When Arlene Corwin is not thinking about music, yoga, our times and culture, God, love relationships, baths, coffee, time or science, she makes it a practice to write about something in nature - just to keep her poetic mind in trim. It usually begins with a simple observation a siting perhaps. Then, being the person she is, the siting suggests, evokes, implies expands. You could call it a meditation on nature in its many forms nature, including her own. Circling Round Nature has as wide a scope as has nature, the opportunities for observations and reactions diverse, endless. Nature is the flattened frog on the road, the mushroom, the plasticized face, the weather, cycles involved in everything: all the forces controlling the physical world. The result has become a mix of of 269 minutely observed, moving, thought provoking but colloquial and often downright funny poems. Written over a period of some 60 odd years, they continue to be written and collected right up to the minute of publication. After many years of practicing the poet's craft, Arlene Corwin, has honed her skills so that many -- almost any -- observation prompts her to poetry. Her poetry is clear and straightforward. The words on the page are as willowy and lithe as if they, like their author, were an experienced and accomplished yoga practitioner. But, better than that, Arlene is also a lifelong jazz musician and brings to her poetry a sensitivity to sound, line and rhythm and that is always musical. Like any lifelong meditator, she brings as well, insights -- not in a ponderous tone of voice but simply, with keen observation and sensitivity. These are poems to read and reread and savor as you would a recording of a good jazz set. - June Calendar

"Generally speaking, my collections 'circle' around something, providing me with a wide berth for treatment. So with the exception of the few things of which I have more certainty, as in my collections A Sense of The Ridiculous' or I Is Always You Is Me.--certainties which don't need a prefix verb, the subject of woman demands circling around it. 'Woman' means half the planetary population. I would hope to reach all ages but I suspect that this particular collection will speak most to the mature woman, the woman who has begun to notice her aging processes." As in To The Child Mystic (Authorhouse), Circling Round Woman is an unintentional memoir-cum-instruction book in poetic form: sharply observational, pragmatic, personal; nonchalantly, funnily and unscientifically scientific. Women friends of the author have commented that some of the poems have changed their lives, they being able to identify themselves with the theme. "When you can identify with a thing, you feel its universality and you feel accepted", say Ms Corwin. Circling Round Woman is concrete; easy reading, deep reading; philosophical and playful all at once. Circling Round Woman makes you laugh, cry and remember. It reminds you of who you are and what you are becoming.

This isnt just a collection about time. These are thoughts about wrinkles, birthdays, tick-tocking minutes, death, illusion and illusions. This circles around time and Time. The all-embracing.

For me, each poem to suggest a universal, despite each poem coming out of personal limited experience. I've always believed that someone out there will identify with the subject matter-the more broad-minded the reader the broader the identification.

These are critical times some would say self-caused and reaping, times. Rickety, dangerous - but on the other hand, a world loaded with gifts and potential. Its a fight between the goodies and the baddies, the flux within all of us. Circling Round Our Times, Our Culture addresses the whole with a sharp eye. It makes you sting, cry, go Oh yeah, I knew that! It makes you question yourself. After all, You are our times and culture! I dont see anything you dont see. Im just here to prick you in form and rhythm. says Ms. Corwin.

Lifes not a cloud of hodgepodge, but a sparkle of connections and reconnections disparate in appearance. Theres not a noun that fits. Not one cloud', sparkle, not one verb, adjective or noun that covers it because this thread of being is always changing its appearance. So we write. Differing poems, differing themes. But all one chain of links of different sizes and shapes: variations on a theme. One long metaphor for being-ness connected by causes subtle and apparent, immediate and easy to trace or long back and untraceable. With not one single word to take it all in, to describe it, name it, it is an appearance, a going-on. A perpetual ongoing. Also something to see through, to be comforted by when it looks like a cause for suffering, something to enjoy when it does not. It is lists of inadequate words and findings, of gradualness leading to suddenness, of the invisible to visible. Its everything. So we write about everything.

In our rushed, stressed society, it's sometimes difficult to spend meaningful time as a family. Now Starhawk, Diane Baker, and Anne Hill offer new ways to foster a sense of togetherness through celebrations that honor the sacredness of life and our Mother Earth. Goddess tradition embraces the wheel of life, the never-ending cycle of birth, growth, love, fulfillment, and death. Each turn of the wheel is presented here, in eight holidays spanning the changing seasons, in rites of passage for life transitions, and in the elements of fire, air, water, earth, and spirit. Circle Round is rich with songs, rituals, craft and cooking projects, and read-aloud stories, as well as suggestions for how you can create your own unique family traditions. Here are just some of the ways to make each event in the cycle of life more special: Mark Summer Solstice by making sweet-smelling herb pillows for good dreams Send a teenager off to college with the Leaving Behind and Carrying With rituals Comfort an injured child with the Tree of Life meditation Commemorate a loved one by planting or donating a tree As a one-of-a-kind resource for people of many faiths and beliefs, Circle Round will be a beloved companion in your home for years to come.