Many of the world's religions value the simple act of eating as a powerful means of self-discovery and spiritual transcendence. Eating with awareness brings us into the moment, helping us understand what it means to be alive and connecting us to the mystery and source of all living things. Directing attention to how we choose, prepare, and eat our food can offer satisfaction and gratify more than our physical need for sustenance.
In Art of the Inner Meal, former Buddhist monk Donald Altman celebrates the sacred side of eating by exploring the role of food in different religious traditions from around the world. Hindu concepts of food enhance our awareness of the cycle of life, and help us to break our own unhealthy eating habits. The Buddhist approach liberates consciousness through eating in moderation, with compassion and loving-kindness. Jewish tradition focuses on making each meal holy and wholesome. For Christians, meals are a time to strengthen community and enhance communion. Islam's blend of peace and faith provides insight, knowledge, and experience about our inner personal meal. "Whatever your religious affiliation, background, or tradition, you have a unique opportunity to create a personalized inner meal path. You need only draw upon the diverse sources of wisdom and knowledge that strengthen the bond between food and spirituality," says Altman.
A meditation on eating as a means to gaining awareness, Art of the Inner Meal explores the joys of giving and receiving, the art of fasting, the reasons why the wisdom traditions recommend some foods while prohibiting others, and how awareness of what we consume can affect the environment. By understanding the spiritual meaning of food for cultures around the world and creating new rituals and traditions for our own families, we can strengthen family bonds, encourage love, and deepen our connection to the community. Altman encourages us to improve our spiritual well-being by investing the everyday act of eating with the meaning and significance it deserves.

Art of the Inner Meal: Eating as a Spiritual Path

Altman, Don

Religion & Spirituality

HarperOne

Digital Frontier Job & Opportunity Finder: Tomorrow's Opportunities Today

Computers & Technology

Moon Lake Media

Offers ideas for bachelor parties, bridal showers, wedding ceremonies, invitations, photography, receptions, and transportation

201 Unique Ways to Make Your Wedding Special

Reference

Los Angeles, CA, June 23, 1999 -- Wedding planning has finally come of age -- the computer age, that is. A dream wedding can be planned almost entirely over the Internet, according to Don and Sanda Altman, authors of a new book, 14 Day Wedding Planner With Internet Guide. Published by Los Angeles-based Moon Lake Media, it is the first book that shows how to use the Internet to plan a wedding. The book, which also features a unique, theme wedding planner, streamlines the planning process -- good news for today's time challenged and stressed out working brides and grooms.Unlike author Don Altman's first book, 201 Unique Ways to Make Your Wedding Special, this new one was developed out of necessity. Like any busy, career oriented couple getting married, he says, we found ourselves fighting the clock. Our careers and family obligations seemed to absorb every available second, leaving us with little time or energy for the myriad of wedding decisions we had to make. 14 Day Wedding Planner With Internet Guide saved our sanity and helped us create the dream wedding we always wanted -- faster, stress-free, and for less than we ever imagined.14 Day Wedding Planner With Internet Guide follows along with a basic wedding calendar. A 'Web Tips and Internet Guide' located at the end of each chapter makes it easy to find Web sites and resources relating to a chapter's particular theme and planning tasks. Included are tools for wedding budgeting, shared planning calendars for the bride and groom, online sources for thousands of different gowns, online etiquette advice, a host of online announcement and bridal registry options, online wedding music and DJs, limousines, tips on using theInternet to find local caterers and florists, honeymoon and travel planning tools, and Internet price comparisons. There are even handy time saver sites, such as a nationwide marriage license finder site and sites that can print out a free map of your wedding reception -- in just seconds.While the Internet can save wedding planners a vast amount of time, energy, and even money, 14 Day Wedding Planner With Internet Guide features a unique theme planning system that makes planning easier -- even without using the Internet. What really makes the book special, says Altman, is the approach that gives each chapter, or planning stage, a central theme. So instead of organizing a number of disconnected items, you can focus on related things. For example, we have a chapter for planning all the mood setting elements, such as crafting the ceremony, and choosing the music and invitations. Working on all these things together gives you a better idea of the big picture of what you're trying to create. That's a big benefit. One chapter you put on your creative hat, another chapter your shopping hat, and so on. Not only is this more fun, but it makes sense, and it helps you focus and accomplish your goals with greater purpose, productivity, creativity, and vision. There's no other wedding planner like it. The authors used it to plan their own wedding -- a complete event for nearly 100 guests that included separate ceremony and reception sites with extensive floral arrangements and live music, photography, videography, a three-tiered cake, a candle light ceremony and reception, a stretch white limo, and more.Altman points out that his entire wedding was put together in no more than a total of14 days -- unconsecutively. Still, he advises that planners think in terms of planning stages -- rather than days -- which can stretched over a period of months, or even a year. Either way, you'll save on stress and time, he says. Did his own wedding go off without a hitch? Well, almost, says Altman, until the photographer got totally lost and nearly didn't make it to the ceremony.

14 Day Wedding Planner with Internet Guide

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