What The Heart Knows

What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms, and Blessings is a collection of poems to provide comfort, courage, and humor at difficult or daunting moments in life. It conjures forth laments, spells, invocations, chants, blessings, promises, songs, and charms. Here are pleas on how to repair a friendship, wishes to transform one’s life or to slow down time, charms to face the shame of a disapproving crowd, invocations to ask for forgiveness, to understand the mysteries of happiness, and to bravely face a dark and different world. These words help us remember or grieve; they bolster courage and guard against evil; they help us celebrate and give thanks. This elegant gift book also includes a red ribbon for readers to mark their favorite poems. Poet extraordinaire Joyce Sidman won the Newbery Honor Medal for Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night and continues to write poetry for children that has been called "fresh," "inspiring," and "accessible" to her young audience. She is intrigued by the idea of "words of power"—chants and charms that were once believed to have real influence in everyday life. Caldecott Honor-winning Pamela Zagarenski's beautiful art captures a world of emotion and the essence of Sidman's words.

Kathleen Somers needed something to believe in again. Rocked by her husband's death and her once-loving son's transformation, she'd drifted away from God. It wasn't until she met handsome Dr. Jared Matthews that she felt the first glimmer of hope. And something else... A burned-out widower, Jared thought he could offer Kathleen nothing but heartache. Still, he couldn't desert her when the situation involving her son became a living nightmare. As he reached out to Kathleen, Jared finally saw what a relationship could be. Now he prayed that God's love would give Kathleen the courage to follow her heart....

In the wake of a bitter divorce, ex-paratrooper and businessman Larry Baldwin leaves New York to make a new life for himself. Outside Atlanta, he meets Cody West, whose exotic beauty and unflinching honesty have set her apart in a small southern town where everything rests on appearances and nothing is what it seems.

Diana Hamilton Pisano thought she would never see Trace Montgomery again. After five years of absence, he returns to Ashville, NC, for the reading of his uncle's will; in a fateful complication, Diana is his uncle's widow. Diana isn't prepared to see the man who betrayed her for another woman. When she learns that her husband only left her half ownership of his ancestral mansion and no money, she resolves not to let Trace see her sweat. . .especially when the will dictates she must share the house with him for six weeks to be able to inherit her portion.

Women are often held captive by their own inner critic, that fearful and doubting voice inside their heads. It makes them question their choices and actions around parenting, relationships, career, and self. "Your Heart Knows the Answer" guides women to reunite with the magnificent woman within, and listen to and trust the strong, intuitive, and all-knowing voice of their hearts. A gentle companion and step-by-step guide, this book helps women listen to what the heart knows and then follow what their heart tells them -- through exercises, affirmations, meditations, and ceremonies. The author shows that decision-making and life choices -- from choosing a mate to accepting a job -- become clear when women listen to their hearts. Featuring compelling true-life stories from the author's own experiences, this inspiring guide deepens a woman's connection with her true self and cultivates ongoing self-love.

This volume contains James Stephen's fantastic fairy tale, "The Crock of Gold". A fusion of philosophy and Irish folklore, "The Crock of Gold" revolves around the events that unfolded when the god Pan appeared on the Emerald Isle. How Angus Og reacts to Pan's arrival, and what happens to the Daughter of Murrachu who becomes caught in the turmoil, are the questions that drive this humorous and charming tale. Complete with magic, fairies and leprechauns, this timeless book would make for a great addition to the family collection, and it is not to be missed by fans of Stephen's work. James Stephens (1880 - 1950) was an Irish novelist and poet famous for his humorous retellings of Irish myths and fairy tales. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.

This is a thought-provoking and enlightening exploration of spirituality and perception. The text functions as a guide to self-improvement, with a mixture of autobiographical elements and snippets of universal wisdom. The speaker provides accessible solutions to life's difficulties, and an outlook of optimism applicable to any circumstance. The illustrations and graphics are thoughtfully chosen, and the interactive textual elements give this work an originality that sets it apart. The speaker's own experiences and conclusions are at the heart of this fiction, and the first-person narrative voice creates a sense of proximity between author and reader. The text describes itself as 'a journey to the heart', and this truthful discovery of the self is reflected in the speaker's revelation of his whole self through the text. The narrative often presents a dichotomy between positive and negative outlooks or voices. For example, the speaker includes sections in which his self-doubt speaks, 'you've got no proper education, you can't spell properly, you're dyslexic and your grammar is crap. You're not really a writer'. This negative voice directly opposes the sense of self-belief the speaker builds within the narrative. He uses examples such as this to remind readers that the journey to happiness is complex and that flaws or setbacks are natural. The negative separation or fragmentation of the self is prevalent in the lines, 'I do not love the grumpy me, the sad me, the hostile me, the parts of me that act as if I do not care'. The act of writing represents a unification of the self and an attempt to reframe the speaker's life into coherence. The frequent use of direct address and rhetorical questions promotes an active reading experience, in which the author opens up a dialogue with the reader. The text includes prompts and activities for the reader to engage with and learn from. Encouraging readers to take part in the text is emblematic of their journey to self-fulfillment and love, in which they must take responsibility for actively creating their own happiness. The speaker depicts his process of enlightenment as a framework for others to emulate, and the format of the text demonstrates the transfer of agency to those who take part in the speaker's challenges at the end of each chapter. This work ultimately teaches us that 'we are the cause of what is' and thus sheds light on the crucial idea that every individual has the power to create themselves and their world positively.