The Path Of Desire

"In the Western popular imagination, there is a singular association between Tantra and sex. But behind sensationalist stories of Tantric lovemaking lies a rich spiritual and textual tradition of which sexual union is only a small, and fiercely debated, part. In The Path of Desire, Hugh B. Urban takes us on an ethnographic journey to Assam, the heartland of Tantric practice in contemporary India, revealing the vibrant, dynamic lived tradition of Hindu Tantra. The Path of Desire expands our definition of kāma, a central concept of Tantra generally translated as "desire," to focus on mundane and worldly desires such as healing and childbearing. This more holistic notion of desire manifests itself in popular folk practice, which Urban categorizes in four forms: institutional Tantra, comprised of gurus, disciples, and esoteric rituals; public Tantra, involving offerings and temple celebrations; folk Tantra, focusing on practices of healing, protection, material wellbeing, and desire fulfillment; and pop Tantra, or how Tantra is portrayed in popular media such as paperbacks, comic books, and movies. The result is a nuanced understanding of Tantra as a diverse lived tradition"--

Traces the author's endeavors to restore and recreate her suburban garden, an effort during which she combated pests, neighborhood ecological limitations, and other elements while discovering the joys of organic gardening.

Poems that explore the notion of home in the suburbs - in the intersections, overlaps, and gaps between urban and rural.

Unpromisingly - for a walking book - Desire Paths begins on a hospital gurney as the author prepares for open heart surgery. Thereafter, it dances back and forth in place and time between an array of obscurely connected walks that Roy has undertaken over the years. Among the book's many characters and diversions are Wetherspoons, Capt. Picard, the Navy Cut sailor, the buried 'Spirit of Brighton', Wendy Craig, Harrods, Buddhism's Six Realms of Desire, 'Things to Do...' tourist brochures, Argleton redux, the abyss, strip-lynchets, punk residues, Milton Keynes, multiple identities and an inkling of what the future may hold for thoughtful walkers.Each chapter starts with a quote from Phil Smith's Mythogeography, specifically from the 'Legend' given in that book - 'legend' as in a set of definitions of symbols used on maps to define landscape features. Roy uses these symbols to organise the book. The main body of each chapter is an account of a walking journey he has done. These are not chronological: structuring the book around the mythogeography Legend has (dis)organised the walks into a sequence that wanders in and out of time. Towards the end of each chapter, Roy reflects on a Landscape Feature that corresponds to the Legend - exploring the workability (or playability) of mythogeographical concepts and illustrating how they have manifested in his own walking. Finally, the Jump Over the Back Fence notes in each chapter suggest further actual walks which readers could make.

When Megan Taylor accepted the job as private secretary for Yolanda Delgado, she knew she might meet Jacques Ducruet, the unscrupulous playboy businessman she blamed for her father's bankruptcy and suicide. But the appeal of a charity drive and the need to repay her grandmother for her business school education made her take the job anyway.

Urges readers to explore the God-given passions within their hearts, thus living life more fully while honoring their faith.

Desire lines are the paths that people create through regular usage. They appear where people repeatedly choose to walk and usually signify a route from A to B that’s quicker than the formal path provided. In most cases they indicate the mismatch between what local people want and what designers think people want. By employing some social research basics in the design development process, placemakers can work more meaningfully with local communities to meet their needs and aspirations. This is a practical guide to running public consultations, co-design and community engagement to help practitioners make the most of local knowledge and insight for the benefit of design. It offers guidance on managing community participation, and unapologetically aims to encourage designers to start thinking like social researchers when they undertake these programmes. It’s intended for placemakers - architects, urban designers, landscape architects, and other built environment professionals involved in the planning and design of public realm - who want to develop more people-centred, community-led design approaches.

'Deftly embroidered, the narrative is perfumed, with plants and flowers, signifiers of life, of love...a vivid and sometimes harrowing tale of yearning' - The Weekend Australian 'accomplished and devastating' - The Saturday Paper 'From the outset, the novel captures the attention of the eye and the mind with its exquisite sensory observation, its breathtakingly exact expressions of feelings and sensations.' - Australian Book Review Are you still a liar? The crafting of those five words, even without dispatch, left her chilled. Arctic Circle, 2012. On a lightless day at the end of the polar winter, landscape architect Evie Waddell finds herself exhuming the past as she buries Australian seeds in a frozen mountain vault - insurance against catastrophe. Molong, 1953. Catastrophe is all seven-year-old Paddy O'Connor has known. Shipped from institutional care in London to an Australian farm school, his world is a shadowy place where lies scaffold fragile truths and painful memories. To Paddy's south in Canberra, young Evie is safe in her family's embrace, yet soon learns there are some paths from which you can't turn back; impulses and threats that she only half understands but seems to have known forever. Blue Mountains, 1962. From their first meeting as teenagers at a country market, Paddy and Evie grow a compulsive, unconventional love that spans decades, taking them in directions neither could have foreseen. Set against the uneasy relationship society has with its own truth-telling in history, war and politics, DESIRE LINES is an epic story of love and the lies we tell ourselves to survive - and a reminder that even truths which seem lost forever can find their way home. 'Felicity Volk is the real deal' - NIKKI GEMMELL 'Epic, tender, heart-rending - a story resonating in its spectacular landscapes' - INGA SIMPSON 'Genuinely tender, passionate and devastating' Books+Publishing