many artistic, political and literary movements have drawn inspiration and sought their roots in the thousand years between 500 and 1500 AD. Medieval Christianity, and its rich legacy, has been the essential background to European culture as a whole.Gothic architecture and chivalry were two keys to Romanticism, while nationalists, including the Nazis, looked back to the middle ages to find emerging signs of national character. In literature few myths have been as durable or popular as those of King Arthur, stretching from the Dark Ages to Hollywood. In Search of the Holy Grail is a vivid account of how later ages learnt about and interpreted the middle ages.

Phanes (fa-nays) means "manifester" or "revealer", and is related to the Greek words "light" and "to shine forth". Phanes Press was founded in 1985 to publish quality books on the spiritual, philosophical, and cosmological traditions of the Western world. Since that time, we have published 45 books, including five volumes of Alexandria, a book-length journal of cosmology, philosophy, myth, and culture. The year 2000 marks our fifteen-year anniversary, and we are working to bring out more interdisciplinary works, including books on creativity, psychology, literature, and the intersections between science, spirituality, and culture. Study of ancient zodiacal societies and the enchantments which kept them in harmony with the cosmos.

In the tradition of Kathleen Norris, Terry Tempest Williams, and Thomas Merton, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes explores the impulse that has drawn seekers into the wilderness for centuries and offers eloquent testimony to the healing power of mountain silence and desert indifference. Interweaving a memoir of his mother's long struggle with Alzheimer's and cancer, meditations on his own wilderness experience, and illuminating commentary on the Christian via negativa--a mystical tradition that seeks God in the silence beyond language--Lane rejects the easy affirmations of pop spirituality for the harsher but more profound truths that wilderness can teach us. "There is an unaccountable solace that fierce landscapes offer to the soul. They heal, as well as mirror, the brokeness we find within." It is this apparent paradox that lies at the heart of this remarkable book: that inhuman landscapes should be the source of spiritual comfort. Lane shows that the very indifference of the wilderness can release us from the demands of the endlessly anxious ego, teach us to ignore the inessential in our own lives, and enable us to transcend the "false self" that is ever-obsessed with managing impressions. Drawing upon the wisdom of St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhardt, Simone Weil, Edward Abbey, and many other Christian and non-Christian writers, Lane also demonstrates how those of us cut off from the wilderness might "make some desert" in our lives. Written with vivid intelligence, narrative ease, and a gracefulness that is itself a comfort, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes gives us not only a description but a "performance" of an ancient and increasingly relevant spiritual tradition.