A Cowherd In Paradise

A Cowherd in Paradise chronicles the remarkable lives of Wong Guey Dang (1902–1983) and Jiang Tew Thloo (1911–2002). Ah Dang was born into an impoverished family and sold as a child. In 1921, his adoptive father paid a five-hundred-dollar head tax to send Ah Dang to Canada. Eight years later, driven to create a family of his own, Ah Dang returned to China, where he chose Ah Thloo as his bride from a matchmaker’s photo. As a child, Ah Thloo worked as a cowherd and from the age of six was responsible for her family’s fortune—their water buffalo. Ah Thloo not only became a wife and mother, but also grew to be a courageous defender against invaders and a champion of the weak. Married for over half a century, the couple was forced to live apart for twenty-five years because of Canada’s exclusionary immigration laws. In Canada, Ah Dang became a successful Montreal restaurateur; while in China, Ah Thloo struggled to survive through natural disasters, wars, and revolutions. A Cowherd in Paradise is the moving tale of one couple’s search for love, family, and forgiveness.

Finalist for a 2014 Alberta Literary Award Between 1870 and 1970, 26 million Italians left their homeland and travelled to places like Canada, Australia and the United States, in search of work. Many of them never returned to Italy. Against this historic backdrop comes the story of Rosina, a Calabrian matriarch, who worked as a midwife in an area where only one doctor served three villages. She was also the only member of the Russo family to remain in Italy after the mass migration of the 1950s. Written by Rosina’s great-great- granddaughter, Rosina, the Midwife is a charming memoir that is at once a Canadian story and an Italian one. Through Kluthe’s meticulous research and great insight, we see her great-grandfather Generoso labouring through the harsh Edmonton winter in order to buy passage to Canada for his wife and children; we glimpse her grandmother Rose huddled in a third-class cabin, sick from the motion of the boat; and we watch, teary-eyed, as her great-great-grandmother Rosina is forced to say goodbye, one by one, to the people she loves.

This Bhagavatha is a dialogue between a person under the sentence of death and a great saint, who prepared him to meet it. We’re all under a sentence of death; our hearts, like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to the grave. Some reach it late, some soon. We require the counsel of a great saint to prepare us, too, for meeting Death and witness the horizon beyond. The Bhagavatha is a Ganga, emerging from the Lord and merging in Him after a long journey through geographic descriptions, historic annals, philosophic disquisitions, hagiological narratives, epistemological enquiries, and after fertilising the vast valleys of human minds with the pure pellucid waters of Krishna episodes. Bhagavan has come again as Sathya Sai for the revival of dharma among men. One important aspect of that revival is the reestablishment of reverence for the ancient spiritual texts, like the Bible, the Koran, the Zend Avestha, the Tripitaka, the Vedas, and the Bhagavatha. Reverence can spring at the present time only when the inner meanings of the statements and stories are explained in clear, simple, charming style, by the very Person who inspired the original scripture. Here, in this book, we have His version of that voluminous textbook of devotion (bhakthi) that Vyasa composed at the suggestion of the sage Narada, so that he could win peace and equanimity. This is not just a book, dear reader. It is a balm, a key, a mantra —to soften, solve, and save, to loosen the bonds, to liberate from grief and pain, thirst, and tutelage. Open it with humility, read it with diligence, revere it with devotion, observe its lessons with steadfastness, and reach the Goal that Vyasa reached and Narada attained, that Suka taught and Parikshith learned. What greater recompense can man hope for? N. Kasturi, Prasanthi Nilayam, Guru Pournami 18 July 1970

This book is a dramatic presentation in three Acts about one of the most significant episodes of the Shrimad Bhagavatam the birth of Lord Krishna. It is a story about the atrocities committed by King Kamsa and his subsequent fall and death by Krishna.ACT ONE deals with the tragic fate of Devaki and Vasudeva, Krishna`s parents, and their incarceration into prison.ACT TWO is a joyous account of Krishna`s early childhood, his divine relationship with the Gopis and Radha.ACT THREE sees the culmination of the divine prophecy, and the death of Kamsa.

This rich anthology of writings about heaven spans the millennia as well as the globe: the sacred chants of the Buddhist Pure Land sutras reverberate alongside John Donne's holy sonnets, and Shaker songs complement Jewish mystical hymns. 10 illustrations.

A fascinating exploration of the symbolism of mountains in the mythologies, religions, literature, and art of cultures around the world.