The Beloved Vision

Everyone loves romantic music: the sweet melody of a Schubert song, the heroine dying for love in an Italian opera, the swooning orchestration of a Tchaikovsky symphony. But as Stephen Walsh - author of the highly praised Debussy: A Painter in Sound - points out in this intensely absorbing study, there is infinitely more to romantic music than meets the eye. The Beloved Vision amounts to a complete, entertaining and singularly readable account of the whole phase in music history that has become the mainstay of the twentieth and twenty-first century concert and operatic repertoire, with some little help from earlier times. The narrative begins in the eighteenth century, with C.P.E. Bach, Haydn and the literary movement known as Sturm und Drang, seen as a reaction of the individual artist to the confident certainties of the Enlightenment. The windows are flung open, and everything to do with style, form, even technique, is exposed to the emotional and intellectual weather, the impulses and preferences of the individual composer. Risk taking - the braving of the unknown - was certainly an important part of what the composers wanted to do, as true of Chopin and Verdi as it is of Berlioz and Wagner. It's an exciting, colourful, story, told with passion but also with the precision and clarity of detail for which this author is so widely admired.

A rich and luminous biography of nineteenth century music from the acclaimed author of Debussy: A Painter in Sound. When one thinks of “great” classical music—music with the most emotional resonance and timelessness—we harken back to the nineteenth century and the Romantic tradition. The emotional resonance of nineteenth century has moved generations muscians and resonated with countless listeners. It has inspired artists and writers. But no writer until how has adopted such a vividly insightful narrative approach as Stephen Walsh. With authority, insight, and passion, The Beloved Vision, links the music history of this singular epoch to the ideas that lay behind Romanticism in all its manifestations. And through this we understand Beethoven, Mahler, Schubert, Chopin, and Wagner anew. Walsh moves deftly from composer to composer, musician to musician, and crafts a brilliant intellectual biography of the period that helps both the expert musician and music lover to appreciate the aesthetics and poetics of the Romantic era that reshaped music and art. The Beloved Vision is a cultural tour de force, by turns bold, challenging, and immensely stimulating.

Love often seems uncontrollable and irrational, but we just as frequently appear to have reasons for loving the people we do. In Love's Vision, Troy Jollimore offers a new way of understanding love that accommodates both of these facts, arguing that love is guided by reason even as it resists and sometimes eludes rationality. At the same time, he reconsiders love's moral status, acknowledging its moral dangers while arguing that it is, at heart, a moral phenomenon--an emotion that demands empathy and calls us away from excessive self-concern. Love is revealed as neither wholly moral nor deeply immoral, neither purely rational nor profoundly irrational. Rather, as Diotima says in Plato's Symposium, love is "something in between." Jollimore makes his case by proposing a "vision" view of love, according to which loving is a way of seeing that involves bestowing charitable attention on a loved one. This view recognizes the truth in the cliché "love is blind," but holds that love's blindness does not undermine the idea that love is guided by reason. Reasons play an important role in love even if they rest on facts that are not themselves rationally justifiable. Filled with illuminating examples from literature, Love's Vision is an original examination of a subject of vital philosophical and human concern.

The foundation of the Way of the Beloved is discovered in the heart of love itself, where there lives and moves a will to exaltation of the other. To truly love another is to will the spiritual ideal upon that beloved one. When there is a mutual intention to exalt infusing the daily life of a man and woman, they enter into the Way of the Beloved. This handbook is an attempt to put into book form what authors Robert and Diana Van Arsdale have been teaching to small groups of couples since 1976. Their workshops offer an ageless set of protocols for the transformation of the love relationship between a woman and a man into a path of spiritual development. Here they present an integrated body of progressive, experiential exercises and meditations that were taught originally taught by Herman Rednick. Simply stated, The Way of the Beloved teaches a couple how to actualize the potential of their relationship through the intensification of love and compassion. Designed for couples in search of spiritual and emotional exploration, this guide offers methods intended to help them realize a vision of love fulfilled.

Maira Kalman, with wit and great sensitivity, reveals why dogs bring out the best in us Maira Kalman + Dogs = Bliss Dogs have lessons for us all. In Beloved Dog, renowned artist and author Maira Kalman illuminates our cherished companions as only she can. From the dogs lovingly illustrated in her acclaimed children’s books to the real-life pets who inspire her still, Kalman’s Beloved Dog is joyful, beautifully illustrated, and, as always, deeply philosophical. Here is Max Stravinsky, the dog poet of Oh-La-La (Max in Love)-fame, and her own Irish Wheaton Pete (almost named Einstein, until he revealed himself to be “clearly no Einstein”), who also made an appearance in the delightful What Pete Ate: From A to Z. And of course, there is Boganch, Kalman’s in-laws’ “big black slobbering Hungarian Beast.” And that’s just the beginning. With humor and intelligence, Kalman gives voice to the dogs she adores, noting that they are constant reminders that life reveals the best of itself when we live fully in the moment and extend unconditional love. “And it is very true,” she writes, “that the most tender, complicated, most generous part of our being blossoms without any effort, when it comes to the love of a dog.”

“A holistic vision breathtaking in scope.”—Frances Moore Lappé Distilling a lifetime’s insights on the triangle of healing emotional pain, social justice work, and spiritual growth, veteran activist and educator John Bell shares personal stories and reflective practices to help us on our path of personal and collective transformation Unbroken Wholeness brings an integrated lens of social justice, trauma healing, and spiritual practice to the work we do in the world and the pressing concerns of our times. Collectively, these writings help us access a view of the world as unbroken, even in the face of obvious suffering and disharmony. With searching questions and easy-to-follow practices, Unbroken Wholeness offers a way for activists to apply mindfulness and insight to bring about healing for seemingly intractable social divisions. “Skillfully handling our emotional pain about the world while cultivating a joyful and kind heart helps us navigate the troubled waters of our life,” says John Bell. Continuing the peace work of his teacher, the Vietnamese social activist and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, John Bell brings forward the importance of cultivating a practical yet visionary, ennobling view of humankind when engaging in the “mud” of daily difficulties that gives rise to the lotus of an enlightened, compassionate heart.

Debussy's life is of extraordinary interest because, like Wagner and Stravinsky, he crossed artistic boundaries, associating as much with poets and artists as with musicians. His father was active in the 1871 Paris Commune and the composer's childhood was thus unsettled, his musical preparation erratic, and his subsequent lifestyle somewhat bohemian by the bourgeois norms of the French musical establishment. He never went to a proper school, but was enough of a pianist to enter the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10. Whilst still a student he rebelled against the academy-taught "rules of composition" and constructed a language of his own, in constant rebellion against the heavy Wagnerian influence prevalent at that time.In the early 1900s he worked in Paris as a music critic. His own music during these years includes some of the greatest and most influential works of the early twentieth century: the opera Pelléas et Mélisande, his orchestral masterpieces La Mer and Images, a series of profoundly original piano works (including two books of Préludes), and the ballet Jeux, premiered in Diaghilev's 1913 season just before Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (which Debussy attended). His later years were plagued by the rectal cancer that eventually killed him in 1918. But he continued to compose until 1917This was a period of political and cultural turmoil in French life, the Franco-Prussian war and its aftermath, the Dreyfus affair with its religious and military undercurrents, the general instability of the Third Republic, and the First World War. Stephen Walsh's study combines chronological biography with a contextualised picture placing Debussy in the broad artistic and social environment of turn-of-the-century France, making this a significant contribution to the cultural history of the time.

This book is written for those who wish to explore the many types of religious experiences and pathways available to us a human beings. Celeste is a born-again charismatic Christian who sought and received many manifestations of the Gifts of Gods Holy Spirit in the end of the 1960s. Her people believe in reading the Bible, prayer and pure living. Charismatic believers of all faiths know He has never stopped communing with His own peopleeven until the end of time. It is believed by many He is again pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh. Miracles, tongues, prophesy, discernment, healing, knowledge, etc. are still in operation. He told His people they would perform even greater miracles than He has done. The authors are attempting to allow readers to find their own personal pathways and interpretations as seekers of knowledge and wisdom as they read through the prophetic messages received by Celeste since that time in 1965. He desires to share Himself with her and others who will hear His voice. If one is able to open ones heart, He may come into your heart center as the Living Lord Jesus. He wishes to show Himself to those who may not have had a chance to know Him or to understand the powers of His manifold life and teachings.