Spanning images and voices from around the globe, as well as from the tiny, muted corners of a woman's dreams, this new collection spins and stretches and soothes with its vibrant and teasing language and rich stories.

In an era of environmental crisis, narratives of 'hidden lands' are resonant. Understood as sanctuaries in times of calamity, Himalayan hidden lands or sbas yul have shaped the lives of many peoples of the region. Sbas yul are described by visionary lamas called 'treasure finders' who located hidden lands and wrote guidebooks to them. Scholarly understandings of sbas yul as places for spiritual cultivation and refuge from war have been complicated recently. Research now explores such themes as the political and economic role of 'treasure finders', the impact of sbas yul on indigenous populations, and the use of sbas yul for environmental protection and tourism. This book showcases recent scholarship on sbas yul from historical and contemporary perspectives.

This book charts the life of two young American teachers immersed in an Afghan village, and later in Kabul, from 1973-1976, before the onset of decades of conflict. In this turn back to the memories coded and buried in those years, and in the flashes to more recent events and reflections, the book portrays stories, scenes, people and realities long lost. In the minute particulars and in the large, political and cultural strokes which made up that complex country of hospitable people who shaped the writer's life in unpredictable ways, one finds the seeds which grew to shape a country, a region, an endless war, and which now impact a new millennium.

Frances Garrett Connell (b. 1949) completed degrees from Barnard College, the University of Virginia, and Columbia University and has taught at Kabul University, University of Pennsylvania, St. Mary s Seminary and University, Montgomery College, and George Mason University, as well as at Lycee Mahasty and Lansdowne-Aldan High School, and for Montgomery County (Maryland) Adult Education programs. She has also done consulting for Peace Corps, Bread for the World, World Hunger Education, International Educational Forum, and other organizations. Her poems, articles and stories have appeared in some thirty magazines, as well as organization and association newsletters, the anthology But Can They Do Field Work? (OGN Publications), and The Christian Science Monitor. Other books by the author include: The Rest is Silence: Selected Poems (Xlibris), and four volumes published under a biography-oral history imprint, A Reminiscence Sing: Marcia: a Book of Memories; Dave s Words; The Collected Poems of John Stephen Garrett; and The Banyan Tree.She is working on fine-tuning a pictorial essay and memoir on living in Afghanistan from 1973-1976, Children Kept from the Sun; another collection of poetry, This Side of the Truth; and a novella-short story collection named The Hare in the Moon and Other Stories.From her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, she awaits like gifts the actual and visiting presence of three mostly grown-up Irish-named sons, and her husband, Tom.

This book explores the cultural history of embryology in Tibet, in culture, religion, art and literature, and what this reveals about its medicine and religion. Filling a significant gap in the literature this is the first in-depth exploration of Tibetan medical history in the English language. It reveals the prevalence of descriptions of the development of the human body - from conception to birth - found in all forms of Tibetan religious literature, as well as in medical texts and in art. By analysing stories of embryology, Frances Garrett explores questions of cultural transmission and adaptation: How did Tibetan writers adapt ideas inherited from India and China for their own purposes? What original views did they develop on the body, on gender, on creation, and on life itself? The transformations of embryological narratives over several centuries illuminate key turning points in Tibetan medical history, and its relationship with religious doctrine and practice. Embryology was a site for both religious and medical theorists to contemplate profound questions of being and becoming, where topics such as pharmacology and nosology were left to shape secular medicine. The author argues that, in terms of religion, stories of human development comment on embodiment, gender, socio-political hierarchy, religious ontology, and spiritual progress. Through the lens of embryology, this book examines how these concerns shift as Tibetan history moves through the formative 'renaissance' period of the twelfth through to the seventeenth centuries.

This book explores the cultural history of embryology in Tibet, in culture, religion, art and literature, and what this reveals about its medicine and religion. Filling a significant gap in the literature this is the first in-depth exploration of Tibetan medical history in the English language. It reveals the prevalence of descriptions of the development of the human body - from conception to birth - found in all forms of Tibetan religious literature, as well as in medical texts and in art. By analysing stories of embryology, Frances Garrett explores questions of cultural transmission and adaptation: How did Tibetan writers adapt ideas inherited from India and China for their own purposes? What original views did they develop on the body, on gender, on creation, and on life itself? The transformations of embryological narratives over several centuries illuminate key turning points in Tibetan medical history, and its relationship with religious doctrine and practice. Embryology was a site for both religious and medical theorists to contemplate profound questions of being and becoming, where topics such as pharmacology and nosology were left to shape secular medicine. The author argues that, in terms of religion, stories of human development comment on embodiment, gender, socio-political hierarchy, religious ontology, and spiritual progress. Through the lens of embryology, this book examines how these concerns shift as Tibetan history moves through the formative 'renaissance' period of the twelfth through to the seventeenth centuries.

Spanning images and voices from around the globe, as well as from the tiny, muted corners of a woman's dreams, this new collection spins and stretches and soothes with its vibrant and teasing language and rich stories.

This book charts the life of two young American teachers immersed in an Afghan village, and later in Kabul, from 1973-1976, before the onset of decades of conflict. In this turn back to the memories coded and buried in those years, and in the flashes to more recent events and reflections, the book portrays stories, scenes, people and realities long lost. In the minute particulars and in the large, political and cultural strokes which made up that complex country of hospitable people who shaped the writer's life in unpredictable ways, one finds the seeds which grew to shape a country, a region, an endless war, and which now impact a new millennium.

Frances Garrett Connell (b. 1949) completed degrees from Barnard College, the University of Virginia, and Columbia University and has taught at Kabul University, University of Pennsylvania, St. Mary s Seminary and University, Montgomery College, and George Mason University, as well as at Lycee Mahasty and Lansdowne-Aldan High School, and for Montgomery County (Maryland) Adult Education programs. She has also done consulting for Peace Corps, Bread for the World, World Hunger Education, International Educational Forum, and other organizations. Her poems, articles and stories have appeared in some thirty magazines, as well as organization and association newsletters, the anthology But Can They Do Field Work? (OGN Publications), and The Christian Science Monitor. Other books by the author include: The Rest is Silence: Selected Poems (Xlibris), and four volumes published under a biography-oral history imprint, A Reminiscence Sing: Marcia: a Book of Memories; Dave s Words; The Collected Poems of John Stephen Garrett; and The Banyan Tree. She is working on fine-tuning a pictorial essay and memoir on living in Afghanistan from 1973-1976, Children Kept from the Sun; another collection of poetry, This Side of the Truth; and a novella-short story collection named The Hare in the Moon and Other Stories. From her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, she awaits like gifts the actual and visiting presence of three mostly grown-up Irish-named sons, and her husband, Tom.