Standing At The Water S Edge

For most people who seek to create — whether they are artists, writers, or businesspeople — the daily task of immersing themselves in their creative work is both a joy and a profound challenge. Instead of stepping easily into the creative state, they succumb to chronic procrastination and torturous distraction. In Standing at Water’s Edge, psychologist Anne Paris calls on her extensive experience in working with creative clients to explore the deep psychological fears that block us from creative immersion. Employing cutting-edge theory and research, Paris weaves a new understanding of the artist during the creative process. Rather than presenting the creation of art as a lonely, solitary endeavor, she shows how relationships with others are actually crucial to creativity. Shining a light on the innermost experience of the artist as he or she engages with others, the artwork, and the audience, Paris explores how our sense of connection with others can aid or inhibit creative immersion. She reveals a unique model of “mirrors, heroes, and twins” to explore the key relationships that support creativity. Paris’s groundbreaking psychological approach gives artists valuable new insight into their own creative process, allowing them to unlock their potential and finish their greatest projects.

Takes readers on a journey of contemporary US history using primary sources and artifacts.

Everybody Out of the Pond At the Water's Edge will change the way you think about your place in the world. The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.

In her stunning new novel, Gruen returns to the kind of storytelling she excelled at in Water for Elephants: a historical timeframe in an unusual setting with a creature who may or may not be the hero of the story. After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year's Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis's father, a former army colonel who is already embarrassed by his son's inability to serve in WWII due to color-blindness. Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father's favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and, when he finds it, he will restore his father's name and return to his father's good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day, the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. Meanwhile, Maddie undergoes a social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and, finally, to love.

Ambitious young attorney Tom Crane is about to become a partner in a big-city law firm, but he must close his deceased father's law practice in the small town of Bethel. Tom's plan to quietly shut down his father's practice and slink out of town runs into an unexpected roadblock--two million dollars of unclaimed money stashed in a secret bank account.

From Norway's Queen of Crime comes a riveting portrayal of a community--its insiders, its outsiders, its fissures, and its secrets--after several young boys go missing.

"Joan Halifax is a clearheaded and fearless traveler and in this book...she offers us a map of how to travel courageously and fruitfully, for our own benefit and the benefit of all beings." —From the foreword by Rebecca Solnit Standing at the Edge is an evocative examination of how we can respond to suffering, live our fullest lives, and remain open to the full spectrum of our human experience. Joan Halifax has enriched thousands of lives around the world through her work as a humanitarian, a social activist, an anthropologist, and as a Buddhist teacher. Over many decades, she has also collaborated with neuroscientists, clinicians, and psychologists to understand how contemplative practice can be a vehicle for social transformation. Through her unusual background, she developed an understanding of how our greatest challenges can become the most valuable source of our wisdom—and how we can transform our experience of suffering into the power of compassion for the benefit of others. Halifax has identified five psychological territories she calls Edge States—altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement—that epitomize strength of character. Yet each of these states can also be the cause of personal and social suffering. In this way, these five psychological experiences form edges, and it is only when we stand at these edges that we become open to the full range of our human experience and discover who we really are. Recounting the experiences of caregivers, activists, humanitarians, politicians, parents, and teachers, incorporating the wisdom of Zen traditions and mindfulness practices, and rooted in Halifax's groundbreaking research on compassion, Standing at the Edge is destined to become a contemporary classic. A powerful guide on how to find the freedom we seek for others and ourselves, it is a book that will serve us all.