Essential Winter Reading this Holiday Season

The holidays are here and now is the time to hibernate at home and read a good book. Check out my list for essential winter reading this holiday season and expand your mind and your spirit as we move into a new calendar year.

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Align: Living and Loving from the True Self by Harmony Kwiker 

There is a fundamental core within each of us where our true nature resides. Our learned patterns of relating to ourselves and the world cause us to get pulled off our center, coming out of alignment with our True Self. While these conditioned patterns were at one time useful, continuing to live from them prevents us from experiencing the ease and beauty of our own true nature. In this remarkable exploration of the human condition, Harmony Kwiker provides a clear and comprehensive map to rediscovering how to live and love from the True Self, including how to come back to wholeness by accessing your subtle energy body, how to embody your alignment in all of your relationships and how to explore sexual intimacy in a sacred way.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon US; Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
The Anti-consumerist Druid: How I Beat My Shopping Addiction Through Connection with Nature by Katrina Townsend
 
Many of us are coming to terms with the devastating global effects of overconsumption, and for me the desire to quit shopping has led me to explore Paganism, and then to Druidry!
 
This is not a book about Druidry. This is a book about how I stopped overconsumption consuming me, and on that journey discovered a connection with nature that led to me becoming a student of Druidry, and about how those beliefs and practices helped me to rebuild a more authentic, creative, enchanted life.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon US; Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
A Beginner's Guide to Ogham Divination by Ceri Norman
 
Discover the magic, mythology and meaning of the 25 trees of the Celtic Ogham, once the alphabet of the ancient Celts and now a system of divination that is perfect for tree lovers everywhere.
 
This book invites and guides you to forge a meaningful and deep connection with the trees by listening to and learning from them. Each of the trees acts as a wise and insightful guide. By tuning into the energies, magic, and personality of each of the trees, we can come to better understand them and to better understand ourselves.
 
Featuring traditional correspondences, ancient kennings, folklore, divinatory spreads and so much more this book gives you a step-by-step to working with the Ogham as a practical as well as spiritual means of divination.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores

 
 

Dining with Jesus: A Seven Course Bible Study Unpacking the Key Meals Jesus Attended by Kate Jackson
 
This seven-week guide aims to aid Christians, individually or in small groups, to take a closer look at seven of the meals Jesus attended, focusing on what Jesus was trying to communicate through them, either in the food eaten or in the social interactions he had whilst dining. Each session examines set bible passage(s), frequently considering them through the lens of the stories and teachings which bookend the meal. The sessions also prioritise posing questions to support Christians in reflecting upon their own lives and how they can further incorporate Jesus’ teachings into them. This guide brings into one user-friendly volume a range of ideas that these meals explore, including God’s grace, what real purity means, how Jesus equips us to further his Kingdom, the purpose of Jesus’ miracles and the nature of Jesus’ Messiahship, as well as current interpretations of these occasions of commensality and the relevance of their historical and social context, in a language that is easy to understand.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
The Fall of the West: The Story behind Covid, the Levelling-Down of the West and the Shift of Power to the East with the Rise of China by Nicholas Hagger
 
In The Syndicate (2004) Nicholas Hagger described how in the 20th century a Syndicate of élitist mega-rich families levelled down the leading Western countries by promoting revolutions, wars, and independence movements against their empires, and planned a New World Order and world government that would control the earth’s resources for their own benefit. In The Secret History of the West (2005) he traced the Syndicate’s roots back to secret Freemasonic organisations and revolutions that undermined the West from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. In The Fall of the West (2022), the third book in his trilogy on the West, Hagger updates the story to include the pandemic and describes how Syndicate-driven 21st-century events from the War on Terror to Covid have brought the Western financial system to the brink of collapse and shifted power from the West to the East, and China.
 
In this first impartial attempt to assemble all the evidence to date for the origin of Covid (like fitting together available pieces of a jigsaw to reveal the main picture) Hagger, the first to discover the Cultural Revolution in China in March 1966, finds that the three main features of Covid-19 were man-made by American NIAID-funded medics in 2002 and patented 73 times since 2008, and seem to have been surreptitiously used as a bio-weapon in a Syndicate plan to limit the rise of China and its expanding trade. A dangerous new Biological Age has been born, and the West faces being levelled down and a sudden fall. Hagger sees the post-Covid West’s dream of creating a good New World Order - a vaccine-protected democratic, presidential, part-federal world government and World State with sufficient authority to abolish war and solve the world’s post-Covid problems - as being challenged by the self-interested Syndicate’s levelling-down; and to survive, it first has to go along with the Syndicate’s plan for West and East to draw together into an authoritarian world government involving China, and democratise later. This is a thought-provoking work with a prophetic vision of the future.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
The Holistic Guide to Your Health & Wellbeing Today: A Step-By-Step Guide to the Relationship Between Your Physical, Mental, Energetic & Emotional Health
by Oliver Rolfe
 
Have you ever wanted to improve your complete health, both inside and out, and did not know where to start?
 
A decade ago, my life changed forever. Now, using my personal experiences, professional knowledge and scientific studies, this book guides you through the minefield of information available to you and highlights the key aspects that assist complete and holistic health across our four core bodily systems - the physical, mental, energetic and emotional.
 
The Holistic Guide covers everything from how to improve your immune system, nutritional guidance, mental health, the chakra system, numerology, emotional intelligence, advanced body language, deep breathing, meditation and more.
 
Working with psychologist David Moxon, international numerologist Ann Perry, Darren Rolfe from the addiction rehabilitation centre Steps Together and international medium and healer Sara Leslie, we have created a complete guide for your holistic health. Take Action Today!
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores

 
 

Lost for Words: The poetry of mindfulness and non-duality by Martin Wells

 
In the early hours of almost every morning during the Covid lockdown in the months of March and April 2021, these poems began mysteriously arriving - like persistent early morning visitors. Curiously, the author's wife was absent for the whole of this time, and much to her amusement, in her place lay an open notebook, a blank page and a pen. Soon nearly 40 poems filled the notebook - Martin never having written poetry in his life before. Although the pandemic provides the foreground for this collection of poems, they have also been prompted by timeless universal themes, symbolised in a snowdrop, a park bench, or an olive tree; found in conversations about love and life and death, in news items and random images. But most of all arising out of that deep longing for union and freedom at the source of each of us. The poems are about what it means to be alive and deeply connected to the natural world. In so doing, they go to the heart of mindful living and non-dual wisdom.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon US; Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
Love Untethered: How to live when your child dies by Vanessa May
 
Vanessa May gives a moving account of what she went through after the unexpected death of her son, demonstrating that it's possible to survive such a shattering and traumatic loss, even when that might feel impossible. By sharing her personal experience, the author enables others who have gone through a similar loss to feel less isolated in their grief. She also provides advice on supporting physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing using her experience - not just as a bereaved mother, but as a nutritional therapist, wellbeing coach and now holistic grief coach. She offers the reader various tools for withstanding a devastating loss and for navigating a particularly challenging path. Love Untethered is about holding on to hope when it feels like there isn’t any, and about finding purpose as a means of surviving a devastating and life-changing bereavement.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
The Path to Inner Peace: Mastering Karma by Subhash Jain
 
This book presents the fundamental principles of the Jain karma doctrine through a fictional account of the relationship between a guru and his American student. As the story unfolds, the guru instructs the student on how ‘karmic debt’ is incurred as the result of personal action and how this ‘debt’ can be reduced through behavioural choices. With an emphasis on nonviolent action, Jainism elucidates the path whereby karmic attachment is decreased, leading to inner peace. The Path to Inner Peace serves as an in-depth analysis of which actions lead to karmic attachment, how to avoid karmic attachment and what the consequences of karmic attachment are. The issues of free will versus determinism and good versus evil are also dealt with in detail.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon US; Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
 

Portalism: An Externalist Theory of Consciousness by Jeffrey Laird
 
The mind is not the brain. The locus of our consciousness is in the world. Portalism embraces radical phenomenal externalism and represents a contemporary form of dualism that rejects materialist assumptions of mind/brain identity. As a philosophy of mind, Portalism breaks with traditional thinking in two significant ways: first by holding that consciousness is in fact a fifth fundamental force of nature endowed with behavioural attributes not unlike that of gravity, and second by arguing how consciousness inheres in all living organisms regardless of their biological sophistication. Portalism compels us to reject traditional monist theories about the nature of consciousness and boldly enter into a new way of thinking about our own reality.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
Quaker Quicks - Quaker Shaped Christianity: How the Jesus story and the Quaker way fit together by Mark Russ
 
'What is Quakerism?' can be a difficult question to answer, especially when Quakers today struggle to find a shared religious language. In this book, Mark Russ answers this question from a personal perspective, telling his story of trying to make sense of Jesus within the Quaker community. Through this theological wrestling emerges a Quaker Shaped Christianity that is contemporary, open and rooted in tradition. In reflecting on how to approach the Bible, the challenges of Universalism, and the key events of the Jesus story, this book offers a creative, inspiring and readable theology for everyone who has wondered how Christianity and Quakerism fit together.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
The Tragedy of Madagascar: An Island Nation Confronts the 21st Century by Nathaniel Adams
 
Why has Madagascar failed to make any meaningful progress since independence?
 
A mix of journalism and scholarship, the book is the result of almost nine months spent on the ground in Madagascar travelling and interviewing a wide range of political leaders at the national and local levels, including an unprecedented interview with the country’s former president, Marc Ravalomanana.
 
The book takes as its point of departure the military coup in 2009 that replaced Ravalomanana with Andry Rajoelina, and all of the negative aftershocks that followed, as well as including chapters on the bleak economic prospects of young people across the island, the unsustainable population growth that threatens so much of its future and a unique chapter on the effects of climate change on the southern region of Madagascar, where worsening droughts have left millions in humanitarian peril.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
 

The Ultimate Book on Vocal Sound Healing by Githa Ben-David
 
The concept of The Ultimate Book on Vocal Sound Healing is The Note from Heaven - a condition of bliss, where time disappears and the voice seems to sing you, rather than you sing the voice. The experience of surrendering to The Note from Heaven is overwhelming and leads the singer into a state of Oneness, where present, past and future merge together and energetic patterns and traumas can be transformed, and profound healings happen. Book I: The Note from Heaven - How to sing yourself into contact with Oneness. Book II: Regressive Cell-Singing - How to sing yourself free of traumas and change emotional programming. Book III: Sound Healing - How to sound-scan a fellow being with your voice, plus a Q&A with members from the White Brotherhood.
 
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores
 
Who is in? Beyond Self-image by Avikal E. Costantino
 
Who is in? is for all spiritual seekers who encounter the basic questions of identity: Who am I?, Who is in? or What is the nature of I? Using the Zen Buddhist koan - a paradox to be meditated upon - ‘Who is in’ as a door to discovering the true self and pure subjectivity, this book provides examples and understandings, techniques and invitations to experiment with self-inquiry.
Buy the Book Here: Amazon UK; Other Bookstores

Download your FREE copy of It’s Complicated (A Redcliffe Short Story) and meet the werewolves of Cornwall, England.  Click here. 

#BookTalk - Answers in the Dark: Grief, Sleep and How Dreams Can Help You Heal by Delphi Ellis

O books offer a vast range of carefully crafted and selected titles available in paperback and on all E-readers, through Amazon, Kindle, Hive, Barnes and Noble, and wherever books are sold.

You are never alone when you have a great book to read...

 

Answers in the Dark: Grief, Sleep and How Dreams Can Help You Heal by Delphi Ellis

 

The 4 am Mystery: that’s an actual thing by the way. Even before a global health crisis took the shape of COVID-19, people around the world were finding themselves sleep-deprived, awake in the middle of the night. You might be someone who says, no matter what you do, you just can’t sleep. Sometimes you know why: your thoughts are racing, or a nightmare has startled you into consciousness. Other nights, you might toss and turn and, just as you finally doze off, the alarm blares. This book was written for you. It explores why you’re awake, how you can manage your mind at night, and what might help if it’s your dream content wreaking havoc.

 

Drawing on nearly two decades of therapeutic work, research, and ancient wisdom has proven to helpfully manage the mind, Delphi connects the dots between sleep, dreams, and our mental health. She particularly highlights the impact of grief and loss on our well-being, which can ultimately affect the quality of our night-time rest - even if no one has died. Her book guides the reader on a journey to make friends with night-time, learning what the dark might have to offer, to achieve a calmer, healthier, happier life.

 

I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2016, resulting in a significant increase in my dreams and nightmares. Whilst I received therapy to live with my PTSD, understanding my dreams and interpreting them have always been a mystery. This book has unlocked those questions, I am grateful for the support and answers they have given me. The sleep cycle repair kit offers practical help.

 

“A must-read. Thank you!” ~ Pip (Reviewer)

 

Delphi is a qualified counsellor, well-being trainer and mindfulness practitioner who has worked in a therapeutic setting since 2002. She started her helping career supporting people in grief, mainly those bereaved by murder and suicide. She now works in the community promoting mental health maintenance and recovery, mindful leadership and workplace wellness. She lives in Bedfordshire, UK.

 

 

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#Booktalk Unhackable Soul by Maureen Sharphouse

Inspirational new book shares roadmap on how to rise from the ashes of chronic pain and reignite the light within.

 
Talking from the heart and from more than three decades of experience, Unhackable Soul shares Maureen Sharphouse’s 30-day elixir for those suffering from daily chronic pain.  Sharing practical assignments as well as how to change from a life dictated by pain and illness to one fuelled by enthusiasm and purpose, Unhackable Soul reveals how to feel vibrantly alive.
 
A book with the potential to transform the lives forever of those suffering with chronic pain, Maureen Sharphouse’s Unhackable Soul shares with readers how to wake up every day eager to embrace life despite its physical and mental challenges.

Accessible, authentic, and written by an author with first-hand experience of intractable and debilitating pain, every page in this remarkable book reminds the reader that true happiness does not rely on favourable circumstances or anything external. Providing the resources to reshape in 30 days readers’ relationships with the challenges of their conditions, Unhackable Soul offers a guiding light to all those that until now have been defined by their condition and its ability to sap all vestiges of joie de vivre.
 
Destined to be a cherished ‘friend’ of all those for whom the book was written, the author’s unshakable enthusiasm and tips for living the best life possible also make her book relevant to all of those who have lost their way when it comes to living a full and vibrant life.
 
Synopsis
 
Living with chronic pain is far from easy. Left unchecked, it erodes your spirit and keeps you living in the dark. It can influence what you believe about yourself and even hack your soul--if you let it.
 
Author Maureen Sharphouse knows the challenges of living with pain first-hand. She has endured more than three decades of debilitating physical health challenges, including the incurable neurological illness known as "the suicide disease." Yet, in the midst of her daily pain, she lives with passion, joy, and enthusiasm for life.
 
In thirty daily missions. Unhackable Soul reveals how you can feel vibrantly alive despite chronic pain. Discover how to:
 
•           rise up from a life dictated by pain and illness to one fuelled by enthusiasm and purpose.
•           feel alive and experience greater joy, peace, and comfort.
•           wake up every day eager to embrace life despite your challenges.
 
Live well. Reignite your light. It's time to become Unhackable.
 
Receiving outstanding praise, reviews of Unhackable Soul include:

“I love this radically transformative book!!! As someone who lives with daily chronic pain from CRPS, Unhackable Soul is a roadmap to reclaim your joy and reignite the light within you despite pain! Maureen’s authentic storytelling illustrates how difficult experiences and deep wounds, both mental and physical, are the very things that can gift us a deeper power and resilience if we allow them.  Maureen generously brings us her personal journey and shares her formula for moving through tremendous pain with grit and grace. Run, don’t walk, and grab this book if you live with any kind of pain!”
Amberly Lago – Expert Mindset Coach, TEDx speaker, True Grit and Grace Podcast Host, best-selling author of True Grit and Grace: Turning Tragedy into Triumph.
 
“Unhackable Soul is a resource and guide to achieving a fulfilling life despite chronic pain.  It offers a durable, liveable alternative to pharmacology and interventions. As a physician and surgeon who has worked with chronic pain patients, I whole-heartedly recommend this book for all who may live with chronic pain or disability.  It offers a sustainable path to healthy, balanced well-being instead of a life of drugs, depression, and misery.  In an era of endemic opioids and dependency, it cracks in the light for the pain sufferer on what can be for them and an ever-darkening world.”
Dr Hugh A Gelabert, Physician and Surgeon, UCLA School of Medicine.
 
“As founder and CEO of the Burning Limb Foundation and aware of the crucial role that mind and spirit play in individuals living with chronic pain disease, I highly recommend this book. Maureen’s personal inspirational story and her step-by-step revitalizing daily elixir makes this book a valuable go-to companion and guide for living well with pain and illness. Maureen’s words incorporate ideas that are not just firmly rooted in the truth but also come from a loving perspective that only one who has experienced debilitating illness intimately can bring. Unhackable Soul provides me with yet another tool when working with those who live with chronic illness and is a true blueprint for how not just to live but to thrive.”
Philip Robert, Founder and CEO of the Burning Limb Foundation.
 
“Fantastically uplifting and encouraging from someone who knows what it feels like to experience challenges and still live fully. Maureen’s spirit shines through every page to speak to you and pull you forward. Wonderful!”
Fiona Harrold, Best-Selling Author of Be Your Own Life Coach.
                                                                                                                     
Published by Unhackable Press (an imprint of the Igniting Souls Publishing Agency), Unhackable Soul is available in hardcover (£18.92), paperback (£11.30) and Kindle format on Amazon.
 
It is availably globally and can be ordered through Barnes & Noble, Waterstones and all good book retailers.
 
 
Receiving five-star reviews from readers, feedback includes:
 
“This book is a fantastic tool for people living with chronic pain on a daily basis. When you are having a bad day grab the book for some tips to lift you up & importantly remember that you are far more than your physical body.” – Louise S.
“Maureen has given purpose to the many years she has suffered with excruciating pain. Her book shares the techniques she has developed to more than cope but to thrive. I can't recommend it highly enough.”– Peter
 
“Whether you have chronic pain or not…there are gems in this book that everyone can tap into. Inspiration on every turn of the page. Thanks Maureen! Stay Blessed.” – Warren Kemp
 
“I'm almost at a loss for words as to how incredibly transformative this book is for helping people with chronic pain. Within the first few pages the author takes you from a place of despair to a deep knowing that life can be magical again. "You are soul and spirit... your physical body is simply... the vehicle you operate through." The book is written in such a way that makes it hard not to want to digest it all in one go, ingeniously dancing between the author's own life experiences and practical daily assignments. Finally, a book that doesn't just bring hope to chronic pain sufferers but a true sense of empowerment. Now I can't wait to get started with the 30-Day online course. Incredible!” – Lynne
 
About the author
 
Maureen Sharphouse lives with her husband, Peter, and their dog, Jackson, in the village of Milnathort, Kinross-shire, Scotland. She is a coach, mentor, writer, and speaker. Maureen’s passion is to inspire and help individuals live a unique legacy they are proud of. Her mission is to help people discover who they are beyond their physical body, live their best lives, and restore and unleash their soul’s fire and passion. Maureen’s vibrant enthusiasm for life is evident despite living with severe daily pain and complex ongoing health challenges. She is a lover of morning sunrises, good coffee, fresh flowers in her home, and spending time with her much-loved family and grandchildren.

You can connect with Maureen on her website – click here.

Sign up for the 30-Day Unhackable Soul Course here: unhackablesouluniversity.com  

Download your FREE copy of It’s Complicated (A Redcliffe Short Story) and meet the werewolves of Cornwall, England. Click here. 

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