The Celestial River

Long ago, before the lights of cities dimmed our view of the heavens, anyone who looked up on a clear night could see the Milky Way. The glowing ribbon of light seemed almost close enough to touch. It reminded ancient peoples of common things around them: a river, a road, milk, or strewn wheat. They gave the luminous stream vivid names, such as Celestial River, Star-Filled Basket, and Path to the Place of Abundance. With these names came remarkable stories of how the Milky Way was formed stories ....

Long ago, before the lights of cities dimmed our view of the heavens, anyone who looked up on a clear night could see the Milky Way. The glowing ribbon of light seemed almost close enough to touch. Tantalizing as an introduction to folktales, Andrea Stenn Stryer's collection reveals the richness of world folk literature, reaching back through the centuries to pre-literate cultures.

Megan, an I.T professional loves to travel. Something terrible happens in one of her journeys. What happens to Megan? How it transforms her?

The Celestial Scriptures will challenge every spiritual principle that has been imposed upon us through tenets or organized religions. It is not easy to face the fact that religious pronouncements—often contradictory—are primarily distortions regarding some universal truth as seen through myth and superstition. The Celestial Scriptures will challenge the reader to get acquainted with a means of spiritual understanding that is unfamiliar, for it reinstates an extremely ancient device as a teaching tool. The irony is that most people in our technilogical society have at least a passing awareness of this device and associate it with a frivolous pastime. In spite of all humankind's technological advances, we have not learned to override the conditioned religious interpretations that were set down by ancestors who insisted that the Earth was the center of Creation. We have climbed out of such simplemindedness and have raised virtual mountains of technological wonders. But amazingly, from the summits these mountains where we are privileged to peer into the living heart of universal truths, we still bow before mythic explanations and superstitions! It is time to face the fact that deceptions have lurked in the halls of faith for far too long.

"Library catalogue in 1911" (31 p.) appended to v. 4.

The ancient Chinese were profoundly influenced by the Sun, Moon and stars, making persistent efforts to mirror astral phenomena in shaping their civilization. In this pioneering text, David W. Pankenier introduces readers to a seriously understudied field, illustrating how astronomy shaped the culture of China from the very beginning and how it influenced areas as disparate as art, architecture, calendrical science, myth, technology, and political and military decision-making. As elsewhere in the ancient world, there was no positive distinction between astronomy and astrology in ancient China, and so astrology, or more precisely, astral omenology, is a principal focus of the book. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including archaeological discoveries, classical texts, inscriptions and paleography, this thought-provoking book documents the role of astronomical phenomena in the development of the 'Celestial Empire' from the late Neolithic through the late imperial period.