Join a respected Jungian analyst for a deep dive into the emotional and symbolic journey of motherhood. Motherhood is the true hero’s journey—which is to say that it can be as harrowing as it is joyful, and enlightening as it is exhausting. For Jungian psychoanalyst Lisa Marchiano, this journey is not just an adventure of diaper bags and parent-teacher conferences, but one of intense self-discovery. In Motherhood, Marchiano draws from a deep well of Jungian analysis and symbolic research to present a collection of fairy tales, myths, and fables that evoke the spiritual arc of raising a child from infancy through adulthood. After all, this kind of storytelling has always been one of the most important conduits of humanity’s collective wisdom—and Marchiano provides each tale alongside keen insights into the timeless archetypes they represent. Balanced with real-life case stories from Lisa’s own practice and in-depth questions for personal reflection, Motherhood explores how events like pregnancy, the calamities of childhood, and the empty-nest experience are invitations to an adventure into the wild frontier of your own soul. Here you will discover: • How the challenges of motherhood send you on journeys into your innermost source • Seeing the value of conflict with your child even while working to solve it • “The dark passage” of confronting and dispelling the energy of childhood wounds • “The thirteenth fairy”—how to recognize when we are resisting inconvenient or uncomfortable truths • Understanding how anger, rage, and aggression arise in parental relationships • Recognizing the ways that you have been taught to ignore your deepest instincts • How to navigate the inevitable periods of grief that accompany your child’s many life changes • Why much of successful mothering requires surrendering your sense of control With Lisa’s gentle but straightforward guidance, you’ll return from this inner journey in possession of the treasured knowledge needed to clarify your values, embrace your disowned parts, and claim the mantle of motherhood in the full bloom of your empowerment.

A renowned Jungian analyst shares a call to action for women who dream of reuniting with their brilliant, creative, and fiercely independent nature. Within every woman lies a powerful force: a vibrant, sizzling spirit that lives life to the fullest. For so many of us, the burdens of responsibility, caretaking, and social expectations cause us to bury this essential part of ourselves under six feet of niceness. Yet as Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano says, “Our inner flame of embodied wisdom, sharp-witted cunning, burning passion, and empowered confidence is never truly extinguished.” With The Vital Spark, she invites us on an immersive journey to reclaim the split-off parts of ourselves that enliven and rejuvenate us—and allow us to become who we were meant to be. Combining personal stories, intercultural mythology, and guidance for inner exploration, Marchiano shares invaluable resources for breaking free from the conditioning that has kept us confined to rigid roles and muffled the sound of our souls. Here she invites us to explore eight core aspects of ourselves: shrewdness, disagreeableness, desire, trickiness, sexuality, anger, authority, and ruthlessness. Each chapter reinforces the truth of our relentlessly human narrative in the truest sense—allowing us to retrieve our “outlaw” energies, our discarded talents, and the deepest parts of our authentic selves. “When we try to domesticate our wild, assertive, and liberated spirit,” says Marchiano, “she flies away to some shadowy part of our soul, where she waits for us to find her again. Though she can be a bit savage and uncivilized, she is also the very best of us—and what we need to become whole.” The Vital Spark is a guide to recovering our courageous inner spirit so we can access her wisdom, her fire, and her burning aliveness.

Reproduction of the original: Jaunty Jock by Neil Munro

The "Para Handy Tales" is a collection of sea adventure tales written by author Neil Munro. Para Handy is the crafty Gaelic skipper of the Vital Spark, a steamboat of the sort that delivered goods from Glasgow to Loch Fyne, the Hebrides, and the west coast highlands of Scotland in the early 20th century. The stories partly focus on his pride in his ship, "the smertest boat in the tred" which he considers to be of a class with the Clyde steamers, but mainly tell of the "high jinks" the crew get up to on their travels.

We’ve been conditioned to think about creative genius as a dichotomy: dreamers versus doers, creativity versus discipline, the spark versus the grind. But what if we’re wrong? What if it’s the spark and the grind? We love people whose creative genius arrives in sudden sparks of inspiration. Think of Archimedes in his bathtub or Newton under his apple tree. But we also admire people who work incredibly hard and long for their creative breakthroughs. Think of Edison in his lab, grinding through hundreds of failed variations on the lightbulb. We remember his words in tough times: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.” Now Erik Wahl, a visual artist, speaker, and entre­preneur, helps us unite the yin and yang of creativity— the dynamic new ideas with the dogged effort. He shows why we won’t get far if we rely on the spark without the grind, or the grind without the spark. What the world really needs are the creators who can hold the two in balance. Fortunately, it’s possible to get good at both, as Wahl knows from experience. After his corporate career sud­denly ended, he pursued a spark—to paint photorealistic portraits—and ground it out until he got good enough to make very good art very quickly. That’s the basis of his riveting live shows, which have captivated skeptical audiences who never expected to be inspired by art—and taught them to embrace creativity in a whole new way. This book offers surprising insights and practical advice about how to fan the sparks and make the grind more productive. Wahl deftly synthesizes the wisdom of other artists, philosophers, scientists, and business visionaries throughout history, along with his own views. Here’s how he sums up his approach: The world needs people who enjoy swimming in ideas until they discover a great one. The world also needs doers who have a gift for activation, a.k.a. “getting s*** done.” But the most potent individual creators in any industry or environment have learned how to be both. They’ve learned how to spark their grind and they’ve learned how to grind their sparks. As a result, they not only make things happen, they make great things. If you want to ensure constant creativity in your life and produce your most innovative work—this is your guide.