Dear friends of the wild-flowering earth,
This September, in the earth sign of Virgo, and with Mercury retrograde, is a good time to revise, to re-tune, and to repair. To clear the clutter, and clean the drains. On these late summer days, with whispers of the first dry leaves falling, I also hope you can enjoy some local corn on the cob and blackberry smiles.
Our big event this month (marking Mercury going direct again!) is on Sunday, Sept. 12th, when chanteuse Deva Premal, her guitar-toting partner Miten, and that charming, Krishna-esqe flutist Manose again bring their kirtan-magic to Vancouver--this time to the Centennial Theatre in North Van. The grace of heart-opening resonance and melodic mantra they so readily offer is a sweet, deep space... in which to open up your vocal chords, or just float in the harmony... Here is how Ram Dass describes the magic of kirtan, in his new book Be Love Now (which will be out in November): "When you sing to the guru, you're singing to God, you're singing to your own heart, to your own true Self. When you sing with enough love, you merge into that love, where lover and Beloved become One. That's bhakti yoga, that's how it works... Chanting goes on as long as it goes and then it stops. After it stops, there's silence."
There are a few tickets left, but they are going fast. Hope to hum the honey-in-the-heart with you there... Click here for more info/tickets, and click here if you'd like to hear listening samples from Deva's just-released new album Into Light: Meditation Music by Deva Premal. You can also listen to a live interview with Deva Premal and Miten which will be aired on Monday September 6th @ 5pm, (one week before the concert), on co-op radio 102.7fm or by listening online at www.coopradio.org - the podcast will be downloaded to www.drishtipoint.ca.
We're offering a surprisingly diverse galaxy of events in September. Please check out Event details below.
Each month lately (have you noticed?) I'm offering you a quick glimpse of Highlights of New September Releases. Click, and browse through... books/seeds of beauty, coherence, and vision that may be just the psychic nutrients you've been hungering for...
David Abram's new book, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology has just arrived, and on page 278 it contains an evocative description of what almost certainly is Banyen, as David reflects on our "writing it down" culture increasingly unhinged from any local, breathing landscape or living stories. It's a beautiful riff. Read it here. And below is another little treat from the book for you to sample:
"Stepping, Now and Then, out of Clock Time Entirely"
It is not a matter of "going back" to an earlier way of life, but of aligning ourselves with the full depth of the present, expanding awareness beyond the gleaming veneer of our mass-produced artifacts, dropping our attention beneath the recently sedimented strata of commercial civilization (beneath the inert, plastic layers of tossed-out toys and discarded water bottles) to make conscious contact with the darker humus in which our humanity is still rooted. The soil at that depth is made of dances, and songs, and the hushed cadence of spoken stories. By remembering ourselves at that depth, by tapping the nutrients in that timeless soil, we draw fresh water on up into the stems and leaves of the open present. We re-create civilization by tapping the primordial wellsprings of culture, replenishing the practice of wonder that lies at the indigenous heart of all culture.
With great thanks for your support, all 28 of us at Banyen send our smiles your way. Drop by the store if you can, and have a fond, frisky, fruitful month! May the Great Zucchini and Nectarine Spirit be with you...
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Very Special Event this Month:
• Sunday, September 12 •
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 Tuesdays, Sept 7 & 21
6:00-8:30 pm
Gayle
– part of our Readings Series
TAROT READINGS WITH GAYLE
 Tuesday, September 7
6:30-8:00 pm
Jane Meredith
– in-store Talk & Booksigning
APHRODITE'S MAGIC
 Thursday, September 9
7:00 pm
SARK
SUCCULENT WILD WISDOM
 Monday, September 13
7:00 pm
Andrew Harvey & Karuna Erickson
HEART YOGA:
MARRIAGE OF YOGA & MYSTICISM
 Thursday, September 16
6:30-8:00 pm
James Nemec
– in-store Talk & Booksigning
JOURNEYS:
STORIES OUR BODIES CAN TELL
 Sunday, September 19
11:30-1:00
Gen Kelsang Delek
– part of our Special Introductory Talk Series
INTRODUCTION TO MEDITATION
 Monday, September 20
6:30-8:00 pm
Richard Kaczynski
– in-store Talk & Booksigning
PERDURABO:
THE LIFE OF ALEISTER CROWLEY
 Thursday, September 23
6:30-8:00 pm
Jon Turk
– in-store Talk & Booksigning
RAVEN'S GIFT
 Sunday, September 26
11:30-1:00
Susan Allen
– part of our Special Introductory Talk Series
INDIAN HEAD MASSAGE
 Thursday, September 30
6:30-8:00 pm
David Livingstone
– in-store Talk & Booksigning
A LIVING PASSPORT
 Sunday, October 10
11:00-5:00
Jane Gottschlag
– part of our Readings Series
HEALING THROUGH COLOUR
 Thursday, October 14
7:00 pm
Zoey Wren
– in-store Concert
LIGHT ON THE WATER
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(We receive many new titles every week.
These are just a few of the latest gems.)
The Buddha's Liberating Teaching of No-Self
 by Rodney Smith
160 pages, paperback, Shambhala
Rodney Smith website
Senior Insight Meditation Society teacher, Rodney Smtih, explores the Buddhist teaching of Anatta: the nonexistence of a permanent, independent self.
Smith shows that the understanding of this truth can change the way we relate to the world, and that the perspective of selflessness is important for anyone involved in spiritual practice. Smith argues that this insight can take us beyond self-important notions of spiritual life, and allow us to access the profound joy of deep insight into reality. Read more…
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THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTIONS:
What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You
 by Karla McLaren
412 pages, paperback, Sounds True
Karla Mclaren website
In The Language of Emotions Karla McLaren suggests a radical new perspective: that all of our emotions are equally important messengers, ready to assist us in acting with full awareness and integrity.
McLaren , an empathic counsellor and researcher, provides insights from psychology and neurology. She also presents practical exercises to help us discover our own "internal compass" to help us tap into the wisdom of our feelings as a gateway to healing and fulfillment. Read more…
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THE POWER
 by Rhonda Byrne
252 pages, hardcover, Simon & Schuster
Rhonda Byrne website
In The Secret, Rhonda Byrne revealed the law of attraction. Now, in her new book The Power, Byrne reveals "The Power to have everything you want."
In The Power, Byrne states that all it takes is this one thing to change your relationships, money, health, happiness, career, and your entire life.
"The life of your dreams" states Byrne, "has always been closer to you than you realized, because The Power -- to have everything good in your life -- is inside you." Read more…
New Audio Teaching
 by Erica Rayner-Horn
79 minutes, CD, Erica Rayner-Horn
Rayner-Horn website
Finding Tranquility is an introduction to mindfulness meditation practice, offering four guided meditations, and advice on how to integrate mindfulness into our everyday lives.
Drawing on her experience as a Mindfulness-Stress-Based-Reduction teacher and more than 30 years of meditation training, Rayner-Horn simplifies long and complex practices into this accessible, easy to follow program.
"Erica’s calming presence, wise words, and beautiful voice permeate throughout." Read more…
SOUL JOURNEYS: Music for Shamanic Practice
 by Sandra Ingerman & the Shamanic Transmission Band
124 minutes, 2 CDs, Sounds True
Sandra Ingerman website
In the practice of shamanic journeying, rhythm fuses with intent to carry us into the unseen worlds for wisdom, healing, and insight.
With Soul Journeys, Sandra Ingerman presents a unique collection of musical journeys made to transport you into an expanded state of perception.
In addition to drumming sessions for general use in shamanic practice, Ingerman has for the first time recorded music created specifically to enable key journeys for self-empowerment.
Read more…
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BHAKTI BAZAAR: Music for Yoga & Other Joys
 by Jai Uttal & Ben Leinbach
68 minutes, CD, Sounds True
Jai Uttal website
With Bhakti Bazaar Uttal and Leinbach serve up a new mix of devotinal chant, sensual rhythms, and meditative melodies. Bhakti Bazaar features dotar, electric guitar and slide tamboura, complemented by Jai Uttal's full, golden-toned voice, supported by flutist Manose and singer Tina Malia.
Bhakti Bazaar is designed with longer track times to support meditation and yoga practice. It is also perfect for gardening, driving and bodywork. Read more…
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REALMS OF LIGHT
 by Iasos
70 minutes, DVD, Iasos
Iasos video
Iasos, one of the brilliant pioneers of New Age music, has now created heavenly visuals to accompany the celestial music on his Realms of Light album.
The visuals - washes of colour, visions of space, angels, nature spirits, and symbols - are synced with the music with delightful, visionary precision.
Like the music, some of the visuals are stimulating, and some are relaxing. And all are heavenly, uplifting, beautiful, and celestial. Read more…
New Oracles
 by James Wanless
78 cards, Fair Winds
Voyager Tarot website
The Voyager Tarot is a deck of pure symbolism that is both universal and modern
The cards are rich with bright and colourful photographic collages of images from multiple cultures.
Designed to reflect our modern world of choices, possibilities and diversity, without sacrificing the power of tarot's magic and mystery, Voyager Tarot Provides multiple ways of using the cards as a tool for self-empowerment and self-awareness.
Read more…
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Hand Drums & Dream Catchers: |
New Native Hand Drums have arrived, Elk
$120.00 to $280.00
New Dream Catchers
from a local native owned family business. $14.95 to $58.00
It is said that both good dreams and bad dreams circulate in the night air. The loop, its centre woven in web-like pattern, allows the good dreams to pass through the web into the sleeper, but makes bad dreams become entangled in the web to vanish at the first light of dawn.
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We carry over 26,000 titles in Books, CDs, and DVDs!
If we do not have what you are looking for, we can also help you search for it and order it in for you.
Open Mon. to Fri. 10 - 9, Saturday 10 - 8, Sunday 11 - 7
Give us a call:
Books, CDs & DVDs: 604-732-7912
Music, Gifts, Event Tickets: 604-737-8858
Outside Vancouver: 1-800-663-8442
Email: thefolks@banyen.com |
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Seeds to Plant
"If you lose your sense of humour, life just isn't funny anymore!"
– Wavy Gravy
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The tasks that have been entrusted to us are often difficult. Almost everything that matters is difficult, and everything matters.
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When we connect with the original condition of the soul, we touch a live wire of creative bliss, ecstasy and joy. It is by our identification with the soul that we transcend the grievances of our smaller self. By choosing unconditional happiness in the face of life's dramas, we step back from psychic turbulence and remain steadfastly connected to our God-self, present behind the mask of personality.
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"Enough"...demands that we stay awake, pay attention to what is true in this moment, in our hearts, and make our choices always and only from that place. Then whatever we decide brings a sense of rightness and sufficiency, arriving with an exhale, a letting go, a sense that this, here, for now, is enough.
– Wayne Muller
from A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough
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Buddhism has become for me a philosophy of action and responsibility. It provides a framework of values, ideas, and practices that nurture my ability to create a path in life, to define myself as a person, to act, to take risks, to imagine things differently, to make art. The more I prize Gotama’s teachings free from the matrix of Indian religious thought in which they are entrenched and the more I come to understand how his life unfolded in the context of his times, the more I discern a template for living that I can apply at this time in this increasingly secular and globalized world.
– Stephen Batchelor
from Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
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A Practice to Try
For transformation to take place, we have to actually make friends with our mind. We have to learn to like ourselves. This is the opposite of a "get rich quick" scheme. There is no product we can purchase to aid this work. It only comes from the willingness to be with yourself, nakedly, openly, and lovingly, again and again over a long period of time. Which means we have to spend time with ourselves. A lot of time. And the time we spend with ourselves on the cushion is the opposite of passive. It's often tough, it's usually intense, and it leads to a hard-fought, slow-won, and revolutionary victory over self-hatred. We can actually come to like ourselves.
– Ethan Nichtern quoted in the Huffington Post
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I am practicing asana but at a level where the quality is meditative. The totality of being, from core to skin, is experienced. Mind is unruffled, intelligence is awake in heart rather than in head, self is quiescent, and conscious life is in every cell of the body. That is what I mean when I say asana opens up the whole spectrum of yoga’s possibilities.
– from Light on Life
by Iyengar
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DEDICATING
YOUR PRACTICE:
First, before and after your practice, stand in Mountain Pose for some long, calm moments, savoring all the richness and beauty of the presence now vibrant within you. Cupping your hands over your heart consciously extend to the four directions that richness and that beauty. Spread your arms, imagining that from your open hands streams of golden light travel to all the beings in the different directions, filling them in heart, mind, soul, and body with the radiance of the presence. Imagine this light healing them of whatever suffering is blocking their deepest fulfillment and their realization of the divine within. As you do this, wish all beings liberation from suffering and injustice.
– from Heart Yoga by Andrew Harvey and Karuna Erickson
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Blessings or Poems to Share
I believe in the flesh
and the appetites.
Seeing, hearing, and feeling
are miracles, and each part and tag of me
is a miracle.
– Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass
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(i who have died
am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday, this is the birth
day of life and of love
and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)...
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
– e.e.cummings
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IT'S THIS WAY
I stand in the advancing
light,
my hands hungry,
the world beautiful.
My eyes can’t get enough
of the trees—
they’re so hopeful, so green.
A sunny road runs
through the mulberries,
I’m at the window
of the prison infirmary.
I can’t smell the medicines—
carnations must
be blooming nearby.
It’s this way:
being captured
is beside the point,
the point is not to
surrender.
– Nazim Hikmet
from Dancing with Joy
ed. by Roger Housden
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THE SUMMER DAY
Who made the world?
Who made the swan,
and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung
herself
out of the grass
the one who is moving
her jaws back and forth
instead of up and down—
who is gazing around
with her enormous
and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale
forearms
and thoroughly washes
her face.
Now she snaps her wings
open,
and floats away.
I don’t know exactly
what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
How to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll
through the fields,
which is what I have been
doing all day.
Tell me, what else
should I have done?
Doesn’t everything
die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan
to do
with your one wild and
precious life?
– Mary Oliver from
New and Selected Poems, Vol One
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