A self-help guide to visualizing one's spiritual landscape

books:


	• Seeding Your Soul: Six Considerations for Spiritual Growth Dianne R. Costanzo Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2005 - 104 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Simply Beautiful

I love books. I love it when a book is so crafted that the look, feel and content create a whole, satisfy all my senses and feed my spirit. Seeding Your Soul is such a treasure. It is a book to savor, to ponder and grow with.

A self-help guide to visualizing one's spiritual landscape

Seeding Your Soul: Six Considerations For Spiritual Growth is a self-help guide to visualizing one's spiritual landscape, and promoting inner growth through the positive qualities of Trust, Generosity, Love, Transformation, Forgiveness and Healing. Beautiful full-color photographs of flowers complement words of wisdom for cultivating healing virtues, written by teacher, poet, and spiritual director Dianne R. Costanzo. Simple insights and the allegory of one's mind and soul draw upon Biblical passages and noble ideals to create a transformational, uplifting experience. Seeding Your Soul: Six Considerations For Spiritual Growth is very highly recommended reading.

for more information click here

This book changed my life

I was raised in the Christian religion, but stopped attending church at age 13. In the last ten years, I've read lots of spirituality books--mainly Buddhist or Buddhist-inspired--by Pema Chodron, Caroline Myss, Thich Nhat Hanh, Natalie Goldberg, and others. I usually shy away from "Christian" books, but Seeding Your Soul is so much more than that, perhaps because the author is trained in Aikido and seems also Buddhist-inspired.

The book begins with a consideration of trust, illustrated by an unforgettable story of the author's casually religious Italian father and the astonishingly bountiful vegetable garden his deep and loving trust produced in a formerly empty lot behind his tailor shop. Similarly, his joyful wonder whether "there is a tree in here (in the pit of a peach he's just eaten)" yields, after he casually tosses the pit into their back yard, a peach tree that in later years bears fruit. There is no simpler, clearer illustration of the power of being open to wonder and trust.

Each chapter has a similarly striking story to illustrate the author's considerations of generosity, love, transformation, forgiveness, and healing. Chapters subtly build on the ones before them. The exercises at each chapter's end are short, doable, and very much too the point. Usually I skip exercises, but I did all of these, maybe because they didn't demand a huge chunk of time, but could easily be folded into my life. Bit by bit, I found myself moving with the author toward healing, the final chapter. I have gone through the book twice, and both times it took me further in growth, in different areas. I plan to read it again and again. The process is gentle, sometimes humorous, and always loving. I have already enjoyed many of the suggestions for further reading (books) and viewing (movies) that end each chapter--these extend the growth I've experienced in thoughtful and even fun ways.

I have bought copies of Seeding Your Soul for all my friends. It's a great "gift" book, gorgeously produced and a delight to hold and thumb through. The photographs and their captions draw you into the experience, opening you to each step. This book has brought me back to a deep respect for Christianity's teachings, something that had been drummed out of me by a strict, conservative and fundamentalist religious upbringing.

I can't wait for Dianne Costanzo's next book. She is a gifted writer and a spiritual teacher to watch.

for more information click here

Picture your spiritual landscape. Do you see an orchard rich with the fruits of the spirit or a garden sorely in need of work? The seeds we consciously plant can grow spiritual landscapes of astonishing beauty. How well we nurture and cultivate the seedling plants will determine 'how our gardens grow.'

Any gardener knows that cultivating a garden is a process, and as the years go by, the garden comes slowly and mysteriously into its own. Dianne R. Costanzo

Features: Seeding Your Soul is a distinctive short guide to nurturing spirituality that uses well-known Gospel passages. It features:
Introduction, an invitation to consider what is growing in one's 'spiritual landscape.'

Classic New Testament passage for each chapter: 'Consider the Lilies of the Field' (Luke 12:22 31), 'The Widow's Mite' (Mark 12:41 44), 'The Penitent Woman'(Luke 7:36 50), 'The Transfiguration' (Mark 9: 2 8), 'The Prodigal Son' (Luke15:11 31), 'The Ten Lepers' (Luke 17:11 10)
6 Considerations: 'Planting Trust,' 'Planting Generosity,' 'Planting Love,' 'Planting Transformation,' 'Planting Forgiveness,' 'Planting Healing'
Brief, thought-provoking meditation on each New Testament passage
Short exercises for each chapter: Nurturing Trust, Generosity, Love, Transformation,Forgiveness, Healing
Suggestions for further reading and viewing: books and movies for Cultivating Trust,Generosity, Love, Transformation, Forgiveness, Healing
Bibliography: Other Sources of Interest

Also available:

Classical Considerations: Useful Wisdom from Greece And Rome - ISBN 0865166188
Embers of the Ancient Flame: Latin Love Poetry Selections from Catullus, Horace, And Ovid - ISBN 0865166099

for more information click here

hot or not? What's your opinion? Write a review and share your thoughts!

considerations

Raising Respectful Kids in a Rude World: Teaching Your Children the ...
Twelve Words: Considerations for a Clear and Balanced Day
Organic Disciplemaking: Mentoring Others Into Spiritual Maturity And ...
Getting a Grip on Aggression Cases: Practical Considerations for Dog ...
Walking in Victory: Experiencing the power of your identity in Christ

spiritual

Soul Wisdom: Practical Soul Treasures to Transform Your Life
My Utmost for His Highest (Vest Pocket Edition)
Spiritual Marketing: A Proven 5-Step Formula for Easily Creating ...
Quiet Strength
The Prophet

growth

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, ...
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The Last Lecture
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, ...

search for books
seeding your, considerations, growth, seeding, six, soul, spiritual, your