This is the story of my life and what I needed to do to survive. My daydreams were my escape from life when I was a child. When I became an adult I learned there was always something I could do to make things better like getting a job for more money. If a project doesnt work one way you can weave around and go another way. I feel like Ive been weaving in and out all of my life. The most important thing is to never give up. A person can do anything if they never give up. That is the message that I hope you receive from my book.

Handmade textiles are personal, no matter where in the world they're created, and these photos and explanations of 25 diverse world cultures' techniques vividly share the details. Take a voyage through these pages and see how today's artisans continue to create traditional fiber arts with age-old methods. Blending well-researched information, engaging style, and inspiration, the pages explore espadrilles, flatwoven rugs, mittens, voudou flags, mirror embroidery, and the histories they hold. This open-eyed approach will appeal to textile devotees, from the casually curious to professional artists, and to people who are interested in heritage crafts and diverse cultures. Brandon has written for more than a decade for WARP (Weave A Real Peace), anonprofit networking organization whose members are dedicated toimproving the quality of life of textile artisans in communities inneed.

For the Yaka of Southwestern Zaire, infertility is a tear in the fabric of life, and the Khita fertility ritual is a trusted way of reweaving the damaged strands. In Weaving the Threads of Life Rene Devisch offers an extended analysis of the Khita cult, which leads to an original account of the workings of ritual healing. Drawing on many years among urban and rural Yaka, Devisch analyzes their understanding of existence as a fabric of firmly but delicately interwoven threads of nature, body, and society. The fertility healing ritual calls forth forces, feelings, and meanings that allow women to rejoin themselves to the complex pattern of social and cosmic life. These elaborate rites—whether simulating mortal agony and rebirth, gestation and delivery, or flowering and decay; using music and dance, steambath or massage, dream messages or scarification—are not based on symbols of traditional beliefs. Rather, Devisch shows, the rites themselves generate forces and meaning, creating and shaping the cosmic, physical, and social world of their participants. In contrast to current theoretical methods such as postmodern or symbolical interpretation, Devisch's praxiological approach is unique in also using phenomenological insights into the intent and results of anthropological fieldwork. This innovative work will have ramifications beyond African studies, reaching into the anthropology of medicine and the body, comparative religious history, and women's studies.

Seriously . . . another book that tells you how to live a good life? Don’t we have enough of those? You’d think so. Yet, more people than ever are walking through life disconnected, disengaged, dissatisfied, mired in regret, declining health, and a near maniacal state of gut-wrenching autopilot busyness. Whatever is out there isn’t getting through. We don’t know who to trust. We don’t know what’s real and what’s fantasy. We don’t know how and where to begin and we don’t want to wade through another minute of advice that gives us hope, then saps our time and leaves us empty. How to Live a Good Life is your antidote; a practical and provocative modern-day manual for the pursuit of a life well lived. No need for blind faith or surrender of intelligence; everything you’ll discover is immediately actionable and subject to validation through your own experience. Drawn from the intersection of science, spirituality, and the author’s years-long quest to learn at the feet of masters from nearly every tradition and walk of life, this book offers a simple yet powerful model, the “Good Life Buckets ” —spend 30 days filling your buckets and reclaiming your life. Each day will bring a new, practical yet powerful idea, along with a specific exploration designed to rekindle deep, loving, and compassionate relationships; cultivate vitality, radiance, and graceful ease; and leave you feeling lit up by the way you contribute to the world, like you’re doing the work you were put on the planet to do. How to Live a Good Life is not just a book to be read; it’s a path to possibility, to be walked, then lived.

William Everett has taught in Catholic and Protestant theological schools in the United States, Germany, India, and South Africa. Out of these rich and varied experiences he lays out here in concise manner the main concepts, theories, and commitments that have emerged in his work. From his origins in Washington, DC, to his later research in Germany, India, South Africa, and Cyprus, he reflects on how his experience and life story have shaped his intellectual and religious vision. This exposition of his thought ranges from construction of frameworks for relating Christianity to the behavioral sciences to substantive engagement with concepts of covenant and constitutionalism, the oikos of work, family, and faith, and ecological and restorative justice. Moving beyond the academic, he shows us how his poetry, liturgies, historical fiction, and woodcraft also manifest many of these themes in other forms. In this exposition and interrogation of his life and work, Everett invites us into deeper reflection on the connections that constitute our own.

Vibrant, vivacious and gorgeous, Wendy Shanker is a fat girl who has simply had enough - enough of family, friends, co-workers, women's magazines, even strangers on the street all trying (and failing) to make her thin. With her mandate to change the world - and the humour and energy to do it - Wendy shows how media madness, corporate greed and even the most well-intentioned loved ones can chip away at a woman's confidence. She invites people of all sizes, shapes and dissatisfactions to trade self-loathing for self-tolerance, celebrity worship for reality reverence, and a carb-free life for a guilt-free Krispy Kreme. Wendy explores dieting debacles, full-figured fashions and feminist philosophy while guiding you through exercise clubs, doctors' offices, shopping malls and the bedroom. In the process, she will convince you that you can be fit and fat, even as the weight loss industry conspires to make you think otherwise. The Fat Girl's Guide to Life invites you to step off the scales and weigh the issues for yourself.

Are you happy? Do you sleep well, eat well, and appreciate what you have? Or are you just going through the motions of living? Life means different things to all of us. For some, it is a very serious business, and for some, it is fun and games. But, all said and done, the quest for that one elusive element, happiness, is something that we all pursue. We try to find it in our own way, inside us, outside, in material things, in our relationships, and in all the things we strive to achieve. For all that enterprise, people who are successful in the worldly sense often feel a degree of alienation and sadness in life. Stress, anxiety, and fear rule our lives. How do we get happier? While there is no one miracle formula or shortcut to happiness, there are definitely many little paths one can tread in an attempt to get to that goal. My Way to Happiness is about understanding happiness and getting to it.