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žena:\zhay'na\ means woman in czech moon:\moon\ honors the power, cycles and light reflected throughout our lives |
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serenity |
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small pillar (right) - 2"x3", burns up to 30 hours
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About This Candle Confession No. 241 of a Recovering Control Freak: One of my personal myths is that serenity can only be experienced when life is in perfect order. The house clean, yard tiptop, bills paid, clutter if not organized then at least stacked in countless neat piles, dogs exercised, letters written . . . website updated, phone calls returned, emails sent, to-do list done . . . in short, life must be perfectly under control and only THEN would I feel serenity. Well, that myth is a bunch of hooey! Serenity does not follow perfection because perfection is an unrealistic and unachievable goal that every single one of us needs to let go of. Serenity is a daily practice that involves moment-by-moment choices--as well as surrender. I think the quote on this candle sums it up perfectly. May this candle help you practice serenity in your life. —Carla Blazek, creator, zena moon |
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Customer Feedback
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Our Recommended Books, Music & Movies for Serenity zena moon sells books, CDs and DVDs in association with Amazon.com. To order, click on the item's title or image, then add it to your Amazon shopping cart. Orders are then filled and shipped by Amazon. Send us your recommendations for this page--we may post them here.
Last updated 4/6/2005
1. Plain Living : A Quaker Path to Simplicity
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From Amazon.com: Catherine Whitmire's book of contemporary and historic Quaker voices reads like an antidote to consumer-driven despair. We all know the spiritual downfall of compulsively acquiring material goods (or what Quakers refer to as "cumber"); how it leads to a frantic-paced lifestyle built around working long hours so we can buy more stuff. In assembling Plain Living, a collection of paragraph-long quotes, Whitmire offers readers a simple and soothing alternative--the path that Quakers call "plain living." "We have chosen lives that crowd our appointment books, fill our email boxes, and overload our answering machines, even as we long for a plainer way of living--one that will free us from the strain and activity of these times," writes Whitmire. "The Spirit is speaking through the whirlwind of modern life, and if we listen quietly to the cool, calm Center within, there is an invitation to plain living awaiting us." In the early chapters readers will find inspiration for laying down their interior and exterior cumber. The book's wisdom eventually expands into other important Quaker values, such as "Parenting and Mentoring," "Practicing Non-Violence," and "Listening to the Earth." Ultimately, this is a book with a long shelf life, offering timeless quotations on living the life worth living.
2. Shelter for the Spirit : Create Your Own Haven in a Hectic World
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From Amazon.com: Even though Americans spend thousands on furniture, appliances and interior decoration, many of our homes have become little more than drop-off zones where we collapse after work, glued to the TV while gulping down a microwave dinner. The home can be so much more than that, says Victoria Moran. It can be a haven in which people can revitalize mind, body and soul. That's what Shelter for the Spirit is all about. Merging Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with a sensitivity to the demands of modern life, it provides people with usable directions for bringing a sense of peace and renewal to their homes. Whether addressing how to get rid of clutter, decorate in a way that respects your personality, clean house as a spiritual exercise or celebrate special days (and ordinary ones too), Shelter for the Spirit shows how the quality of attention we give to everyday acts can transform our lives. The only book of its kind, it helps all readers make their homes places in which they and their guests enjoy spending their moments.
3. The Gift of Peace: Guideposts on the Road to Serenity
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From Amazon.com: In ancient Hebrew prayers, the highest wish that any worshiper can offer to another is that the Almighty will give the worshiper "the greatest of all gifts--the gift of peace." Ben Stein’s latest book, The Gift of Peace, comprises more than 500 lessons about how to live life in a state of peace. Drawing from wisdom learned in 12-step meetings and from his own meditations, Stein reveals the guideposts that have taken him (over the last 16 years) to a life incomparably more serene and uncomplicated than it once was. The lessons in The Gift of Peace are about surrender to God, turning envy around, realizing one’s own unimportance in the universe, and achieving humility through actions as well as thoughts. Think of this book as a lifetime supply of non-addictive, no-side-effect tranquilizers and antidepressants and you have it just about right. Thorough, repeated readings of these homilies, especially upon waking and at bedtime, offer genuine calm and peace.
Original Release Date: 1998
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From Amazon.com: Visualize the most tranquil garden there has ever been... completely secluded and calm. It’s filled with exotic flowers, plants, birds, and a small brook. Sounds of bubbling water and birdsong intertwine with the quiet tinkling of wind chimes, harp, temple bells and gentle Shakuhachi flute melodies. The natural sounds and gentle music creates a healing, stress-free environment perfect for yoga, massage and relaxation. A bestselling classic!
2. Sanctuary
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From Amazon.com: The Native American flute is not inherently versatile and R. Carlos Nakai, the Yo-Yo Ma of this instrument, knows it. That's why he's always looking for novel settings that range from Japanese ensembles to acoustic piano to global music groups. So to stand there naked with an instrument that has a one octave range takes a depth of resources that are both technical and spiritual. Nakai has both and he deploys them across this gently searing album of solo native flute works. Engineer Jack Miller gives Nakai just the right amount of reverb and delay to sheath his flute in an echoing glow without burying it in gimmick. It's like you would imagine a flute melody cast into a canyon to sound, only better. Serene, meditative, soothing; these are all easy adjectives for a CD that will become a staple of shiatsu massage parlors and yoga studios. But Nakai goes deeper than that, calling up the spirit of the desert southwest with every breath he exhales into his vibrato-tinged melodies.
3. Serenity Suite: Music & Nature
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From Amazon.com: If it hadn't been for keyboardist Steve Halpern, the New Age genre may never have been born. His 1975 release, Spectrum, marked the debut of a music whose compositional structure was free and intended for relaxation. Halpern built an entire career around this concept and thanks to his serenely inspired tinkling, along with the genre it spawned, thousands of listeners have found a musical way to unwind and heal from the stresses of life. Nowhere is this more apparent than on Halpern's Serenity Suite, a 1999 release that marries the sounds of tweeting birds and mountain streams with a gentle piano and warm electric keyboards. It's like a soundtrack to a camping trip, or rather, it captures the quiet contentment you experience when camping. Select tracks include airy flute, harp, and violin, which flow effortlessly within Halpern's pleasant atmosphere like stream water over mossy rocks. This album isn't for those who crinkle their nose at New Age music, but it certainly is for those interested in achieving serenity.
(2004) ~ DVD
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From Amazon.com: You wouldn't think a movie could look like a Vermeer painting, but Girl with a Pearl Earring is filmed with an amazing range of luminous glows that evoke the Dutch artist's masterworks. Of course, it helps that much of the movie centers on Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, Ghost World), whose creamy skin and full lips have a luminosity of their own. Johansson plays Griet, a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth, Bridget Jones' Diary, Fever Pitch), who finds herself in a web of jealousy, artistic inspiration, and social machinations. Though the pace is slow, Girl with a Pearl Earring genuinely conveys some sense of an artist's process, as well as offering many chaste yet sensual moments between Firth and Johansson. Also featuring Essie Davis as Vermeer's bitter wife and Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom) as a wealthy patron with eyes for Griet.
(2003) ~ DVD
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From Amazon.com: The Quiet American proves that elegant and intelligent filmmaking can be emotionally powerful. Michael Caine plays Thomas Fowler, a British journalist in 1950s Vietnam with a lovely Vietnamese mistress named Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen) and a jaded view of the political strife teeming around him. He befriends a seemingly innocuous American named Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), who falls in love with Phuong--and slowly, Pyle's real purpose in Vietnam becomes revealed. Fowler finds that, to hold on to the carefully balanced life he's created for himself, he must make choices he's long avoided. Caine and Fraser are both superb and give a human face to complicated politics; as a result, The Quiet American manages to be compelling as both history and a story about very specific people embroiled in a very personal conflict. An impressive film from director Philip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Patriot Games).
3. Barfly
(1987) ~ DVD
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From Amazon.com: The script for this movie was written by outrageous poet-author-alcoholic Charles Bukowski. But director Barbet Schroeder makes it into an oddly amusing story of a pugnacious drunk writer (Mickey Rourke) based on Bukowski himself. Rourke spends almost all of his time at the bar, struggling with sobriety (he's against it) and, occasionally, having fistfights with the bartender (Frank Stallone). He meets another souse, a formerly attractive woman (Faye Dunaway), and gets involved with her, which means they drink copious amounts of liquor and try to have sex. Not much happens beyond that, yet this film is strangely entertaining, for all of its bottom-of-the-barrel humanity. Maybe that's the secret: "Oh, the humanity...." | |||||||||
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