Crafting Calm: Projects and Practices for Creativity and Contemplation - Softcover

Shannon, Maggie Oman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1936740400 ISBN 13: 9781936740406

Publisher: Viva Editions, 2013

Synopsis

In this wired, wild world, it is harder than ever to shut out noise and busyness in order to truly calm yourself, but in Crafting Calm, a D.I.Y. guide to peace of mind, you'll find inspiring ideas for how to do exactly that through a wide range of creative exercises. In this book, author Maggie Oman Shannon explores crafts and creativity as a practice with enormous physical, mental, and spiritual benefits. By immersing ourselves in a craft with intention and mindfulness, we can quiet those voices around us and in us―we can enter sacred stillness. Through revealing interviews, personal stories, and forty suggested activities, the author shows how creative processes can become spiritual practices. Whether you're an aspiring artist, longtime craftsperson, or someone who has never set foot in a craft-store (yet!), you'll find something in Crafting Calm to inspire you.

Crafts and how-to ideas include contemplation candles, visual journals, prayer shawls, collage mandalas, intention beads, finger labyrinths, personal prayer flags, spiritual toolkits, and tabletop altars.

Features inspired craft ideas from luminaries such as Angeles Arrien, Mary Ann Radmcher, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, Sister Marianne Heib, May Ann Brussat, and many more.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Craft Your Way to Inner Peace

In this wild and wired world, it is increasingly difficult to truly relax and find stillness within. Maggie Oman Shannon's Crafting Calm is a DIY guide to peace of mind, offering an abundance of ways you can achieve serenity and satisfaction by living the handmade life. Author Oman Shannon, the spiritual director of a Unity Church, explores crafts and creativity as a lifelong practice with enormous physical, emotional and spiritual benefits. And by knitting love and hope into every stitch, handicrafts help form new friendships and community. From making a desktop shrine or mini-Zen garden, to stringing intention beads and painting personal prayer flags, Crafting Calm is an essential tool for making mindfulness.

About the Author

Rev. Maggie Oman Shannon, M.A., is an interfaith minister, spiritual director, workshop and retreat facilitator, and author of five books: Prayers for Healing (Conari Press, 1997); The Way We Pray: Prayer Practices from Around the World (Conari Press, 2001); A String and a Prayer: How to Make and Use Prayer Beads (co-author; Red Wheel/Weiser, 2002); One God, Shared Hope (Red Wheel/Weiser, 2003); and her latest, Prayers for Hope and Comfort (Conari Press, 2008). In 2000, Oman Shannon founded The New Story, a coaching and consulting business focused on helping people create deeper meaning in their lives.

The former editor of three national magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Oman Shannon also served as Director of Marketing for the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Her writing has appeared in publications including Utne Reader and Beliefnet.com; and her work has been featured in publications ranging from the Miami Herald to Spirituality and Health magazine. She has taught workshops at venues including California Pacific Medical Center’s Institute for Health and Healing and Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, NY.

In addition to being a certified life coach, Oman Shannon completed the three-year training program of the Spiritual Directors Institute at Mercy Center in Burlingame, California. A graduate of Smith College, Oman Shannon also holds an M.A. degree in Culture and Spirituality from Holy Names University. She is an ordained interfaith minister who graduated from Manhattan’s One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in 2010.
Oman Shannon currently has the honor of serving as Spiritual Director of Unity Spiritual Center of San Francisco. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughter.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viva Editions
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1936740400
• ISBN 13: 9781936740406
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288