New 2017 book sees aging as series of initiations

Under its St. Martin's Press imprint, Macmillan Publishers describes Thomas Moore's forthcoming book Ageless Soul (previously titled Aging with Soul)  in its Fall 2017 Catalogue, page 33.  Ageless Soul: Ripening, Maturing, and Feeling Fulfilled as We Get Older is available 10 October 2017. According to the catalogue:

"In Ageless Soul, Moore reveals a fresh, optimistic, and rewarding path toward aging, one that need not be feared, but rather embraced and cherished. In Moore’s view, aging is the process by which one becomes a more distinctive, complex, fulfilled, loving, and connected person.

Using examples from his practice as a psychotherapist and teacher who lectures widely on medicine and spirituality, Moore argues for a new vision of aging: as a dramatic series of initiations, rather than a diminishing experience, one that each of us has the tools — experience, maturity, fulfillment — to embrace.

Subjects include:
— Why melancholy is a natural part of aging, and how to accept it, rather than confuse it with depression and resort to medication
— The vital role of the elder and mentor in the lives of younger people
— The many paths of spiritual growth and learning that open later in life
— Sex and sensuality
— Building new communities and leaving a legacy

Ageless Soul will teach readers how to embrace the richness of experience and how to take life on, embrace invitations to new vitality, and feel fulfilled as they get older. Aging means living into life."

Order Ageless Soul now from Amazon.

Moore talks beyond addiction recovery in this video

Watch Thomas Moore answers questions in this Vimeo video recorded 21 February 2016 for Recovery 2.0, hosted by Tommy Rosen and uploaded by SpiritWorks Foundation. Although titled Dark Nights of the Soul, topics are wide ranging as Moore refers to his book A Religion of One's Own, talks about Carl Jung, discusses shifts in current spirituality, and addresses addiction recovery. The video podcast is 56 minutes.

Please help to create these desired states globally

On this day of the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States of America, read Thomas Moore's essay "The Dream of Utopia", published in the November-December 2016 issue of Spirituality & Health.

"I think utopia should be in your imagination and in the plan for your life. Imagine doing your best to make a life and personality that shows what utopia could be. When people meet you, they don’t encounter the old world with its neurotic self-interest and combativeness. No, they see someone trying to do it differently, even if the result isn’t perfect. When they meet you, they feel: I’ve never seen anything like this before. Here is a person beyond kindness and beyond acceptance and understanding. This feeling of being in another new and better world is essential to utopia, and your task as a utopian is to do things differently and better."

Beyond united, welcome to the new USA, Utopian States of America.

"Utopia exists in your heart and your life, not in some vain hope for a perfect world. Your mind could be utopia, if you could reframe everything that happens in terms of your vision of peace and creative non-action and if you decide to always adopt the role of healer. You can’t expect someone else to be utopian if you’re not there."

Explore your divine spark through the spiritual life

Join Thomas Moore at Kripalu Center from Friday 23 June to Sunday 25 June, 2017 for his program Developing Your Highest Self: Making the Spiritual Life Real and Personal:

"This weekend, explore how you can use the arts, nature, service, a contemplative lifestyle, intuition, divination, creativity, dreams, and synchronicities to reach as high as possible in your life. The world may tempt you to be materialistic or limited in your aspirations, but here you discover that you are part angel and the divine spark burns inside you."

Tuition: $255
Accommodation costs based on selection.
Register online now.

S&P hosts Moore for e-course about compassion

Starting 16 January 2017 Spirituality and Practice offers the 6-week e-course The Practice of Compassion: A Multifaith Guide. Thomas Moore leads Week 6 representing the spiritually independent: "Thomas is a psychotherapist, former monk, and bestselling author who writes and lectures in the fields of archetypal psychology, mythology, care of the soul, and creating a religion of your own."

Moore's co-presenters are Frank Rogers, Sally Taylor, Ted Falcon, Jamal Rahman, and Philip Goldberg.

"Compassion is a spiritual practice, and you can get better at it over time. The world's religious and spiritual traditions offer us specific ways to do this. This e-course will teach you how you can be a compassionate, caring presence to those suffering in your community and the wider world and even to yourself. It will give you antidotes to attitudes that hinder compassion — all those 'isms' like racism, sexism, ageism, classism, and nationalism."

 From Monday 16 January to Thursday 23 February 2017:
— Receive two emails per week for six weeks (12 total) in which presenters reflect on compassion in their traditions and share practice suggestions with participants.
— Engage in the Practice Circle, a community forum  for e-course participants, and be guided by the individual presenter during each week of the course.

Cost: $59.95

Imagine living from a more radical kind of love

Next month Skylight Paths Publishing releases The Book of Mark, the second gospel in a series of translations by Thomas Moore with his own commentary. Amazon accepts pre-orders now.

"... Thomas Moore strips the Gospels of their theological agendas and reclaims them as a fundamentally new way of imagining human life. He blends scholarship and pastoral guidance to highlight the Gospels’ teachings on earthly, rather than otherworldly, living in which community, compassion, inclusiveness, prayer and healing are key elements. He draws deeply from Greek philosophy, literature and spirituality to craft an accurate and challenging yet accessible translation that, free of religious moralism and dogmatism, is beautifully imaginative and inspirational. Be inspired to live an altogether different kind of life rooted in a more radical kind of love."

GOSPEL The Book of Mark: 
A New Translation with Commentary, Jesus Spirituality for Everyone
by Thomas Moore
Hardcover
176 pages
SkyLight Paths Publishing
February 28, 2017 1st edition
ISBN-10: 1594736308
ISBN-13: 978-1594736308

Moore explores how to mature like wine or cheese

Transformations Spirituality Center hosts Thomas Moore for the retreat Aging with Soul, Thursday 15 June and Friday 16 June, 2017.

"Think about the word aging. It doesn’t have to mean growing older. Like aged wine and cheese, aging is the process of becoming mature, ripe and interesting. You pay more for aged wine and cheese because it is more flavorful and interesting, just like really aged humans.

Growing old doesn’t guarantee that you will age in this sense. You have to say yes to life’s invitations all your days, from childhood onward, and that way you become a truly aged person. You are mature, wise, self-possessed and prepared to share your achievement with others as an elder and teacher. Aging can be a rewarding experience. Also, you don’t have to see life in a straight line. Your childhood and adolescence and early adulthood remain with you, giving you a rich and varied texture. You can be young at heart forever.

This retreat will invite us to review our lives and see the whole cloth that has been woven from the threads of our experience.  Come for a time of recognizing your own abiding principles.  Sense how compassion, generativity and equanimity have shifted you over time." 

Registration includes program, materials, lunch.
Early bird registration by 11 May: $160
After 11 May: $185  
A limited number of guest rooms are available for an additional $75, includes meals.

Please register by May 26. Payment in full is due at time of registration, $60 of which is non-refundable.
Register online now.

Transformations Spirituality Center
3427 Gull Road
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49048

The center is outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan, on the 57 acre Nazareth campus. It is conveniently situated between Chicago and Detroit, off the I-94 corridor.

New book about soulful aging available in October

Pre-release information for Thomas Moore's new book about growing older soulfully. Order on Amazon now.

Ageless Soul:
Ripening, Maturing, and Feeling Fulfilled as We Get Older
by Thomas Moore
Hardcover
320 pages
St. Martin's Press
10 October 2017
$26.99 US
ISBN-10: 1250135818
ISBN-13: 978-1250135810

The Soul of Christmas wins S&P award for 2016

Spirituality & Practice considers Thomas Moore's book The Soul of Christmas to be one of the best spiritual books of 2016. In their review, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat write:

"Embrace the mystery. 'Christmas did not begin with Jesus. Its deepest mysteries go back to the very beginnings. . . . Stonehenge in England, aligned with the winter solstice sunset, is about three thousand years old.' Part of this holiday, then, is honoring the return of the light and the new beginnings it portends."

Our attention to this mystery continues into the new year.