50 Meditation Ideas

Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: 'The Meditation Deck - 50 simple meditations for everyday' by Madonna Gauding £12.99 published by Octopus Books. Flip top high quality card box containing 50 well produced cards with one side showing a photograph style image and overleaf meditation suggestions. 

Information covers What is meditation? Why meditate? How to start and other tips. Cards are divided into 6 sections, each section has a different colour: Living Mindfully; Calming and Centring; Healing Body, Mind and Spirit; Love and Compassion; Problem Solving; Connecting to the Divine, all meditation suggestions have 4 steps to assist and a suggestion as to when to use that particular card.

The Goddess Pages

Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review The Goddess Pages - A Divine Guide to Finding Love and Happiness by Laurie Sue Brockway, paperback 321 pages £14.76 published by Llewelyn Worldwide www.GoddessFriends.com

We are invited to 'Discover the Divine Within' with this interfaith minister who has written several books. The Goddess Pages details ways to work with a number of different aspects of the divine feminine with rituals, offerings, chants, affirmations and practices such as letter writing, for transformation, healing, guidance and direction. The contents are divided into 6 sections, beginning with a test of Goddess IQ. Then we have a section to reclaim our Goddess nature, work with Goddesses of self empowerment, strength, love and romance, family life and relationships, work and finance and play and lightheartedness. Each Goddess helps with reclaiming female power, confidence and happiness.

Popular Culture Magic 2.0

Popular Culture Magic 2.0 by Taylor Ellwood and Storm Constantine is published by Megalithica Books in paperback. This is a thinking person’s informative guide to everything you ever wanted to know about popular culture and how it is used for ‘magical’ purposes.

Cartoon, video game, book and film super heros have an obsessed fan base that incorporates the clothes, music, vocabulary and tastes of their idols into their everyday life. Characters from Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Buffy, are examples.

The book, which has been described as a grimoire, takes an intellectual approach to this phenomenon which is similar to the Tibetan creation of the 'tulpa''. When a fan fixates on their chosen icon, they often take on board an entire corporate brand, such as with Disney for instance, with portrayals of the character in theme parks, games, advertising, toys and other marketing outlets. Groups and networks are created where ideas are shared, meetings and conventions can be part of the experience. A fantasy world attracts new aspects of life previously unknown and unexplored. Popular culture has mushroomed with modern technology, and it influences our modern world beyond that which we might fail to realise.

Camilla Damkjaer - Homemade Academic Circus

Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: Homemade Academic Circus - Idiosyncratically Embodied Explorations into Research in the Arts and Circus by Camilla Damkjaer PhD, paperback 224 pages £12.99, Kindle: £8.39 published by Iff Books. 

This is a cause celebre for I assume, the throw and catch of the trapeze, the precariousness of the hire wire, the impressive strength and flexibility of the acrobat and some clever plate spinning. Perhaps the most important - and the most ancient aspect of the circus - is the light-hearted energy of the clown, perhaps included by the author as one of her alter-egos. There are no certificates required to demonstrate a highly complex skill but the circus is as mystifying as it is breath-taking, and acts that look easy may require many years of patient and immensely hard work.