This book grew out of years of reflections on real women's experiences. From them, Ann Ulanov states, "a common voice emerged speaking about each woman's struggle to receive all of herself. Each was trying to find and put together different parts of herself into a whole that was personal, alive, and real to herself and to others." This book focuses on helping women "receive themselves" by rejecting stereotypes and categories and seeking out their own individuality.

Seated in her nest of ashes, Cinderella embodies human misery. The essence of inner and outer nobility, she is the envy of her cruel stepmother and her ugly sisters. Using this familiar story, Ann and Barry Ulanov explore the psychological and theological aspects of envy and goodness. In their interpretation of the tale, they move back and forth between internal and external issues -- from how feminine and masculine parts of persons fit or do not fit together to how individuals conduct their lives with those of the same and opposite sexes, how they conflict, compete, or join...

Aliveness and Deadness are processes that cannot be captured, only symbolized within the precincts of psychology and religion.

Opening under the shadow of 9/11, our new century must reassess the preciousness of life and what we are living for, what we love, and what we find worth dying for. In the face of loss and absence, we must again ask what makes us feel connected to the source of aliveness. Yet, we must also understand that feeling fully alive means that we must come to fresh insight about the contrary of aliveness, which is deadness. Both aliveness and deadness are part of the same...

The Transcendent is a reality that functions in all our lives all the time, whether you call it God, the unkown, or the holy. It is not some obscure out-of-reach Other available only to those with specialized knowledge or a phenomenon spoken about only in a church, temple, or mosque.

The Transcendent is both beyond us, yet functioning within each of us. It is present in our exchanges with others, yet nearer to us than our own heartbeat. In our daily lives, the Transcendent is often experienced addressing us through or compulsions, perversions, and ordinary struggles. We find it touching us...

In Animal Life in Nature, Myth and Dreams, Elizabeth Caspari connects the world of real, living animals with the symbolic world of animal images in human thought, both conscious and unconscious. She gives the reader an opportunity to make this connection on his or her own personal journey of discovery.

This book is a study of animals--their natural history, mythology, folklore, and religious significance around the world as well as their role in our lives, dreams, and everyday language. It examines the symbolic impact animals have on our collective culture, particularly on our...