This book consists of a collection of 56 traditional and contemporary tales, graded Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate or Advanced. These come with photocopiable worksheets, as well as an answer key that contains notes for teachers with pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening tasks. Stories not only entertain; they can also alter our experience so as to facilitate growth and change, and the tales included in this book have all been chosen with this aim in mind. Storytellers, unlike folklorists, who make statistical samplings of all the stories they have gathered, choose in the end those stories they believe in. Stories have been chosen that deal with topics that tend to be featured in course books so they can be incorporated into an integrated programme.

A Bridge to the Other Side is a collection of articles and traditional folk tales that deal with our feelings about and attitudes towards Death, both our own death and that of those nearest and dearest to us. A bridge between earth and heaven, this world and the next, features in the mythology of many different peoples. For example, in Norse legends, Bifrost or Bilrost is a burning rainbow bridge between Midgard, the world, and Asgard, the realm of the gods. The bridge is known as Bilrost in the Poetic Edda; compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and as Bifrost in the Prose Edda; written in the 13th century by Snorri Stureuson. Both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda alternately refer to the bridge as Asbru (Old Norse Esirs means bridge). The Persians believed in a bridge between earth and paradise too. In his prayers the penitent in his confession would say: I am wholly without doubt in the existence of the Mazdayacnian faith; in the coming of the resurrection of the latter body; in the stepping over the bridge Chinvat; as well as in the continuance of paradise.

Known as the land of the mountains, Dagestan lies immediately north of the Caucasus Mountains, and stretches for approximately 250 miles along the west shore of the Caspian Sea. With its mountainous terrain making travel and communication difficult, Daghestan is still largely tribal. Despite over a century of Tsarist control followed by seventy years of repressive Soviet rule, there are still 32 distinct ethnic groups in Daghestan, each with its own language, making it unquestionably the most complex of the Caucasian republics. Shamanic practices are still prevalent in this country, where one of the ten lost tribes of Israel can be found, and in which the stories of the elders provide the people with evidence of who their ancient ancestors were and where their roots lie. In Daghestan, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia, Chechnya, and Azerbaijan, these roots lie in shamanism. This book, one of only a handful available in English on the country, contains the texts of some of these stories as well as commentaries on them.

'Everything shifts in the Caucasus, blown by some of the strongest winds on earth. Even the ground moves, splintered by fault lines. In early Georgian myths, it is said that when the mountains were young, they had legs - could walk from the edges of the oceans to the deserts, flirting with the low hills, shrouding them with soft clouds of love' - Griffin, 2001, p.2. But what about those aspects of life which remain relatively constant - the traditional practices of the mountain people, the practices that are reflected in their folktales and their folklore? It is these constants that this study concentrates on, in particular those that relate to shamanism.

Michael Berman has been teaching English as a Foreign Language and giving talks and workshops at both national and international conferences all his working life, and this volume is a collection of the articles and materials he has written on the subject over the years that have not been published in book form before. As well as articles on particular approaches to language teaching, such as the application and use of NLP and Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory, you will also find plenty of practical teaching materials to make use of with your students: first day activities, for example, stories with suggestions for follow up work, and lead ins to introduce new topics. In this book you will find something for everyone.

This workbook, which consists of 60 short self-study units, is called "On Business and for Pleasure" because although it has been designed to help students with the Business English they need for their work, it is hoped that the challenges it sets will, at the same time, prove to be enjoyable. An Answer Key has been included so the learners can check what they have done, and thus work independently, if that is what suits them best. And the exercises are of the kind of length that will enable students to work on them when they have relatively short periods of time to spare, such as while commuting to and from work on public transport. The size of the book should make this convenient too, with it being available in paperback rather than in a larger format.

Despite being located on the extreme eastern boundary of Europe, and having been frequently conquered by invading people from Asia, including Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mongols, and more recently Russians, Georgians still regard themselves very much as Europeans and it is to becoming a future member state of the EU that the majority of the people now aspire. As for the traditional folk-tales from the region, one of their main characteristics is that they are packed with action: Whilst a written, 'literary' novel or short story might devote paragraphs to descriptions of people or places, these tales usually settle for an adjective or two; 'a thick impassable forest', 'a handsome stately man', or a formula such as 'not-seen-beneath-the-sun beauty'. Many of the heroes and heroines do not even have names (Hunt, 1999, p.8). Safely cocooned, or so we like to kid ourselves, in our sanitised western urban environment, we tend to take the elements for granted. However, tales from a time when the Earth was new help to jolt us out of our daily lethargy, as do the stories in this collection - a number of which have never been translated from Georgian direct into English before.

'Everything shifts in the Caucasus, blown by some of the strongest winds on earth. Even the ground moves, splintered by fault lines. In early Georgian myths, it is said that when the mountains were young, they had legs - could walk from the edges of the oceans to the deserts, flirting with the low hills, shrouding them with soft clouds of love' - "Griffin", 2001, p.2. But what about those aspects of life which remain relatively constant - the traditional practices of the people, the practices that are reflected in their folktales and their folklore? It is these constants that this study concentrates on. Find out about the land with which the earliest folklore of Europe is connected - the land where Noah's Ark is said to have settled, the land of the Argonauts and of Prometheus.

This workbook is called On Business and For Pleasure Again because it is a sequel to the previous book on Business English written by the same author. Although it has been designed to help students with the English they need for their work, it is hoped that the challenges it sets will, at the same time, prove to be enjoyable. An Answer Key has been included so the learners can check what they have done, and thus work independently, if that is what suits them best. And the exercises are of the kind of length that will enable students to work on them when they have relatively short periods of time to spare, such as while commuting to and from work on public transport. The size of the book should make this convenient too, with it being available in paperback rather than in a larger format.

Ryan O'Nan writes, directs and stars in his debut feature, a musical road trip comedy following two young musician friends as they set out to pursue their dreams. Alex (O'Nan) and Jim (Michael Weston), aka The Brooklyn Brothers, head out for the West Coast from their home city of New York in the hope of bringing their music to a wider audience. As they travel across the country, they play a series of gigs at random music venues in the build-up to a 'Battle of the Bands' event. Along the way they meet self-styled music revolutionary Cassidy (Arielle Kebbel), who becomes their road manager.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow. Friedrich Nietzsche What mountains mean to me: in one word, awe-inspiring. Although we can measure them, our minds are incapable of actually grasping the very small or the very large things in nature: neither atomic particles nor astronomical distances. How big is a mountain, how much does it weigh? Our limited minds can only cope with subjective assessments such as how difficult is it to climb, how dangerous would an avalanche be? So the feelings it produces are awe, a little fear, and possibly exhilaration if and when we think that we have conquered the mountain - but in reality we never can. Professor David Hunt All the stories presented in this collection contain shamanic elements, so the obvious starting point is to explain what is meant by this. The term 'shaman' is a controversial one. Initially employed by early anthropologists to refer to a specific category of magical practitioners from Siberia, the term is now widely used to denote similar practitioners from a variety of cultures around the world. This application of an originally culture-specific term to a more general usage has caused problems with regard to definition, with disagreements among scholars over whether certain features, such as soul flight or possession, or certain types of altered states of consciousness, should or should not be listed among the core characteristics of shamanism (Wilby, 2011, p.252). Introduction What are Mountains for you? Soul Captivation on White Bone Mountain The Magic Brush and the Golden Mountain The Legend of Amirani The Story of Jumping Mouse The Children of Hamelin: A Shamanic Journey into Mount Poppenberg The Crystal Clear Waters of Mount Elbruz The Vision Quest, Mount Sinai, and a Dream Fulfilled Mount Ararat Mount Koya-san, the Hermit's Cave, and Fujiyama Sacred Towers The Fool on the Hill and the Book of Mysteries The Tobacco of Harisaboqued The Princess of the Tower Appendix: The Baal Shem Tov - Rabbi, Religious Formulator or Shaman?

The forests comprising the Gila National Forest and Wilderness in southwest New Mexico is the largest in the contiguous U.S., the least visited or photographed, the one most wild in nature. It is nestled at the nexus of four great ecosystems. It lies at the end of the Rocky Mountains after they slide down the North American continent like a glacier before breaking up into an archipelago of small ranges floating in a sea of grasslands. A couple hundred miles to the south, the Sierra Madre Mountains rise up, serrating Mexico for another two thousand miles. To the west lies the Sonoran Desert with its giant saguaros, and to the east spreads the Chihuahuan Desert, a minimalist dream of small ranges and desert grasslands. In its present state, the Gila is a functioning, high-quality ecosystem of remote forests and canyons. The Gila River courses through this land, the last undammed river in New Mexico. The heart of the Gila is its unspoiled wilderness. Noted environmentalist Aldo Leopold conceived the modern concept of "wilderness" here. It was designated the world's first wilderness area in 1924, and became the cornerstone of the National Wilderness Preservation System when the Wilderness Act was signed into law in 1961. For more than thirty years, celebrated photographer Michael P. Berman has explored the vast Gila, fascinated by the land and how people use and value it. He has wandered deep into the forest with his large-format camera, searching for the untrammeled, scraggly, and complex ecosystems, allowing the Gila to reveal itself. In this two-volume slip-cased edition, the untouched specialness of the Gila is captured in Berman's photographs and explored in fifteen essays by noted writers, natural historians, and environmentalists.

The whole adventure started with a Firestone Tire replica ashtray, created for the New York Worlda s Fair in 1939. Pat Mitchell (who really exists) bought the ashtray at a yard sale. According to Mitchell, engraved into the ashtraya s lip was a code pertaining to a fortune in gold bullion. Intrigued, he began to collect these ashtrays and found more codes. He became obsessed. Was Pat crazy, seeing things? He enlists his reluctant grandson, an investigative reporter, to help. Ace Mitchell, Pata s grandson, begins a grand quest for the truth, which takes him from Philadelphia to Clarksburg, West Virginia to Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany. During his investigation, he encounters members of U.S. Intelligence, Der Spinne, a Nazi organization based in South America, and one of Germanya s richest men. What will he find: a fortune in gold bullion, hidden by the Jews of Bavaria before the war, or a verification of the delusional obsession of an old man? Ace Mitchell is a story that jumps between pre- and post-war Bavaria and current times. It is a story of greed, murder and hypocrisy. Pat Mitchella s notes are very thorough and reproduced in the book. Could it all be true?

Issue 6 of The Crooked Path Journal includes the following articles:
Beefcake, Whine and Cheese by Grace Victoria Swann
The Drift by Jongeorgi Enos
Shamanism by Michael Berman
Weikerie by Robin Artisson
To Twist and Twine by Veronica Cummer
Witch Tales in Serbian Crafting by Radomir Ristic
The Art of Invisibility by Peter Paddon
The Travelling Man by Robin Artisson
Walking Widdershins by Jongeorgi Enos

Life on the farm in Missouri is pretty sweet for twelve-year old Alan Albright. With wide-open fields to play in, horses to ride, forests to explore, and loving parents to take care of him, he's a genuinely happy kid. Sure, his little sister Katie can be annoying at times, but the truth is, Alan would be perfectly content to stay in his hometown forever and grow up to be a farmer, just like his dad. But all of that changes the summer before 7th grade, when Alan's parents suddenly and mysteriously disappear. Although the police are convinced the Albrights were killed in a car accident, Alan refuses to believe it. He soon begins his own investigation and uncovers a mystery that takes him not just far from Missouri... but far from planet Earth. Orion is a first-person account of Alan's journey as he travels across the galaxies to discover the truth about extraterrestrials, outer-space and what really happened to his missing parents.

Written and designed for TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teachers, this is a visually appealing, thoroughly practical resource -- full of exercises, activities, stories, visualizations, puzzles and information for immediate use in the classroom. It provides exercises and advice for teaching and contains all a teacher will need to keep students challenged and learning in the style that suits them best, A Multiple Intelligences Road To An ELT Classroom covers all essential areas making teaching easily accessible, compelling and fun! An extremely versatile book, this can also be used as an activities resource for teachers of English as a first language.

"In Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the course of human advancement ... The premise of Marxism was that eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion would eventually die out" (Znamenski, 2007, p.322). Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about shamanism, and also on people's attitudes in the former Soviet Republics towards such practices. On the other hand, it has been suggested that "all intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous" (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to searching for the roots of Christianity in Armenia, when it comes to searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people of Armenia is generally speaking not so forthcoming. This impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions, including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the 1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Armenian Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However, hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process in motion.