In today's world, it's often too easy to forget about the world outside the window. People struggle daily with stressful jobs, trapped under fluorescent lighting, staring at glowing screens, or surrounded by concrete when they could be outdoors, acknowledging the gifts of the natural world. In the face of its absence, we are finally beginning to understand that our connection with nature—plants, trees, animals, and the energy of the earth itself—is more than a luxury; it is a necessary and vital part of our existence. In Partnering with Nature, Catriona MacGregor weaves together historical, spiritual, and scientific examples to emphasize the importance of creating a vital relationship with our natural surroundings. Our separation from nature leads to several devastating effects, whether through stress, feeling a lack of purpose, or the heedless destruction of our environment. Through her exploration of the energies that link humans, animals, and the natural world, she shows how we can learn from nature as we develop our spirituality and ourselves. Through diverse approaches, Catriona offers the reader a solid understanding of why a connection with the Earth is vital to our existence, and how a revival of that connection opens doors to a myriad of benefits in our environment and in our health, our daily lives, and our happiness.

ISBN 978-1-58270-219-3 * Beyond Words, 2010 * 291 pages * $19.99

The widely used herbal antidepressant kava is damaging to the liver. Pregnant women should avoid most herbal remedies because of pesticides and preservatives required in the growth and storage of the herbs. Most ayurvedic medicines contain unacceptable levels of lead and other heavy metals. St. Johns Wort could complicate any chronic medical condition. Many people see herbal remedies as "natural" and therefore safe, but in Prescription or Poison?, Dr. Amitava Dasgupta explains that one of his first pharmacology professors taught him that "medicine" is just another word for "poison" and all medicines of any kind should be treated with great caution. This book, written for the layperson but based on solid science and research, explains how toxic many alternative remedies can be, alone or in combination with other widely prescribed drug treatments. He includes detailed information on the proper use of alternative medicines and their history of good results, while also cautioning readers in this wake-up call about the casual, often uninformed, and sometimes damaging use of alternative remedies.

ISBN 978-0-89793-550-0 * Hunter House, 2010 * 258 pages * $22.95

Kate West, acclaimed Witch and top-selling author in the U.K., can help you transform a garden of any size into a sacred space for healing, working magic, honoring the gods, and celebrating the Wheel of the Year. Incorporate the five elements or magical shapes into your garden. Work plant spells. Grow a window box of medicinal herbs. Honor your gods and goddesses with specific plants. Use Moon energy to help your garden thrive. Also included are spells and rituals for deterring pests, healing sickly plants, influencing weather, and consecrating your magical space.

ISBN 978-0-7387-2124-8 * Llewellyn, 2009 * 178 pages * $19.50

Recent scientific breakthroughs—demonstrating that mind body strategies can actually “switch off” or “switch on” gene activity associated with health and disease—have triggered a mind body revolution in the medical world.

In the 1970s, Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School ushered in a new era of understanding in the field of mind body medicine. Coining the term “relaxation response,” Dr. Benson identified the body’s physiologic reaction that is the exact opposite of the stress (fight-or-flight) response. In the four decades since that initial discovery, Benson and his colleagues have established the first effective therapy to counteract the harmful effects of stress. They have explored how the relaxation response, the power of expectation and belief, and other mind body phenomena can produce healing in your own body.

A new era has dawned. Genetic research now shows conclusively that the mind can influence the body down to the genetic level. Your mind has the ability to change the way your body and your genes function.

We now have scientific proof that the mind can heal the body.

ISBN 978-1-4391-4865-5 * Scribner, 2010 * 269 pages * $34.00

A new documentary about artist and teacher, Meinrad Craighead: Praying with Images tells the story of Craighead’s artistic and spiritual pilgrimage which began in her native Arkansas, where her greatest influences were the Catholic Church, the natural environment, and her grandmother who encouraged her to draw and paint.

The documentary includes nearly 100 of Craighead’s paintings, shown in beautiful detail. Viewers will see images that have flowed from her dreams and visions of the Divine Feminine over the last 50 years, experience her moving images and stories of the devastating 2003 bosque fire, and travel with her on a recent pilgrimage to visit her beloved Black Madonna of Montserrat in Spain.

“If I didn’t paint,” Craighead says, “I wouldn’t know where I am in the world.” Her truly original art spans time and distance and tradition to combine imagery from Catholicism, Native American shamanism, and ancient mythology. Add to the mix her own dreams and mystic visions and the result is a unique synthesis of energy, color, and connectedness.

At her home near the Rio Grande, Craighead leads workshops and retreats, introducing women from around the globe to history and ancient images of the Divine Feminine. She has also traveled all over the U.S. and to Europe to lecture on the topic. Through this new documentary, more people will be able to meet this extraordinary artist who paints from her own inner landscape and encourages a unique way of seeing one’s self and one’s place in the world. 60 minutes.

ISBN 978-0-9722035-3-1 * Resource Center for Women & Ministry in the South, 2009 * $35.95

Mindful awareness creates scientifically recognized enhancements in our mental functions and interpersonal relationships. But how can we integrate this information into our personal or professional lives? In the Mindfulness and the Brain audio learning course, Jack Kornfield, PhD, and Daniel Siegel, MD, offer theoretical and experiential teachings on the power of inner transformation and the cultivation of a wise and loving heart. Whether you’re a therapist, healer, educator, parent, meditation practitioner—or anyone interested in developing a healthy mind—this training offers a practical exploration of what it means for our world and us to be able to nurture and sustain heightened awareness.

In this training, you’ll discover how mindful practice helps reduce suffering and promote resilience; the “resonance circuit” that enables an individual to attune to oneself and others; and how intrapersonal attunement can catalyze mental, interpersonal, and psychological well-being. From scientific findings and down-to-earth Buddhist perspectives to memorable anecdotes and real-life stories that illustrate key concepts, Mindfulness and the Brain invites you to discover a more integrated and connected way of knowing and developing a wise and loving heart.

Course Highlights:

ISBN 978-1-59179-774-6 * Sounds True, 2010 * 6 CDs * 6 1/2 hours * $69.95

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, dizzying scientific and technological advancements, interconnected globalized economies, and even the so-called New Atheists have done nothing to change one thing: our world remains furiously religious. For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's religious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinctions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothero, and it is time to replace naÏve hopes of interreligious unity with deeper knowledge of religious differences.

In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the eight great religions. To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts to solve a different human problem. For example:

Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human beings have asked for millennia—and the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. A bold polemical response to a generation of misguided scholarship, God Is Not One creates a new context for understanding religion in the twenty-first century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the world's religions work.

.ISBN 978-0-06-157127-5 * Harper One, 2010 * 388 pages * $28.99

As a cardiologist, Pim van Lommel was struck by the number of his patients who claimed to have near-death experiences as a result of their heart attacks. As a scientist, this was difficult for him to accept: Wouldn't it be scientifically irresponsible of him to ignore the evidence of these stories? Faced with this dilemma, van Lommel decided to design a research study to investigate the phenomenon under the controlled environment of a cluster of hospitals with a medically trained staff.

For more than twenty years van Lommel systematically studied such near-death experiences in a wide variety of hospital patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In 2001, he and his fellow researchers published his study on near-death experiences in the renowned medical journal The Lancet. The article caused an international sensation as it was the first scientifically rigorous study of this phenomenon. Now available for the first time in English, van Lommel offers an in-depth presentation of his results and theories in this book that has already sold over 125,000 copies in Europe.

Van Lommel provides scientific evidence that the near-death phenomenon is an authentic experience that cannot be attributed to imagination, psychosis, or oxygen deprivation. He further reveals that after such a profound experience, most patients' personalities undergo a permanent change. In van Lommel's opinion, the current views on the relationship between the brain and consciousness held by most physicians, philosophers, and psychologists are too narrow for a proper understanding of the phenomenon. In Consciousness Beyond Life, van Lommel shows that our consciousness does not always coincide with brain functions and that, remarkably and significantly, consciousness can even be experienced separate from the body.

ISBN 978-0-06-177725-7 * Harper One, 2010 * 442 pages * $27.99

Mindfulness can transform pain. Over the past three decades, Jon Kabat-Zinn has clinically proven it. Now, with Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief, the man who brought mindfulness into mainstream medicine presents for the first time on audio his original practices for using conscious awareness to free us from physical and emotional suffering. This long-awaited two-CD program begins with an overview of how mindfulness changes the way our bodies process pain and stress. Listeners will learn tips and techniques for working with the mind and embracing whatever arises in our lives, however challenging. Then Jon Kabat-Zinn leads us in guided meditations drawn from his pioneering Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) methodology to help us work with and find relief from chronic pain, everyday stress, and emotional challenges, as well as to read and act appropriately in the face of acute pain. "Mindfulness can reveal what is deepest and best in ourselves and bring it to life in very practical and imaginative ways—just when we need it the most," explains Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief gives us a ready tool for overcoming even the most extraordinary difficulties.

ISBN 978-1-59179-740-1 * Sounds True, 2010 * 2 CDs * $19.95

Bringing mindfulness techniques to your psychotherapeutic work with clients. An integrated state of mindful awareness is crucial to achieving mental health. Daniel J. Siegel, an internationally recognized expert on mindfulness and therapy, reveals practical techniques that enable readers to harness their energies to promote healthy minds within themselves and their clients. He charts the nine integrative functions that emerge from the profoundly interconnecting circuits of the brain, including bodily regulation, attunement, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear extinction, insight, empathy, morality, and intuition.

A practical, direct-immersion, high-emotion, low-techno-speak book, The Mindful Therapist engages readers in a personal and professional journey into the ideas and process of mindful integration that lie at the heart of health and nurturing relationships.

ISBN 978-0-393-70645-1 * W.W. Norton & Company, 2010 * 288 pages * $35.00