God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot is a poem/mantra from Cohen's second novel, Beautiful Losers. The piece is an extraordinary flash of optimism, of hope, of the celebration of a life force that is both God and Magic. It remains one of the most accessible pieces of writing from Leonard Cohen and is certainly one of his most beautiful works. The illustrations have been specially commissioned to complement the text, and the result is not only a beautiful book that every Cohen fan will want to own, but one that will surely bring him to an even wider audience.

"According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words. God just spoke and the world became reality. (The Aramaic for 'I create as I speak' is avara k'davara, or in magician's language, abracadabra.) ... This does not protect words from the numbing effects of overuse in any religious tradition.... We need to dust off the words, shake away the accretions, wonder again about what they originally might have meant and enable ourselves to live in the word." --from the Introduction With creativity and poetry (and occasional heresy) Kushner dusts off thirty classical Hebrew words, shakes them free of the effects of generations of overuse, "re-translates" them and liberates their ancient holy power. The result is a contemporary spiritual guide for your personal religious life. According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words. God just spoke and the world came into being. Words therefore are not merely sounds signifying something else; they are instruments of creation, primary reality itself. They need only to be read, spoken and interpreted. And to know them is to know reality itself. Kushner has designed the book himself, seamlessly blending graphics and content. In doing so he evokes the aesthetics of an ancient manuscript and a vision of our power to shape the future. Each finely crafted chapter begins with a Hebrew word and Kushner's provocative English translation. At the bottom of the page is a transliteration of the Hebrew along with its more customary English rendering. In addition to his own intriguing definition, he includes a biblical citation anchoring the word, along with a more recent text showing the word's evolution. Finally, we are offered a personal, meditative exercise designed to enable you to "live in the word."

"The bardo of waking life is a meditation on the Tibetan Buddhist bardo realm, which is viewed as the bridge between lives, the state people enter after death and before rebirth. This book examines waking life and its history and language as if it were a bardo state rather than ultimate reality. Bardo is at once prose poetry, intimate memoir, and anthropological inquiry"--Provided by publisher.

Walter Rinder has had the courage to be the voice for the feelings so many people find so hard to express. With the same courage, and with deep conviction, he now speaks of another natural love-men sharing loving relationships with men. WHERE WILL I BE TOMORROW? breaks a link in the chain that shackles all men's emotions, allowing tenderness, an easing of ancient cultural bonds.

This book of poems has intent, design, and purpose. They are written to touch something hidden deep within you, something latent, undiscovered, and mysterious. I hope that you may wish to discover more about that of which I speak.For there are answers to your questions if you but seek. That hidden something is true of everyone, almost without exception, but most of us have fallen asleep to the yearning and the searching that it can give rise to. If you are not in the category of the walking dead--and you are truly searching-- perhaps this book will be for you. If you loved fairy tales as a child, would rather travel to ancient sites than take cruises or hang out on a beach, appreciate the mythology from other cultures, enjoy classical art, perhaps read philosophy and great literature, are enthralled by the wonder of the natural world--and the list goes on and on--this book may be of interest to you. Even if your yearning takes other forms, you may love what I've written as well. But the book is not an answer to your yearnings. It can, though, be a window into a world where those same yearnings are addressed, satisfied, and shown a further and meaningful path to take. I wrote it in the language of today (including a small amount of crude language), with some references to literary or artistic works of the past. Despite the simplicity of many of the poems, there is great depth of meaning, if you are open to it. My suggestion would be to read only a few poems at a time, trying to ponder what I am talking about, letting them sink in emotionally, rather than dissecting them intellectually. And certainly don't continue to read until your eyes glaze over, as that will not profit you in the least. Enjoy!