Simple Astrological Guidance for Self-Development and Conscious Living Concise and direct, this easy-to-use guide provides everything needed to uncover the secrets of your birth chart and reveal amazing insights about your true nature. You'll gain an incredibly expanded understanding of yourself—and others—with this book's extensive information and examples. Professional astrologer David Pond introduces you to the most important topics of astrology, including the zodiac signs, planets, houses, aspects, and more. He then builds on the basics to teach you how to interpret your astrological chart and those of the people in your life. From planetary patterns and Sun signs to retrogrades and cusps, this book brings the stars down to earth so you can study astrology with ease.

A guide to discovering and developing the spiritual and mystical talents hidden in your astrological chart • Explores the 4th, 8th, and 12th houses of the natal astrological chart—those connected with the water signs, the deepest and darkest areas of the individual psyche, profound spiritual insights, and hidden knowledge • Explains how to interpret the signs and planets in the water houses of your birth chart, including how to develop the innate talents and spiritual powers you discover • Reveals the occult and psychic significance of water and shows how this significance is expressed in each of the three water signs: Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, the rulers of the water houses Your astrological birth chart, or natal chart, shows the positions of the planets, sun, and moon at the time of your birth. Shaped like a circle or wheel, it is divided into 12 sections, or “houses,” each connected with a different area of life or self. The positions of the planets within the houses offer deep and often complex insight into your unique gifts and your life’s path. In Astrology for Mystics, Tayannah Lee McQuillar explores the 4th, 8th, and 12th houses--those connected with the element of water and all things occult, mystical, and spiritual. The fourth house, ruled by water sign Cancer, is traditionally the house of family, home, ancestors, and suffering. The eighth house, ruled by water sign Scorpio, is the house of sex, death, secret powers, and transformation. The twelfth house, ruled by Pisces, is the house of karma, loss, unspoken expectations, fantasy, and confinement. As McQuillar explains, these are the houses that reveal the deepest and darkest areas of the individual psyche, which many people are reluctant to explore, yet this triad is the key to profound spiritual insights as well as the discovery of hidden knowledge and abilities. The author guides you through interpreting the signs and planets that inhabit the water houses in your natal chart and shows how they reveal specific innate talents. She describes how to develop the hidden powers revealed by your chart and offers practical advice for incorporating this knowledge into your daily life for spiritual growth and self-improvement. Sharing interpretation examples from her practice, she also explores how to embrace the challenge of the occult water houses so you can claim the many treasures that can only be found on the ocean floor of the psyche.

'THE SEVEN CHAKRAS AND THEIR RULING PLANETS' is an empowering resource for all who seek to know the mystical within. The book is a guide that addresses each chakra and its ruling planet, explaining how these relationships affect and inform our lives. It offers practical tools, advice and exercises for balancing, healing and activating each chakra. Jardali's strength lies in her ability to offer down-to-earth tools and exercises that can be easily applied in our busy lives. Her style, although poetic at times, is grounded and concise; her book deals with metaphysical topics in a pragmatic way, with kindness, understanding and humour. Howla Jardali is a chakra astrologer with a passion for helping clients see life as a creative adventure of self-discovery. She combines knowledge of astrology, alchemy, archetypal psychology, yoga and ancient healing traditions into a magical contemporary blend that applies perfectly to today's busy, often disconnected lifestyles. Howla hopes her books will help readers discover their innate gifts and come to realize that they are already a masterpiece of wisdom - here for a purpose.

The idea of heavenly ascent, while popularized in Jewish mysticism, is neither a unique nor recent one. Expertly tracing its origins back to the ancient Middle East, Levenda unearths ascent literature in Africa, India, and China, discerns a common connection in the heavens themselves, and determines that this connection has been sorely neglected in contemporary scholarship. Because scholars treat the "heavens" as metaphorical, it is necessary to recreate the physical context of the culture under discussion in order to better understand it. For the benefit of the reader, Levenda offers two useful concepts for his investigative journey: a "map," whereby he means the cosmological system to better understand the mystical technologies of each culture investigated, and a "vehicle," the method by which the individual equipped with special knowledge is able to navigate the culture's particular cosmology. With these two tools, Levenda travels from the worlds of ancient Egypt and Babylon to the Hebrew Bible, to Jewish and Christian kabbalists, to Daoists in ancient China, to Hindu Tantra and Haitian Vodoun, and, finally, to nineteenth and twentieth century European occult societies.

Shinrin Yoku: "taking in the forest atmosphere," the medicine of simply being in the forest, "forest bathing." This book offers guidelines for finding peace and replenishment in any space --from turning off your phone to seeking the irregularities in nature, which in turn can make us less critical of ourselves. It offers tips not only on being fully present and mindful while in the forest, but also on how to tap into that mindfulness at home--even if home is the busiest and most crowded of cities. Forest Bathing explains the traditional Japanese concepts that help readers understand and share in the benefits of the Japanese approach to forest bathing--a cornerstone of healing and health care in Japan. These concepts include: Yugen: Our living experience of the world around us that is so profound as to be beyond expression Komorebi: The interplay of leaves and sunlight Wabi sabi: Rejoicing in imperfection and impermanence From the healing properties of phytoncides (self-protective compounds emitted by plants) to the ways we can benefit from what forest spaces can teach us, this book discusses the history, science and philosophy behind this age-old therapeutic practice. Examples from the ancient Celts to Henry David Thoreau remind us of the ties between humankind and the natural world--ties that have become more and more elusive to Westerners.