Sand Talk

Sand Talk
Author: Tyson Yunkaporta
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0062975633

A paradigm-shifting book in the vein of Sapiens that brings a crucial Indigenous perspective to historical and cultural issues of history, education, money, power, and sustainability—and offers a new template for living. As an indigenous person, Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from a unique perspective, one tied to the natural and spiritual world. In considering how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation, he raises important questions. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? In this thoughtful, culturally rich, mind-expanding book, he provides answers. Yunkaporta’s writing process begins with images. Honoring indigenous traditions, he makes carvings of what he wants to say, channeling his thoughts through symbols and diagrams rather than words. He yarns with people, looking for ways to connect images and stories with place and relationship to create a coherent world view, and he uses sand talk, the Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge. In Sand Talk, he provides a new model for our everyday lives. Rich in ideas and inspiration, it explains how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everyone and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it’s about a very special way of thinking, of learning to see from a native perspective, one that is spiritually and physically tied to the earth around us, and how it can save our world. Sand Talk include 22 black-and-white illustrations that add depth to the text.

Drawing Lessons

Drawing Lessons
Author: Patricia Sands
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Arles (France)
ISBN: 9781542045872

Sixty-two-year old Arianna arrives in the south of France for a two-week artists' workshop full of anticipation but burdened by guilt. Back home in Toronto, she has been living with the devastating diagnosis of her husband's dementia and the heartbreak of watching the man she has loved for decades slip away before her eyes. Encouraged by her family to take some time for herself, she has traveled to Arles to set up her easel in the same fields of poppies and sunflowers that inspired Van Gogh. Gradually, she rediscovers the inner artist she abandoned long ago. Drawing strength from the warm companionship and gentle wisdom of her fellow artists at the retreat - as well as the vitality of guest lecturer Jacques de Villeneuve, an artist and a cowboy - Arianna searches her heart for permission to embrace the life in front of her, and like the sunflowers, once again face the light.

The Sands of Kalahari

The Sands of Kalahari
Author: William Mulvihill
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2019-11-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 183974037X

The Sands of Kalahari, first published in 1960, begins its gripping story with the crash-landing of a small plane carrying seven people in the harsh Kalahari desert. Their struggle to survive in the wilderness around them―as well as each other―make up the bulk of this classic tale of adventure. A film version of the book was made in 1965. From the book cover: To the desert came the plane, to the immeasurable wastes of Africa. And by the dawn of the second day―after the night storm, the hours of flight, the crash, the day of waiting, and the death of Detjens―six remained, alone, strangers, with only themselves and the wreckage and the black mountain on the horizon for company. The six: Sturdevant, the pilot, burdened with a guilt far greater than the loss of his plane; Grimmelmann, the wizened old German, veteran of the Herero war and the two World Wars, wise in the lore of the desert and the ways of the world; Jefferson Smith, a Negro, a professor and a scholar, come to Africa on a Foundation grant; Mike Bain, engineer, drifter, drunkard, vaguely in search of a job in the interior, ill-equipped to cope with the demands of the desert; Grace Monckton, English divorcee, returning to her family's ranch in the Union; and finally, O'Brien, a man of great strength, sometime millionaire, sometime wanderer, a hunter by instinct and by choice. The six, brought together by chance, and with the odds of survival overwhelmingly against them, have only each other, for both friend and foe. Around them is the desert―implacable, pitiless, filled with unseen enemies. And on the horizon is the black mountain, beyond which is hidden the unknown.

Wartime Writings 1939-1944

Wartime Writings 1939-1944
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Publisher: Mariner Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2002-11-04
Genre: Air pilots, Military
ISBN: 9780156027533

A reconnaissance pilot for France during World War II, Antoine de Saint-Exupery spent many dangerous days in the air above enemy occupied territory. "Wartime Writings" recounts some of his aviation exploits.

The Wisdom of the Desert

The Wisdom of the Desert
Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 100
Release: 1970
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780811201025

"The ascetics of Scete and the Thebaid in the Egyptian Desert have been more often admired than known or understood. Translations by such scholars as Helen Waddell have done much to restore the true perspective. This new selection from the Latin 'Sayings of the Fathers' (Verba Seniorum) has been made by Thomas Merton with a special purpose. It is not only a translation and selection, but a new monastic redaction in the spirit of our own time. Merton has felt free, as a monk, to do what generations of monks before him have done. He has made a wholly independent and original use of material which is the traditional basis of Christian monastic spirituality." -- Dust jacket.

Empires of the Sand

Empires of the Sand
Author: Efraim Karsh
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2001-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674005419

The authors "show how the Hashemites played a decisive role in shaping present Middle Eastern boundaries and in hastening the collapse of Ottoman rule."--Jacket.

The Adventure of Weak Theology

The Adventure of Weak Theology
Author: Štefan Štofaník (1976–2014)
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1438471955

Štofaník provides a unique, personal reading of weak theology and tries to inhabit the gap between it and its “founder,” John D. Caputo. In this distinctive exploration of John D. Caputo’s work, Štefan Štofaník traces Caputo’s journey of philosophical discovery from his earlier, more conventional academic writings to his later, almost confessional works of weak theology and his deep engagement with Derrida. Štofaník draws upon Caputo’s life story to help explain sudden shifts in Caputo’s thinking, offers intricate readings of philosophical passages that have all too often been taken for granted, and joins in Caputo’s effort to find a theology that can be trusted and that does not rely upon dogmatic and hierarchical authority. At the same time, Štofaník subtly disagrees with aspects of Caputo’s view and turns to the work of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry as a way to suggest that one cannot take leave of the tradition of theology as easily as Caputo thinks. At times, The Adventure of Weak Theology reads like a letter to Caputo, and Štofaník’s own passion for theology, his deep understanding of Caputo’s work, and his gift for writing makes this an immensely appealing book for both admirers and critics of Caputo. “[Štefan] has read my work with extraordinary care and he has done so with a very acute ear for my authorial voice, this person whom I impersonate when I write, this persona I inhabit in my books. I am not sure if this fellow who appears in print is the real me or a put-on, the one who I really am or the one I want to be. Either way, he only emerges, or emerges best of all, when I write, and Štefan had a pitch-perfect ear for that voice. He didn’t miss anything. He caught it every time it was important.” — from the Afterword by John D. Caputo

The Invention of the Land of Israel

The Invention of the Land of Israel
Author: Shlomo Sand
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012-11-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1844679462

What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of “historical right” and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the “Land of Israel” by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.