This book tells of the pony ride to an awakening and other stories of the Spirit. Encounters of an otherworldly kind happen to many people. My efforts are to describe some of the spiritual experiences that we may encounter from early childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and then maturity, retirement unto renunciation, and then consciousness beyond death. We are closest to the Spirit at the beginning of our life, just entering incarnation from the Spirit, and at the end of our life, as we prepare to return to the Spirit. Sharing some of my psychic experiences and a few stories of my friends and family may serve as a guide for you in finding some similarities in these with your own experiences to reinforce the trust in these experiences as real and not imagined. We come from the Spirit and will return to the Spirit. There is nothing to fear from our teachers and ancestors in communicating with the Spirit to give us guidance, wisdom, and vision in this oftentimes difficult earthly life experience or to answer our questions. As we unfold our development going forward with open eyes and mind, we find that the truth unfolds and becomes more refined, like a lotus flower.

Though obvious, the productiveness of combining the three concepts of childhood, otherness and the postcolonial has not inspired much academic inquiry so far. The essays assembled in this book make up for this omission and address aspects of growing up in Australia and New Zealand from various angles. They base their argument on the premise that, whether in settler, migrant or indigenous communities, children tend to be ascribed a space of their own, mostly outside but never independent of that of adults. How adults configure this space both practically and imaginatively, for instance in the arts, in adult and children’s literature, in film and photography, or in historical documents, is one of the questions answered in the process. How these configurations have developed with time and under the influence of specific historical circumstances is another. Thus, the individual papers are more than a contribution to the current (re-)discovery of the theme of childhood in European cultures in that Antipodean Childhoods remains centrally concerned with the cultural specificity of childhoods lived in Australia and New Zealand and with the theoretical relevance of this specificity to postcolonial literary, cultural and historical studies.

Spiritual Awakening is mostly autobiographical. It is the story of the author’s life and how reflections and memories of events may have contributed to addictions to alcohol, work, spending, and lust. This awareness is chronicled by how the author recovered from alcohol and now enjoys over thirty-four years of sobriety. It further describes how the author is recovering from being a workaholic, spendthrift, and sex addict. It is a spiritual journey with all the attendant failure, suffering, humorous escapades, and trials that come into an addict’s life. It also describes the solutions that can and will lead to recovery, joy, and serenity. If you share any of the author’s defects of character, you will possibly identify. If you do, you will discover steps to take to achieve your own recovery and be restored to a life beyond your wildest expectations.

Ren Hurst finds her way to horses as a teenager, following a turbulent and painful childhood. They are her saving grace, her first experience of pure joy and freedom. She soon becomes a passionate horsewoman, intent on riding her way to the top. Her ascent takes an unexpected turn when compassion becomes the key component to success after she discovers an entirely new paradigm regarding equine understanding and practices. This understanding leads her to walk away completely from riding and training horses and into a world where relationship is all that matters. These innovative currents of change reveal themselves to be demanding and controversial, but also exceptionally rewarding and unavoidably far-reaching into Ren's personal life. She embarks on a wild quest of radical transformation, finding an ever-deepening compassion for herself and all life around her. This book is the story of a woman's metamorphosis through her falls, rises, and life-changing insights, under the wise and benevolent guidance of a powerful animal.

This book is about teaching the joy and understanding of classical music to young children. It is about enhancing intelligence and building self-confidence through music. It is about leading the child into a journey of self-discovery and many joyful experiences, through music, that should last a lifetime. The book is full of practical ideas, methods, techniques, and lesson plans for school teachers, parents, hospital caregivers, and musicians at every level who could obtain wonderful results through teaching, sharing, and living this timeless art. It is aimed at finding a way to retain this beautiful art in our education system. It is aimed at possibly creating loving work for parents, grandparents, caregivers, and young students. It is aimed at spreading love and communication through an art that has been around for centuries and is so readily available to all through modern technology. It is aimed at teaching the world to sing, love, laugh, communicate, and play ... through classical music! This book addresses the concepts, theories, and performance aspects of music, like many other books written, but with detailed lesson plans and stories so a person, with a short course of music training, could get straight to work and start teaching a music class. The book is written with step-by-step processes that are fun for children. The activities and ideas in this book have been practised with countless children by the author for the past twenty-two years.

The O'Neil's buy a country mansion and have it refurbished to their taste. Shortly after they move in, a number of serious incidents occurs that baffled both them and the police as there appeared to be no reason for any perpetrators to attack the innocent buyers....or was there?

Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-317) and index.