For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely Worl

Description: For Small Creatures Such as We by Sasha Sagan "A charming book, ringing with the joy of existence." --Richard DawkinsThe perfect gift for a loved one or for yourself, For Small Creatures Such as We is part memoir, part guidebook, and part social history, a luminous celebration of Earths marvels that require no faith in order to be believed.Sasha Sagan was raised by secular parents, the astronomer Carl Sagan and the writer and producer Ann Druyan. They taught her that the natural world and vast cosmos are full of profound beauty, and that science reveals truths more wondrous than any myth or fable. When Sagan herself became a mother, she began her own hunt for the natural phenomena behind our most treasured occasions--from births to deaths, holidays to weddings, anniversaries, and more--growing these roots into a new set of rituals for her young daughter that honor the joy and significance of each experience without relying on a religious framework.As Sagan shares these rituals, For Small Creatures Such as We becomes a moving tribute to a father, a newborn daughter, a marriage, and the natural world--a celebration of life itself, and the power of our families and beliefs to bring us together. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Sasha Sagan holds a degree in dramatic literature from NYU. She has worked as a television producer, filmmaker, editor, and speaker in New York, Boston, and London, and her writing has appeared in The New York Magazine, O., the Oprah Magazine, Literary Hub, Mashable.com, The Violet Book, and elsewhere. For Small Creatures Such as We is her first book. Review "How often have you asked yourself: What is the meaning of life? Sasha Sagan finds its meaning everywhere—with her family, around the world, and especially among the stars of the cosmos. Read her work; youll have a deeper appreciation for your every step, every bite, and every breath." — Bill Nye, author of Everything All At Once"This lyrical exploration of how we can find beauty in the natural world comes from the daughter of Carl Sagan, so its no wonder Sashas reverence for the cosmos shines through on every page . . . A wonderful gift for your favorite reader." —Good Housekeeping"A look at life, the cosmos, and finding magic in our daily lives." —New York Post"Wonderful . . . An elixir for people facing personal crises in a secular world." —Andrew Rader, Wall Street Journal"This gorgeous collection of essays . . . will dazzle and comfort you no matter what your relationship to meaning-making in this vast, lonely universe is—but especially for readers who are longing for ritual in the absence of religion, Sagans book is a holy-feeling balm."—BookPage (Best Books of 2019)"From birthdays to funerals to the changing of the seasons to lunar cycles, [Sagan] thoughtfully explores how to blend science and spirituality. An eye-opening book for those who might question traditional religious celebrations but feel connected to the community, rituals, and comforts they provide, this is a refreshing, intelligent examination of faith, religion, and the many wonders of science worthy of celebration." —Booklist (starred review)"In Sagans astonishingly beautiful and wiser-beyond-ones-years debut, her lineage bursts forth on each page like a literary and scientific big bang. . . A wondrous journey exploring how rituals and celebration connect to lifes greater meaning." —ShelfAwareness"Welcoming and tender. . . Charming and appealing, this thoughtful work serves as an uplifting, life-honoring celebration of human existence." —Publishers Weekly"Sagan expertly weaves science and nature into the fabric of humanness and ritual in this book. . . . Whether you are looking for a guide to finding new traditions, or you are simply looking to be re-inspired by the world around you, this book is sure to be a good fit." —Space.com"Shes Carl Sagans daughter, and it shows. . . . Her style seems to inherit something from that grand master of scientific prose poetry. While never for a moment departing from secular physicalism, she makes a lyrical case for ritual, marking out the rhythms of life from birth to death. A charming book, ringing with the joy of existence." — Richard Dawkins, author of An Appetite for Wonder and The Greatest Show on Earth"Offers ethereal wisdom and worldly guidance . . . Sagans debut, a lushly written amalgam of memoir and manual, traces her life as the daughter of Carl and writer/producer Ann Druyan and how she came to appreciate the wonder in the everyday. . . Profound, elegantly written ruminations on the exquisite splendors of life enjoyed through a secular lens." —Kirkus Reviews "Blends science and spirituality . . . drawing from a variety of anthropological, historical, and religious works, Sagans chapters are devoted to the essential characteristics of being human: rituals and celebrations relating to birth and death, people and relationships. . . A potentially transformative read for anyone looking to embrace [Sagans] invocation to lead a more connected life." —Library Journal"Sasha Sagan has written a lovely book about the sense of wonder and the beauty of rituals--even for the non-religious. Its an answer to my secular prayers." —A. J. Jacobs, author of Thanks A Thousand"A lovely, inspiring memoir exploring the intersection of science, wonder, and spirituality in a secular home. . . . Like her parents, Sasha has the passion, brilliance, and ability to spark curiosity, skepticism, and hope, through the written word. Open mind required. No faith necessary." —Boing Boing"Sagan has written a book for turbulent times. Its for believers, those of us who are nonbelievers, and for those in-between. . . A life without connections for us humans would ring rather hollow. Sagans book gives both import to, and lessons for, connecting. Because of her excellent global examples, the world feels a bit smaller, a better place to be." —Skeptical Inquirer"[A] smart, meaningful, and charming book. For those of us who have thought deeply (or want to think deeply) about what it means to make meaning in the world unbound by religious tradition, Sagans wisdom is much needed. This book makes space for a new category of morality."—Books Are Magic"Reading Sashas book is a reminder to appreciate magnificence of our lives and simply the fact that we exist." —Kveller"This brief, beautiful book is the vulnerable story of Sagans experience as a daughter and granddaughter, a wife and mother; but it also offers a tangible and practical way for people to tell our own family and community stories more meaningfully. . . .Sasha represents one of the best possible scenarios for the future of humanism: a wise and passionate young woman thinking with love and creativity about how we can design secular lives of beauty and justice, together."—Greg Epstein, author of Good Without God "Sagan has written the book Ive always needed to make sense of this world. She makes that spiritual muscle so deeply hidden in my guts feel perfectly at home in the universe. She is that wise friend, in-cahoots with the muse of perspective, that changes your life as she describes the world she sees. I want everyone to read this book. But first, stare at the starry night sky. And when your chest expands with wonder and humility, sit down and read." —Jedidiah Jenkins, author of To Shake the Sleeping Self"Birth, anniversaries, fasting, atonement: She approaches these subjects with wonderment and a generous window into her extraordinary family history . . . For Small Creatures Such As We is a marvel. It dazzles and comforts while making us consider our own place in the vast universe." —BookPage"A warm, elegant hymn to finding the spiritual in the secular and the romance in everyday ritual. Sasha Sagan writes beautifully on the power of deep-rooted historical traditions, and the pleasure of inventing our own." — Greg Jenner, author of A Million Years in a Day"Explains and celebrates the human experience as we see it on Earth." —Bleu"Sagan encourages us, as grown-up children of this world, to create for ourselves and each other previously unimagined life-honoring and life-enhancing celebrations and rites of passage more attuned to our own deepest truths and hearts desires. And on this path she introduces us to and vividly portrays five generations of her extraordinary family. . . . A lucent, lovingly written, and joyous book." —Jonathan Cott, author of Theres A Mystery There Review Quote "How often have you asked yourself: What is the meaning of life? Sasha Sagan finds its meaning everywhere--with her family, around the world, and especially among the stars of the cosmos. Read her work; youll have a deeper appreciation for your every step, every bite, and every breath." -- Bill Nye, author of Everything All At Once "This lyrical exploration of how we can find beauty in the natural world comes from the daughter of Carl Sagan, so its no wonder Sashas reverence for the cosmos shines through on every page . . . A wonderful gift for your favorite reader." --Good Housekeeping "A look at life, the cosmos, and finding magic in our daily lives." --New York Post "Wonderful . . . An elixir for people facing personal crises in a secular world." --Andrew Rader, Wall Street Journal "This gorgeous collection of essays . . . will dazzle and comfort you no matter what your relationship to meaning-making in this vast, lonely universe is--but especially for readers who are longing for ritual in the absence of religion, Sagans book is a holy-feeling balm." -- BookPage (Best Books of 2019) "From birthdays to funerals to the changing of the seasons to lunar cycles, [Sagan] thoughtfully explores how to blend science and spirituality. An eye-opening book for those who might question traditional religious celebrations but feel connected to the community, rituals, and comforts they provide, this is a refreshing, intelligent examination of faith, religion, and the many wonders of science worthy of celebration." -- Booklist (starred review) "In Sagans astonishingly beautiful and wiser-beyond-ones-years debut, her lineage bursts forth on each page like a literary and scientific big bang. . . A wondrous journey exploring how rituals and celebration connect to lifes greater meaning." --ShelfAwareness "Welcoming and tender. . . Charming and appealing, this thoughtful work serves as an uplifting, life-honoring celebration of human existence." -- Publishers Weekly "Sagan expertly weaves science and nature into the fabric of humanness and ritual in this book. . . . Whether you are looking for a guide to finding new traditions, or you are simply looking to be re-inspired by the world around you, this book is sure to be a good fit." -- Space.com "Shes Carl Sagans daughter, and it shows. . . . Her style seems to inherit something from that grand master of scientific prose poetry. While never for a moment departing from secular physicalism, she makes a lyrical case for ritual , marking out the rhythms of life from birth to death. A charming book, ringing with the joy of existence." -- Richard Dawkins, author of An Appetite for Wonder and The Greatest Show on Earth "Offers ethereal wisdom and worldly guidance . . . Sagans debut, a lushly written amalgam of memoir and manual, traces her life as the daughter of Carl and writer/producer Ann Druyan and how she came to appreciate the wonder in the everyday. . . Profound, elegantly written ruminations on the exquisite splendors of life enjoyed through a secular lens." -- Kirkus Reviews "Blends science and spirituality . . . drawing from a variety of anthropological, historical, and religious works, Sagans chapters are devoted to the essential characteristics of being human: rituals and celebrations relating to birth and death, people and relationships. . . A potentially transformative read for anyone looking to embrace [Sagans] invocation to lead a more connected life." -- Library Journal "Sasha Sagan has written a lovely book about the sense of wonder and the beauty of rituals--even for the non-religious. Its an answer to my secular prayers." --A. J. Jacobs, author of Thanks A Thousand "A lovely, inspiring memoir exploring the intersection of science, wonder, and spirituality in a secular home. . . . Like her parents, Sasha has the passion, brilliance, and ability to spark curiosity, skepticism, and hope, through the written word. Open mind required. No faith necessary." --Boing Boing "Sagan has written a book for turbulent times. Its for believers, those of us who are nonbelievers, and for those in-between. . . A life without connections for us humans would ring rather hollow. Sagans book gives both import to, and lessons for, connecting. Because of her excellent global examples, the world feels a bit smaller, a better place to be." --Skeptical Inquirer "[A] smart, meaningful, and charming book. For those of us who have thought deeply (or want to think deeply) about what it means to make meaning in the world unbound by religious tradition, Sagans wisdom is much needed. This book makes space for a new category of morality." -- Books Are Magic "Reading Sashas book is a reminder to appreciate magnificence of our lives and simply the fact that we exist." --Kveller "This brief, beautiful book is the vulnerable story of Sagans experience as a daughter and granddaughter, a wife and mother; but it also offers a tangible and practical way for people to tell our own family and community stories more meaningfully. . . .Sasha represents one of the best possible scenarios for the future of humanism: a wise and passionate young woman thinking with love and creativity about how we can design secular lives of beauty and justice, together." --Greg Epstein, author of Good Without God "Sagan has written the book Ive always needed to make sense of this world. She makes that spiritual muscle so deeply hidden in my guts feel perfectly at home in the universe. She is that wise friend, in-cahoots with the muse of perspective, that changes your life as she describes the world she sees. I want everyone to read this book. But first, stare at the starry night sky. And when your chest expands with wonder and humility, sit down and read." --Jedidiah Jenkins, author of To Shake the Sleeping Self "Birth, anniversaries, fasting, atonement: She approaches these subjects with wonderment and a generous window into her extraordinary family history . . . For Small Creatures Such As We is a marvel. It dazzles and comforts while making us consider our own place in the vast universe." -- BookPage "A warm, elegant hymn to finding the spiritual in the secular and the romance in everyday ritual. Sasha Sagan writes beautifully on the power of deep-rooted historical traditions, and the pleasure of inventing our own." -- Greg Jenner, author of A Million Years in a Day "Explains and celebrates the human experience as we see it on Earth." -- Bleu "Sagan encourages us, as grown-up children of this world, to create for ourselves and each other previously unimagined life-honoring and life-enhancing celebrations and rites of passage more attuned to our own deepest truths and hearts desires. And on this path she introduces us to and vividly portrays five generations of her extraordinary family. . . . A lucent, lovingly written, and joyous book." --Jonathan Cott, author of Theres A Mystery There Excerpt from Book chapter one Birth Yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of [. . .] ashes. -Marcus Aurelius After our daughter was born, Jon and I said to each other a thousand times day, "I cant believe shes here!" "I cant believe we have a kid!" "I cant believe we made a person!" Every day for months and months we said it out loud as if we were just discovering how reproduction worked. We struggled to wrap our minds around it. I actually dont suppose Ill ever truly get over this idea. My mother never has. She sometimes still joyfully says to my brother Sam and me, "You dont understand, you didnt exist, and then we made you! And now youre here!" We roll our eyes and say, "Yes, Mom, thats how it works." Which is true, but no less astonishing, beautiful, or thrilling. Being born at all is amazing. Its easy to lose sight of this. But when a baby comes into the world, when a new human appears from inside of another, in the accompanying rush of emotion, we experience a little bit of the immense brazen beauty of life. Rituals are, among other things, tools that help us process change. There is so much change in this universe. So many entrances and exits, and ways to mark them, each one astonishing in its own way. Even if we dont see birth or life as a miracle in the theological sense, its still breathtakingly worthy of celebration. Typing these words, I am, like you, experiencing the brief moment between birth and death. Its brief compared to whats on either side. For all we know, there was, arguably, an infinite amount of time before you or I was born. Our current understanding is that the big bang gave birth to the universe as we know it about 13.8 billion years ago. But the big bang may or may not be the beginning of everything. What came before, if anything, remains an unsolved mystery to our species. As we humans learn, create better technology, and produce more brilliant people, we might discover that which we currently think happened is wrong. But somehow, something started us off a very long time ago. In the other direction there will, theoretically, be an infinite amount of time after were dead. Not infinite for our planet or our species, but maybe for the universe. Maybe not. We dont know much about what that will entail except that the star we orbit will eventually burn out. Between those two enormous mysteries, if were lucky, we get eighty or one hundred years. The blink of an eye, really, in the grand scheme of things. And yet here we are. Right now. Its easy to forget how amazing this is. Days and weeks go by and the regularity of existing eclipses the miraculousness of it. But there are certain moments when we manage to be viscerally aware of being alive. Sometimes those are very scary moments, like narrowly avoiding a car accident. Sometimes they are beautiful, like holding your newborn in your arms. And then there are the quiet moments in between, when all the joy and sorrow seem profound only to you. On one particular day a few winters ago I felt this intensely. I had just found out that I was pregnant, full of wonder and nausea. Everything was about to change forever. It was also the twentieth anniversary of my fathers death. Twenty years feels like a shockingly long time. Its significantly longer than the time I had with him. I miss him very much. Sometimes, still now, so much that it feels intolerable. Feeling the entrance of one new being and the loss of another brought on a series of paradoxical emotions, and a powerful sense of my place in the universe. I remember walking around the city, stunned that everyone I saw, the owner of every wise and wizened face, was once a baby. This seemed revelatory, despite its obviousness. I couldnt help reflecting on how any of us got here in the first place. Human beings do not go back to the beginning of this universe. In our present configuration weve only been around about a few hundred thousand years-the number changes as we uncover more of our fossilized ancestors-but the planet we live on is more than 4.5 billion years old. Were new here. We evolved from slightly different creatures who evolved from somebody else and so on back to one-cell organisms that we would not recognize as our relatives, but nonetheless, they are. How those one-celled forebears came to be is just now beginning to become clear. Even less clear is how exactly it will end for us: we will either destroy ourselves, be destroyed by an outside event, or evolve into something unrecognizable. As the small creature inside me expanded my midsection, I was reminded of how many pregnant girlfriends over the years have looked at me with a kind of mild, jokey horror and exclaimed, "Its like theres an alien inside me!" My dad spent a lot of time thinking about aliens, trying to determine if they existed. He never found out, because so far theres no evidence weve ever had contact with life from elsewhere in the universe. For my dad, as for me, belief required evidence. To say "I dont believe" in something doesnt mean that I am certain it doesnt exist. Just that I have seen no proof that it does, so I am withholding belief. Thats how I think about a lot of elements of religion, like God or an afterlife. And its the same way my dad thought about aliens. As he once said, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." We dont have proof, so we dont know. And yet we all seem to have a vivid idea of what an alien is like. We almost always imagine they look like us but theyre smaller. They have large eyes and no hair. They dont talk. They dont know the social mores. They might be good or they might be evil, but they definitely want something from us and as soon as they arrive, everything will be different forever. Babies are not like aliens. Our idea of aliens is like our idea of babies. Maybe thats part of what my dad was thinking when I arrived. My mother tells me that when I was born, my father lifted me up, looked at me, and said, "Welcome to the planet Earth." Then they didnt name me for three days. When they finally did, I got the middle name Rachel, for my dads mom. She was both magnetic and impossible, a mesmerizing storyteller with a one-of-a-kind laugh. She had a very difficult childhood. Her mother died in childbirth when Rachel was two. Her father (who may or may not have come to America to escape a murder rap in Russia) sent her back to Europe to live with aunts she had never met until he remarried a few years later. But Rachel grew up in New York, found true love with my grandfather Sam, and in many ways made my father who he was. Its a complicated legacy. When I was a small girl, family members were often astonished, alarmed even, at how clearly my mannerisms resembled hers. It was not learned behavior. I was born close to nine months to the day after her death. My parents would get chills at the sound of Rachels distinctive laugh emerging from their little daughter. It was "very eerie," I was told. It would have been easy for me to make a leap from these reactions to something ominous, something scary. I might have guessed that I was possessed by my dead grandmother, or that she was somehow haunting me. When I was eight, my younger brother was born, and named for our grandfather Sam. Soon he bore such a resemblance to our father that, when invitations to my dads birthday party went out with a black-and-white picture of him a little boy swimming off Coney Island, people called to say, "Yes, we can come to the party, but why is there a picture of Sam on the invitation?" To my parents these family resemblances were something wondrous. My parents told me that there was a kind of secret code called DNA running through our veins. I learned it carried the traits of ancestors I would never meet. My genes linked me back to the earliest humans, to prehistoric mammals and back eventually to the first life on Earth. And if, someday, I had children of my own, I would become a link in the chain, passing along an embedded part of myself to the future generations who would never know my name. This was, to me, more satisfying than any other possible explanation. And it was verifiable, independent of my belief or lack thereof. This was my introduction to a world of giddy enthusiasm about the fact that the universe is bigger than we are currently able to comprehend, that we live on a planet we are perfectly adapted for, that we are capable of critical thought, and that our understanding of all this grows deeper and more astonishing with time. And that, as far as we can tell, this all happened by chance. Think of the asteroid that could have just missed the Earth, sparing the dinosaurs, robbing those little Cretaceous mammals of the chance to flourish and eventually evolve into you and me. I find it impossible not to think of this as miraculous, despite the connotations. Even with our species flourishing, the chances of any one of us being born are still remote. Think of all the slight variations in human migration patterns, for example, that could have kept your great-great-grandparents from ever crossing paths. If you have any European ancestry, someone in your lineage had to survive the black death in the fourteenth century, which killed more than half the people on the continent. If you have any Native American heritage, somehow your forebears managed to pass their genes on to you, despite the fact that only 10 or 20 percent survived the microbes and violence brought by European inv Details ISBN073521879X Author Sasha Sagan Short Title For Small Creatures Such As We Language English Year 2021 ISBN-10 073521879X ISBN-13 9780735218796 Format Paperback Publication Date 2021-10-05 Subtitle Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2021-10-05 NZ Release Date 2021-10-05 US Release Date 2021-10-05 UK Release Date 2021-10-05 Pages 304 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint G P Putnams Sons Replaces 9780593087541 DEWEY 390.0973 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:141717900;

Price: 33.61 AUD

Location: Melbourne

End Time: 2024-12-13T03:04:08.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 AUD