I define overproviding as giving more than is sustainable for you and often for the wrong reasons. Accurate but kind of bland. A better definition comes from my friend Jeanie: “Over-providing? That’s when you pour everything into growing everybody else while withering yourself.”

Withering yourself. That’s what you do when, instead of bringing the requested two side dishes to the family holiday dinner, you show up with five sides, a salad, two pies, gravy, and a ham.

wIn The Way of the Happy Woman, Sara Avant Stover shows how simple, natural, and refreshingly accessible practices can minimize stress and put us back in sync with our own cycles and those of nature. Here she offers insights into how we can make the most out of winter.

While Campbell “covered the mythological waterfront,” he never wrote a book on the Goddess. However, he had much to say on the subject. Between 1972 and 1986 he gave over twenty lectures and workshops on Goddesses, exploring the figures, functions, symbols, and themes of the feminine divine and following them through their transformations.

We are thrilled to announce that Feeding the Hungry Ghost by Ellen Kanner is VegNews magazine’s Book of the Year! The magazine says, “Ghost is about food, sure, but it is also about so much more — the nourishment that food can provide to self, family, and community; cooking with a conscience, reverence, and tradition; and, several dozen recipes that Kanner deftly weaves into her four seasons of prose as she leads you on a journey that you hope will never end.” As we look toward a new year, we hope you’ll enjoy this excerpt (and free recipe). Congratulations, Ellen!

It’s fair to say that yoga has been around for a while and has come a long way since its hippie days of the ‘60s and ‘70s. I remember going to my first class when I was twelve years old. I went with my grandma and fell asleep. I thought yoga was for older ladies in leotards and didn’t take another class until after college. I had no idea the practice could be so dynamic and physical. Luckily, yoga has gained a lot more attention over the years, and many people now have a good idea of what it’s all about as well as its benefits. But still there are a few common misconceptions worth addressing.

The chemical makeup of your body is like the soil that we grow plants in. For your body to grow and heal, your chemical makeup needs to be full of balanced nutrients — just as soil has to be full of balanced nutrients for us to raise beautiful and healthy plants. This simple principle has not been incorporated into the conventional medical understanding about health and healing. Nutrition research has shown that we can change the chemistry of our bodies to improve metabolism and encourage healing throughout our lives. In fact, every time you eat — every day, at every meal — you change your body’s internal chemistry, for better or for worse. Food promotes healing or does just the opposite.