The Spirit of Intimacy

Author: Sobonfu Some
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN: 9780688164508
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
A renowned, respected teacher and mentor to thousands, Sobonfu Somi is one of the first and foremost voices of African spirituality to come to the West. Somi was born in Dano, Burkina Faso, a remote West African village with a population of about two hundred people. Dano has preserved the old ways of African village life, with family structures, spiritual practices, and methods of living that have been in place for more than ten thousand years. In The Spirit of Intimacy, Somi distills the ancient teachings and wisdom of her native village to give insight into the nature of intimate relationships. Somi generously applies the subtle knowledge from her West African culture to this one. Simply and beautifully, she reveals the role of spirit in every marriage, friendship, relationship, and community. She shares ancient ways to make our intimate lives more fulfilling and secure and offers powerful insights into the "illusion of romance," divorce, and loss. Her important and fascinating lessons from the heart include the sacred meaning of pleasure, preparing a ritual space for intimacy, and the connection between sex and spirituality. Her ideas are intuitively persuasive, provocative, and healing--and supported by sound practical advice, along with specific rituals and ceremonies based on those used for thousands of years. With this book, the spiritual insights of indigenous Africa take their place alongside those of native America, ancient Europe, and Asia as important influences on Western readers.

Ecstasy and Intimacy

Author: Edith M. Humphrey
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802831477
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
Foreword by Eugene H. Peterson Countering the generic "spirituality" so popular today, Edith Humphrey presents an authentic Christian spirituality that draws on Scripture and the profound riches of the Christian tradition -- Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. Humphrey shows how Christian spirituality is rooted in the Trinity, in the ecstasy ("going out" of oneself) and intimacy (profound closeness with another) marking the relations between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The book embodies a banquet of excerpts from the greatest spiritual writers in history -- such luminaries as St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, Julian of Norwich, St. Teresa of vila, the Wesley brothers, Thomas Merton, and Alexander Schmemann. Humphrey's elegant prose, laced with stories and images from her own life, beautifully uncovers the ways in which God's trinitarian life informs all human communion. Each chapter ends with questions for further reflection and discussion.

Embraced by the Spirit

Author: Charles R. Swindoll
Publisher: Worthy Books
ISBN: 1617952540
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 149

Book Description
Worthy Publishing re-releases this classic inspirational work on the Holy Spirit, helping readers experience all the blessings God has in store. This book is the result of Swindoll's 50-plus years in ministry and his lifetime journey of walking with the Holy Spirit.

Seeking Spiritual Intimacy

Author: Glenn E. Myers
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830835512
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
In Seeking Spiritual Intimacy Glenn Myers introduces us to the Beguines, a network of faith communities in Medieval Europe, where women organized their world around a simple life with Christ at the center. Learn from the insights of wise women of faith who, from their modest homes and communities, revitalized the faith of a continent.

Advanced Spiritual Intimacy

Author: Stuart Sovatsky
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620552787
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
A practical guide for both individuals and couples to transform sexual energy into spiritual and erotic fulfillment • Explains how to awaken advanced stages of sexual development for spiritual intimacy and deep erotic satisfaction • Includes illustrated instructions for exercises and techniques based on yoga, kundalini, breathing practices, mantra chanting, and chakra meditation • Explores how this practice can deepen a life partnership, enhance creativity, heal emotional scars, and awaken new understandings of gender Sexual development does not end in adolescence. There are advanced stages of glandular, emotional, and erotic development based in the lifelong “puberty of the spine.” Known in India as kundalini awakening, these stages form the energetic basis of all yoga forms and deeper erotic aspirations. They present an opportunity for couples and individuals to explore the consciousness-expanding abilities of sexual energy as both spirituality and sexuality transform into what Michel Foucault called ars erotica, far beyond the Freudian scientia sexualis sexuality of the Western world. Offering a guide to the advanced stages of human sexuality and a passionately infused tantric yoga practice, Stuart Sovatsky explains how to awaken the complete spinal puberty, resulting in spiritual intimacy and orgasmic pineal maturity that far surpasses the gratifications of modern sexuality. With illustrated instructions, he reveals flow-yoga asanas, mantras, and devotional breathing practices for solo kundalini yoga as well as couples’ yoga practices and chakra meditations to awaken the heart and the divinely eroticized mind. He shares inspiring stories from those on this path about ever-deepening life partnerships, enriched family life, enhanced personal creativity, profound new understandings of conception, masculinity, femininity, and gender itself as well as healing emotional scars of romantic breakups and sexual abuse. Sovatsky shows that by transcending conventional Western sexuality and returning to the ars erotica beliefs of ancient India, we can harness the divine energy--glimpsed for only an instant by most people--at the heart of all erotic yearning.

Welcoming Spirit Home

Author: Sobonfu Somé
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Book Description
A natural sequel to Some's book on ritual and intimacy, this book draws on the wisdom of the African ancestors to show how to build communities where children are not only welcomed but prized.

Radical Intimacy

Author: Zoë Kors
Publisher: Hachette Go
ISBN: 0306826615
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
A narrative guide and practical methodology for nurturing and sustaining our relationships with ourselves, others, and the world. “With intimacy as the foundational principle of our existence, we can build a life based on what we truly need, not what we think we need or have been told we need. By embracing the practice of radical intimacy, I can confidently promise my readers a personal revolution of self-acceptance, appreciation, vitality, and confidence. And without fail, mind-blowing, soul-stirring, earth-shattering sex follows.”—Zoë Kors Part practical guide, part client stories, part personal narrative, Zoë Kors draws on her experience as a sex and intimacy coach, thought leader, and relationship writer in sharing her powerful and practical methodology for nurturing and sustaining our intimate relationships over time. She addresses the essential truth that is almost universally missed in discussions of sex and intimacy: We can meet each other only to the extent that we can meet ourselves. Kors guides the reader on a five‑part journey through nine areas of opportunity for deepening intimacy with themselves, their partner, and their world, inviting them to embrace emotional, physical, and energetic self‑mastery, which is required to skillfully relate with others. At the conclusion of each part, there are a collection of experiential exercises which support the reader in embodying the concepts they’ve just read. Voice-driven, accessible, and with the right amount of tough love, Radical Intimacy takes the mystery out of human connection. From academia and science to mysticism and self-development, Kors delivers a rich and varied understanding of human sexuality and intimacy through the lens of the body, brain, heart, spirit, and culture.

Spiritual Intimacy

Author: Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Publisher: Jason Aronson
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Book Description
To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

Fully Known

Author: Mo Aiken
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493421530
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Book Description
We were made for intimacy--spiritual intimacy with God that brings oneness and bears powerful fruit. We were made to know Him and be known by Him, fully. So why do we often feel burnt-out, distant, and disheartened in our journey of faith? How do we cultivate true intimacy with God? And what does His design of physical, sexual intimacy unveil of the full gospel story? Sharing Word-backed, Holy Spirit-breathed revelation with humility and openhanded honesty, New York Times bestselling author Mo Aiken walks alongside us through the beauty and power of life lived in active communion with God, rather than the self-seeking, counterfeit faith we've settled for. Unpacking eternity-defining concepts that have become confusing, offensive, or altogether ignored--like submission, repentance, sanctification, holiness, and discipline--Mo shows us how God has given us a physical model of spiritual intimacy through His design of marriage, sex, and family. Exposing many roots of selfishness and perversion we see so often in our relationships, both human and divine, she invites us to pure-hearted and transformational communion with our Creator. If you've felt far from God, caught in broken relationships, dead in religion, and longing to be fully known, join Mo on this journey of return to right-natured intimacy with our First Love.

Spirit Marriage

Author: Megan Rose
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591434165
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Book Description
• Presents interviews with ten contemporary practitioners of spirit marriage, exploring how the relationship developed and the opportunities and challenges • Discusses the author’s own spirit marriage, including her awakening as an erotic mystic and her encounters with her Faery beloved • Explains how to cultivate a spirit marriage, sharing precautions and practices to spiritually prepare yourself and navigate the potential challenges of spirit marriage Exploring the phenomenon of the spirit spouse or spirit lover--an entity to which a human is psychically bonded--Megan Rose, Ph.D., examines the practice and purpose of spirit marriage around the world, presenting transcultural evidence of this form of sacred union in anthropological research, religious literature, mythology, folklore, and the oral tradition. She shares her in-depth interviews with ten contemporary practitioners of spirit marriage, including a Faery Seer, a Shakta Tantric, a West African Shrine Keeper, a New Orleans Voodoo Mambo, Haitian Vodou practitioners, and a ceremonial magician. Through these respectful interviews, the spirit-marriage practitioners tell their stories of initiation and of having a spouse who is both otherworldly and able to assist in waking- world activities. They offer intimate insight into this growing global practice and its larger evolutionary purpose. We learn about their experiences of first contact, the decision to marry, how the relationship is upheld by their community, and the impact on their other relationships. We also learn about the risks and challenges as well as one example of divorcing a spirit. Sharing her personal experience, the author discusses in detail her own spirit marriage, including the erotic nature of being “spirit filled” and her encounters with her Faery beloved. She explains how to cultivate a spirit marriage, sharing precautions and practices to spiritually prepare yourself, interpret your paranormal encounters, and navigate the potential challenges of spirit marriage. Presenting the first study of the transcultural, shamanistic practice of spirit marriage, this book shows how bonded relationships with spirits are needed now more than ever to assist with spiritual evolution.