Product Description
In Faces of Your Soul, Elise Dirlam Ching and Kaleo Ching combine art and archetypes, meditation and acupressure, guided imagery, journaling, and many different creative processes in a collage of healing knowledge and wisdom. The authors start by stressing the balance of complementary opposites—left brain/right brain, challenge/comfort, practicality/the sacred—as crucial to beginning the journey. Then through guided imagery, they lead readers through subconscious realms to connect with archetypal sources of inner wisdom. This process frees the creative and healing spirit, connecting explorers with the body's instinctive intelligence, which expresses itself through the creation of art. Central to this process is a detailed description of maskmaking—including how to work with a partner to mold each other's gauze mask—balanced with self-explorations of the inner experience of this event. Poetry, personal stories, photographs, and a gallery of Kaleo Ching's evocative totemic masks expand the reader's experience of this richly resonant journey to self. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (45)

This is not about art!
If you're looking for a book that helps to explain technique for mask making, this is NOT the one. This book is more about meditation and how to "tune in" to self in order to call up the dreams and vision to create.

Not worth the price. Not a how to book.

Self as resource of inspiration to create art
Kaleo and Elise write very clearly and carefullly so that one can approach this very personal process from many directions. This book makes it assesable for almost anyone.It is also written so that, while going deep within, during your process of becoming inspired, the actual process of creating, remains a sacred activity. Perhaps most importantly, Kaleo and Elise maintain the element of fun and playfulness throughout keeping it non-intimidating and encouraging.

Beautiful and Creative
I felt this book was very beautiful, artistic, and spiritual.As an artist I enjoyed the diverse multi-media to include poetry. As a Healer/R.N. I enjoyed reading and practiciing the Qigong as well as the rich informative research both authors have given to the public.
I highly recommend both books.

companion for my own journey
This book keeps on giving. It has become a friend that I use it in my studio as a reference for my own creative practices and as a step by step guide to mask making.It has exotic Hawaiian flavor sprinkled throughout that gives me a sense of tranquility. I was also transformed in the workshop led by Kaleo and Elise where I followed their example in making my first mask self portrait.
"Faces of the Soul" gives pathways to self empowerment through words, photos, notes, and Elise's poems. Kaleo and Elise love what they write and are good role models for creative seekers who want to find expression through words as well as images.
It is a great source book for creating highly personalized rituals that can keep an artistic soul energized over time. It is a door to an inner world that is fascinating and sustaining.

Unique blend of art techniques, spiritual tools, and personal anecdotes
I have thoroughly enjoyed Faces of Your Soul on many levels. On a practical level, I will be using it to facilitate groups in mask-making. But this books brings so much more than that to the table. It uses mask-making as a way for people of all ages to get in touch with their innermost selves or "souls", to deepen their connection with life and to empower them to move forward, trusting their inner voices.

The book offers detailed instructions not only on how to construct the masks but on how to use guided imagery to access your inner voice and create from that place, rather than the more "mental" place we usually live in. The book is filled with illustrations of Kaleo and Elise's students and the fabulous masks they've made, showing that both children and adults can be set free to make wildly imaginative works of art. The journal entries of the authors add a very warm and personal touch to the tone of the book. Some of Elise's gorgeous poetry is also included, which deepens the powerful impact of Kaleo's masks and is an inspiration to others.

Faces of Your Soul is both fun and profound--I highly recommend it!



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Product Description
The quintessential A-Z guide, this is a book that anyone interested in birds will want to have close at hand. First published more than twenty years ago, this highly respected reference volume has been fully revised and updated. It captures the fundamental details as well as the immense fascination of North American bird life in a style that is authoritative, yet fresh, witty, and eminently readable.

Both a practical handbook for amateurs and a handy reference for seasoned birders, it provides accounts of the basic elements of birdlife, as well as a wealth of easy-to-access information on such subjects as bird physiology and anatomy, terms and jargon, name definitions and etymology, and ornithological groupings.

Readers will discover everything from the color of a dipper's eggs (glossy, white, and unmarked) to the number of species of woodpeckers in the world (216). They will also find more than one hundred of the best-known and most colorful colloquial names for birds, alphabetized and briefly defined. Collective nouns relating to birdlife--for example, "an exaltation of larks"--are included in the "Nouns of Assemblage" section. Biographical sketches of persons responsible for describing or naming a significant number of North American species are also included, as well as handsome and accurate illustrations by Gordon Morrison. And for those who want to go beyond reading about their favorite birds and take to the great outdoors, the book offers still more useful information: descriptive entries on a selection of the best-known birdwatching spots of North America. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Book!
Wasn't quite what I expected -- I thought I could look up "Stellar's Jay" and find a discussion of the Stellar's nesting habits.The book is organized around general topics, such as "nesting behavior", and within each topic you may find references to specific birds.That said, it's a great addition to my modest birding library. ... Read more

Product Description
A celebration of the dog features prose, poetry, artwork, and photographs by such figures as Napoleon, Admiral Byrd, President Harding, London, Kipling, Tennyson, Poe, Wordsworth, Twain, Stevenson, and others. Original. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Writers and Artists Celebrate Man's Best Friend ...
Description from the book back cover:

Dogs have been praised throughout the ages for their faithfulness, loyalty, bravery, and warmth.John Richard Stephens, author of the best-selling book The Enchanted Cat, has compiled a loving tribute to man's best friend by collecting the prose, poetry, artwork, and photographs of great writers and artists in one outstanding volume.Sure to warm the hearts of dog lovers everywhere, The Dog Lover's Literary Companion features selections from:Napoleon Bonaparte, who relates a moving tale of a soldier's faithful dog standing guard over his master's dead body as it lay on the battlefield; Sting, whose lyrics present a dog's view of people; Farley Mowat, who recounts the noble characteristics of the wolves he observed; President Lincoln, whose poetry reveals his amazing insight into the nature of dogs and humans.Also included is praise of dogs from such great literary figures as Shakespeare, Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Lord Tennyson, D.H. Lawrence, Will Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, William Wordsworth, O. Henry, Hemingway, Benjamin Franklin, John Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mark Twain, Marco Polo, James Herriot, and a host of others.Complementing the written praise of dogs and their qualities are skillful works of art by masters such as Rembrandt, Goya, Picasso, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, and da Vinci; contemporary artists such as Donald Roller Wilson and Edward Gorey; and a sketch of two children with their dog, drawn by Queen Victoria.
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