Fire From The Soul

Gifted healer Joan Borysenko believes that the wounds we suffer - and heal from - can be gateways to a transformation of the spirit, one that not only nourishes our souls but blesses us with the potential to help our world. In this enlightening book, Dr. Borysenko goes beyond psychology as currently practiced and taps a deeper vein of healing. She reveals to us the power of spiritual optimism, a philosophy that views life crises as opportunities for personal growth and spiritual homecoming. Drawing on her own experiences with tragedy and illness, as well as on anecdotes from her therapy patients, the author combines scientific knowledge with wisdom and insight to show how the most devastating events can initiate a fruitful search for meaning; how wrestling with the demons of pain, strife, and illness can lead us to discover our wholeness; and how meditation, prayer, and heightened awareness can serve as shining beacons during the proverbial "dark night of the soul." These are the times when the soul is on fire, fueled by torment and despair. Yet this same soul burns with an inner flame that can consume old beliefs and negative opinions, allowing a new soul to be born. Thus our darkest moments can lead to spiritual resurrection, bringing us closer to our true hearts...and to the heart of healing. Getting there, however, is never easy. "Dark nights of the soul" are perilous emotional voyages through stormy seas of suffering. Here the terrain is shadowy and home seems far, far away; here, most of us need a light to navigate by. "Fire in the Soul" is that light, an inspiring and knowing guide to spiritual safe haven in times of loss and pain. Its insight will help you shed self-blame, heal childhood wounds, and gain strength from adversity so that you can find the goodness that is everywhere and feel the love that lights our universe. This book also features a practical resource section listing books, tapes, and addresses of helpful individuals and organizations. One of its most comforting chapters contains stories, poems, and quotations to help restore and revitalize spiritual optimism. And that is the first step to leading a life filled with faith, love, and courage.

Fire From the Soul: A History of the African-American Struggle is more than a summary of the important issues and events in African-American history and a listing of who did what, where, and when. It is a powerful and provocative reinterpretation of the African-American experience from its African roots to the present and conveys important new historical information and ideas based upon extensive original research and the most important published scholarship in the field. Hard-hitting and compelling, the overriding theme of Fire From the Soul is the struggle against what Spivey argues is, and has been, America's most pernicious ailment and indestructible obstacle to black progress: racism. Historiography is also addressed to give readers a flavor of the real world of academics and black history writing with its ongoing debates, dramas, conflicts, and politics. The prose is lively and opinionated, forceful yet accessible. Going far beyond the traditional textbook treatment of black history, it is a fascinating book for those interested in African-American history, the African Diaspora, race relations, ethnic and cultural studies, or for those wanting to explore this chapter of United States history. "Spivey (Univ. of Miami) has provided an engrossing, vivid account of the African American struggle for freedom. Much more than a chronicle of events, this is an intepretive analysis of central themes in the black experience in the US.... Spivey takes up a wide range of issues, and his views are often controversial but interesting.... this volume ably connects the history of racism to the contemporary US. Summing Up: Highly recommended." -- CHOICE Magazine, October 2003

Impassioned civil rights activist, champion of women's rights, hard-driving legislator -- U.S. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is known in Washington as the "Warrior on the Hill." Fire in My Soul is the story of Norton's extraordinary political career, told from a personal perspective. Author Joan Steinau Lester met Norton in 1958 while they were both students at Antioch College. Fire in My Soul charts their longstanding friendship and tells of Norton's rise to leadership -- from her early on-campus activism to demanding a Senate hearing for Anita Hill to standing before the Supreme Court to uphold first amendment rights. Filled with scores of Lester's conversations and correspondence with Norton, interviews with Norton's colleagues and confidantes, and dozens of original photographs, Fire in My Soul is a compelling biography of one of the greatest political pioneers in American history.

I had never given reincarnation much thought, nor had I ever seen a psychic, but both of these elements came together one Halloween night. That one night was to change my outlook on life and my way of thinking forever. That evening started a progression of puzzle pieces floating into place. As each piece gently touched down, it added to a picture, a portrait that reinforced a strong case for reincarnation. My story weaves a tapestry of mystery and history, of love and the horrors of warfare. The journey was and still is a wondrous one, sometimes funny but at other times sad and physically painful. I force my beliefs on no one. I only ask that the readers open their minds to their own experiences, to take a good look at the world around them. As for me, I have no choice but to believe in reincarnation. I lived the story, and every word is true. Join me on an amazing journey through the eyes of two people: one a Georgian, the other a Connecticut Yankee. Similarities between the two go far beyond coincidence. They think alike, look alike, and even share facial scars. Their lives are so intertwined that they appear to be one. Half of this equation, Jeffrey J. Keene, a retired Assistant Fire Chief from affluent Westport, Connecticut. The other half, John B. Gordon, Confederate General, Army of Northern Virginia, died January 9, 1904. September 11, 2001 would start a new chapter in my life, literarily. In 2007, I was summoned to an online Reincarnation Forum dedicated to Children's past lives. I was called in to aid in verifying a child's information because of my knowledge of Fire Department operations and equipment. In less than a week, from the information given to me by the mother, on and off the forum, I discovered the boy was relating a lifetime of a New York City firefighter who perished in the events of September 11, 2001. After hearing his story, I call the young boy, The Phoenix.

"Farming While Black is the first comprehensive "how to" guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture. At Soul Fire Farm, author Leah Penniman co-created the Black and Latino Farmers Immersion (BLFI) program as a container for new farmers to share growing skills in a culturally relevant and supportive environment led by people of color. Farming While Black organizes and expands upon the curriculum of the BLFI to provide readers with a concise guide to all aspects of small-scale farming, from business planning to preserving the harvest. Throughout the chapters Penniman uplifts the wisdom of the African diasporic farmers and activists whose work informs the techniques described--from whole farm planning, soil fertility, seed selection, and agroecology, to using whole foods in culturally appropriate recipes, sharing stories of ancestors, and tools for healing from the trauma associated with slavery and economic exploitation on the land. Woven throughout the book is the story of Soul Fire Farm, a national leader in the food justice movement." --

Fantasy-roman.

"If You Don't Know Me By Now," "The Love I Lost," "The Soul Train Theme," "Then Came You," "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"--the distinctive music that became known as Philly Soul dominated the pop music charts in the 1970s. In A House on Fire, John A. Jackson takes us inside the musical empire created by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell, the three men who put Philadelphia Soul on the map. Here is the eye-opening story of three of the most influential and successful music producers of the seventies. Jackson shows how Gamble, Huff, and Bell developed a black recording empire second only to Berry Gordy's Motown, pumping out a string of chart-toppers from Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, the Spinners, the O'Jays, the Stylistics, and many others. The author underscores the endemic racism of the music business at that time, revealing how the three men were blocked from the major record companies and outlets in Philadelphia because they were black, forcing them to create their own label, sign their own artists, and create their own sound. The sound they created--a sophisticated and glossy form of rhythm and blues, characterized by crisp, melodious harmonies backed by lush, string-laden orchestration and a hard-driving rhythm section--was a glorious success, producing at least twenty-eight gold or platinum albums and thirty-one gold or platinum singles. But after their meteoric rise and years of unstoppable success, their production company finally failed, brought down by payola, competition, a tough economy, and changing popular tastes. Funky, groovy, soulful--Philly Soul was the classic seventies sound. A House on Fire tells the inside story of this remarkable musical phenomenon.

In Soul on fire, Eldridge Cleaver tells of his childhood and young adulthood; the years which shaped him into the man he was to become. Here is the tumult and violence of the 60's- from the viewpoint of one of that decades' most notorious outlaws; a viewpoint that will surprise some and outrage others... Soul on fire reveals the marvelous paradox that became Eldridge Cleaver's life, once he found the answer he had- unaware- been looking for all along. For here is his account of being a free man in Paris, yet miserable to the point of near-suicide; and returning to a jail cell in California, yet being happy to the point of tears