Radiance Books & Media
Radiance carries an exciting variety of books
on herbal medicine, general wellness, cooking and nutrition,
personal growth, mind-body healing, spirituality and metaphysical
studies, and much more. On this page you will find info
about some of our featured books, authors and distributors.
New Leaf Distributors, one of Radiance's source for books and DVDs, shares many of our values, like environmental responsibility, contributing to the community, and fostering an environment of honesty and respect. Their mission is "to spread wisdom and joy by helping to make available books, recordings and other products that foster conscious living, natural wellness and a deep inner life of spiritual realization."
Currently Featured Titles:
CD: Celebration of Light
Deuter has built a career on making music that resides on the softer side of the musical spectrum; music that beckons the listener to dive into a world free of cares and full of meditative bliss. It only makes sense then that he would use his gifts to add a sense of beauty and light to a time of the year that has become synonymous with crowded shopping malls and endless to-do lists. CELEBRATION OF LIGHT features a selection of songs designated to bring peace and joy to the Christmas season and Winter Solstice. The music is entirely instrumental, featuring soft renditions of songs that Deuter personally finds moving, like "In Dulci Jublio," "Greensleeves," and "Winter" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," as well as a few original pieces. The music utilizes synth ambience, flutes, harp and enchanting keyboard effects to provide a festive, yet serene atmosphere. Ideal for the holiday season, this is a new classic from world-renowned new age artist Deuter.
CD: December Journey
DECEMBER JOURNEY, from Celtic group Norland Wind, takes a unique approach to music of the holiday season. The music is a blend of wintry themed pieces and Christmas music from various British and Scandinavian traditions. Some familiar themes come into play, like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "The First Noel," but most of the selections are less mainstream pieces, like the Swedish carol "Shining Christmas" or the Manx carol "Stephen's Day Session." The instrumentation is very subtle, focusing on harp, guitar and mandolin, with some light whistle, synthesizers to provide a smooth touch and rhythmic elements. It's a very acoustic album with a low-key feel that's perfect for people burnt out on traditional radio-style holiday music.
CD: Festival of Light
While Christmas music is ubiquitous during the month of December, the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah receives a much more modest musical showing. Yet, that doesn't mean that Hanukkah is lacking in strong musical offerings, and Six Degrees Records' "Festival of Light" series was created to showcase them. The underlying goal of this album was to showcase the breadth of Hanukkah music, ranging from traditional to more mainstream. A prime example of the latter is the opening track "Rock of Ages" from Mark Cohn, which has emerged in recent years as one of the prime examples of pop/rock Hanukkah music. Other tracks borrow from the realms of klezmer, blues, folk, and string music.
CD: Beyond the Forest
Martin Cradick's ethno-fusion project Baka Beyond has been successfully uniting the ancient world of tribal Africa and the modern world of studio wizardry for over a decade. On BEYOND THE FOREST, Cradick uses field recordings of Pygmy men and women in the rainforests of Africa as a foundation for his music. The sound of the Baka tribe singing ceremonial/ritual songs, as well as those for everyday survival, provides the music with a primal quality that is both organic and fascinating. This album particularly showcases a singing style called "yelli," where female tribal members sing through a series of sharp, ecstatic cries. The pieces are then embellished upon by Cradick and crew, adding Celtic influences, rhythms that cross boundaries between Europe and Africa, and colorful keyboard melodies.
CD: O Soul Song
India’s most acclaimed flutist meets Western string orchestration! In these times of technological supremacy, the symbolic power of the bansuri flute is meaningful. The title O Soul Song is self-explanatory, implying the quintessence in all things and the inspiration from each and every single note. Just like a long spiritual prayer, O Soul Song conquers stunned newcomers and longtime admirers alike as a new meditation, delivering a song that resonates long after it ends. Gorgeous artwork by James Koehnline. Six-page digipak contains liner notes.
CD: Heart Chakra Meditation II: Coming Home
Providing the musical support for a profound physical and spiritual experience, Heart Chakra Meditation II: Coming Home includes a description of the breathing and physical postures for a serene, personal balancing exercise. This meditation is a proven exercise based on the Sufi tradition that dates back hundreds of years. It is an especially simple breath and movement exercise that can help relieve inner tension, allowing the energy of the heart to flow freely again.
In the Radiance Book Nook, we’re busy following the trail of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, and seeking out new, authentic sources of Indigenous wisdom on sustainability and social justice. Here are two exciting new finds:
Sacred Fire Magazine
If food is humanity’s most meaningful tie to the land, can a Pacific Northwestern Scotsman find a way to a local, sustainable scone? If he can’t, does he remain authentically Scottish? Does he carefully integrate sheep to the area, being mindful of the thousands of native plants and animals they impact, or does he find a way to weave his kilt from cedar bark like his Salish neighbors making their hats? In order to sustain human (and plant, and animal) life on the planet, we have to find our way forward through our past. Sacred Fire Magazine offers articles by both indigenous culture-bearers working to share and preserve traditions that can save us, and folks stepping out of the mainstream to find ways to root their lives in the land they live with and their own authentic ethnic and spiritual heritages. It’s a publication of the Sacred Fire Foundation, which “promotes personal, cultural and environmental healing by helping all people re-discover their innate and intimate connection to the living world.” There might not be anything more important to integrate into your life right now.
Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future
A collection of articles by native presenters at the Bioneers conference, this book tries to give you enough points of an entirely different way of thinking of the world that you can begin to see yourself in an entirely new relationship with everything. Beans, computers, English, perfectionism, Halloween, I really mean everything. The book lives up to its title, it does give teachings for a sustainable future, but before it can do that, it has to pry you out of your own accustomed way of thinking of the world into something much more tasty, multi-dimensional, and involved.
Back Care Yoga for Beginners
Fifty percent of American adults at any moment are suffering from chronic back pain, and most of us deal with it intermittently. In yoga, the saying goes you’re only as old as your spine is inflexible, so it sounds like yoga has a lot to teach us. This DVD is a great place to start; it’s designed to be accessible for people who can’t stand independently, but, it didn’t take the video long to get to work on my hunched shoulders and tight lower back. This is the elegant simplicity of yoga: one stretch can do so much for everybody. Rodney Yee makes the most of it too, taking enough time explaining and staying in each pose so you feel confident you’re doing it right, and can feel a difference after one video. This DVD is like medicine. I wouldn’t put it on when I didn’t need it, but when I’m in pain from too much time in the bike saddle or sleeping wrong, it’s just what the swami ordered.
Birthing From Within
Nobody involved in the alternative birth community doesn't know about this book, for good reason. It addresses the pregnancy and birthing process in a way that is simultaneously positive, creative, and unflinchingly frank. Labor is hard, bloody, thrilling work for everyone involved.
I especially appreciate the sections helping men explore their fears and "births" into their new role as fathers, as well as labor stories from cultures around the world as well as the author's own extrordinary experiences as a midwife. It also investigates the origins of our modern dis-empowering birth industry, and works to give women back their power and control of the birthing experince. It's hard not to imagine anyone picking this book up and not reading something that would enrich his or her understanding and valuing of where we all come from.
Perelandra Garden Workbook
Many of our customers will be familiar with the co-creative gardening practices that turned Findhorn from a barren trailer park full of sand dunes into a green oasis and living testament to the power of nature spirits. For those ready to take the next step, MacHaelle Small Wright has written the Perelandra Garden Workbook. This guide gives practical, step-by-step advice for contacting, communicating, and gardening with nature spirits using muscle testing--for those of us not psychic enough to hear or see these beings. Left at this, the Perelandra Garden Workbook would be a map through a great adventure. Ms. Small Wright, herself a former Findhorn resident sweetens the book with many conversations she's had with various devas and plant spirits she works with. She ends the book with one of these, a message from the spirit of the planet herself, which brought tears to my eyes.
CD: Relax for Yoga
When you practice yoga, you are letting free the joy that resides within you. It acts as a means of body conditioning, mental housecleaning and spiritual awakening.
From the "Mind, Body & Soul" series, RELAX FOR YOGA offers an album of soft, immersive music designed to be used during a yoga session. The compositions were created by Shamindra, and feature mellow synthesized ambience, dotted with glassy keyboard tones and the occasional bit of sitar. The pace is relaxed, providing a leisurely flow during yoga work. Also included is a guidebook by Ron and Beryl Moles, members of the Life Foundation, who offer advice on some basic asanas, as well as a guide on how best to incorporate the music into your session.
Overcoming Allergies
It wouldn't be spring without pollen. In India, they celebrate both during the festival of Holi, where people paint their faces (and friends, and passers-by) with bright pollen, splash colored water on each other, and generally get away with what during any other time of the year as inappropriate, silly, debauched behavior.
Which is awesome, unless you are one of the growing number of us, Hindu and non-Hindu alike, whose eyes start watering, nose starts running, skin starts itching, and throat starts closing until you're forced indoors. If you're facing allergies for the first time, Overcoming Allergies would be a great book to have on hand. It's bright, encouraging pages are filled with common sense advice from all over the modality map (allopathic, herbal, folk, nutritional, homeopathic) for every condition allergies kick off in our bodies. It also walks you through elimination and rotation diets. It may not be the end of research for every allergy-affected person, but it will make that research a lot more broad, fast and fruitful, and hopefully get more of us back out laughing in the pollen, where we belong.
Have You Filled a Bucket Today?
As book buyer for Radiance, I have never encountered such frequent and passionate responses to any book we've carried. This simple, bright children's book lays out the golden rule more cearly and engageingly than any religous text I've encountered. The premise is simple: we all carry a bucket inside us. It's meant to carry good feelings we have about ourselves. You can fill your own bucket by helping other people fill theirs, offering compliments or help. Some people try to fill their buckets by emptying others', which never works. Not a gripping plot, exactly, but a premise that parents and educators keep coming back to the store raving about. And then they walk out with two or three more copies for friends or other teachers. This book seems to be an effective way to empower children to raise the quality of their own environments, which, in this era of concerted effort by schools to combat bullying, is going to help everyone.
CD: Endless Blue Sky
Gifted pianist Kevin Kern has warmed the hearts of listeners everywhere with his gentle, tender touch on the keys. His albums always display a sense of peace and a lightness that makes one think of warm, summer afternoons spent indulging in life's simple pleasures.
ENDLESS BLUE SKY features Kern doing more of what he does best, featuring a set of original compositions performed in his signature style. Most of the tracks consist of solo piano, though strings, violin and acoustic guitar appear from time to time. Kern's playing is impeccable; the melodies are straight-forward and with enough of a hook to remain memorable after the CD has ceased.
Nourishing Traditions
Sally Fallon
A cookbook with pages of footnotes after each chapter, Nourishing Traditions is the book most post-vegitarians I know point to as the reason for re-integrating conscientously raised and prepared animal products back into their diet. This book has a voice with an agenda, which will sound ironically familiar to readers of vegan dietary books. But don't be put off; Ms. Fallon has carefully re-assembled a nutrition-enhancing history of food preparation that our pre-packaged, one-pot meal lifestyles are microwaving into amnesia. Although some readers have been put off by the occaisional snarky aside directed at vegans and fad-diet followers, this is a rich, passionate, fun and carefully researched book. With all this going on, it's easy to forget this first and foremost a cookbook. Its sections on grain preparation and fermentation are ones I can say have radically changed my eating life.
Feng Shui and Health
Nancy SantoPietro
When a book is able to take a fascinating, valuable, but really esoteric system, say Feng Shui, and can offer an average person a practical way in to really understanding it from the inside out, it deserves to become a classic. Feng Shui got popular enough about a decade ago to taste a little faddish. Fortunately, Nancy SantoPiedro has put together a book that takes the time and detail needed to rescue this ancient system of design and energy management from the woo-woo clich� bin. Better yet, she draws the connection between home energy flow and the body's energetic, psychological, and physical health systems. Truly a book that can grow an interested beginner into a capable designer and student conversant in modern applications and new movements within this time-honored study.
Common Herbs for Natural Health
Julliet de Bairacli Levy
Ask a traditional herbalist about Julliet de Bairacli Levy, and watch them fall silent and starry-eyed for a moment. It's like asking a violinist about Paiganini. To speak about them is to tap into the bridge between the modern practice and the rich, holy history of our leaf-snacking and fiddle-swinging ancestors.
While Paiganini promoted the rumor he'd sold his soul to the devil to play so well, Juiette merely uprooted herself and traveled Europe for years with the Roma in their horse-drawn, painted wagons. As a traveling and often mistrusted minority, the Roma were forced into medical self-reliance. This meant they also maintained a beautiful living repository of traditional European herbal know-how. And Ms. de Bairacli Levy soaked it up until it saturated her fibers. This book is a rarity, one that speaks comfortably to a modern audience about the type of herbal knowledge one often has to brave antiquated English to access. In many ways she's the ur-mother of the modern herbal movement who is very much the direct ancestor of herbalists like Rosemary Gladstar, Stephen Harrod Buhner, and Susun Weed.