Join Fearn Lickfield as she presents The Bardic Book of Becoming, by Ivan McBeth;  a warm, user-friendly and eclectic introduction to modern Druidry that invites you to take the first steps into the realm of magic and mystery. This book was written during the last year of Ivan’s life. 

Fearn will offer a presentation titled A Druid’s Legacy in which she will share some of Ivan’s gifts from his exceptional life and wisdom. He was a master stone circle builder, author and founder of the Green Mountain Druid Order. He lived a life of crystal magic, wild adventure, colorful joy and hard earned wisdom. He gobbled life, courted death and crossed like a king. This presentation will include stories, poetry, toning, the Dragon Dance and other inspirations as we open our hearts to Ivan’s Bardic arts.

ABOUT THE BOOK: The Bardic Book of Becoming is a warm, user-friendly, eclectic introduction to modern Druidry that invites you to take the first steps into the realms of magic and mystery. In this book you will be introduced to the various techniques and practices of a Druid in training. Written by Ivan McBeth, the cofounder of Vermont's Green Mountain School of Druidry, with Fearn Lickfield, the book incorporates lessons, visualizations, rituals, and magical stories. Many different activities and exercises are included that provide the reader with hands-on learning. Ivan also provides personal stories that demonstrate his own journey from spiritual seeker to Druid.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER AND ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Fearn Lickfield is a web weaver who facilitates the re-connection of people with the Heart of Nature. She is the director of the Green Mountain Druid School and founder of Guardians of the Sacred Earth. She is the steward of Dreamland, a mystery school and sanctuary in Worcester, Vermont.

Ivan McBeth was a Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids who founded the Green Mountain Druid Order, a modern mystery school based in Worcester, Vermont, with his partner Fearn Lickfield. He passed gracefully into the Otherworld at Fall Equinox of 2016.

DATE:  Tuesday, May 29th at 7pm

LOCATION:  Phoenix Books Essex

ADMISSION:  Free and open to all.

Join Matthys Levy to celebrate the launch of his new novel, Building Eden.

ABOUT THE BOOK:  Building Eden is Matthys Levy's first novel, a thriller with subject matter he is intimately familiar with. A gifted architect, Philip Corta, has the opportunity of a lifetime, the design of a major office/residential complex on New York's West Side, The Eden Center. The project endures many major setbacks resulting from the arrogance and shallow-minded behavior of the developer, corruption in City Hall, sabotage and murder by organized criminals, and recurring uncertainties about financing. Despite these and other setbacks, the project advances on schedule through 2001 until the events of 9/11 lead to personal tragedy and a change of direction that affects the project and all of the members of the design/construction team.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Matthys Levy is the designer of many iconic buildings and other structures throughout the world; New York structures he has designed and supervised include the Javits Convention Center, the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History, and the Marriott Marquis Hotel. He is also the author of the best-seller Why Buildings Fall Down - which established his public reputation for expertise on the causes of major structural failures, including the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 - and author or co-author of Structual Designs in Architecture, Why the Earth Quakes, Why the Wind Blows, Earthquake Games, and Engineering in the City. Levy currently resides in Burlington, Vermont.

DATE:  Thursday, May 31st at 7pm

LOCATION:  Phoenix Books Burlington

ADMISSION: Proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Vermont Foodbank.  Your $3 ticket comes with a coupon for $5 off a copy of the featured book.  Coupons expire at closing the evening of the event.

BENEFICIARY: Founded in 1986, the Vermont Foodbank has grown to be the state’s largest hunger-relief organization, serving Vermont through a network of food shelves, meal sites, schools, hospitals, and housing sites. The Foodbank’s mission is to gather and share quality food and nurture partnerships so that no one in Vermont goes hungry.

All youth grades 7 - 12 are welcome to join Phoenix Books Misty Valley in reading and discussing Mechanica, by Betsy Cornwell.

Join us to celebrate the launch of Yvonne Daley's Going Up the Country: When the Hippies, Dreamers, Freaks, and Radicals Moved to Vermont. This event will feature live music of songs from the era, and artwork - including photos of and arts and crafts made by some of the people profiled in the book - will be on display. Light fare provided.

ABOUT THE BOOK:  How the counterculture changed Vermont—and America
Going Up the Country is part oral history, part nostalgia-tinged narrative, and part clear-eyed analysis of the multifaceted phenomena collectively referred to as the counterculture movement in Vermont. This is the story of how young migrants, largely from the cities and suburbs of New York and Massachusetts, turned their backs on the establishment of the 1950s and moved to the backwoods of rural Vermont, spawning a revolution in lifestyle, politics, sexuality, and business practices that would have a profound impact on both the state and the nation. The movement brought hippies, back-to-the-landers, political radicals, sexual libertines, and utopians to a previously conservative state and led us to today’s farm to table way of life, environmental consciousness, and progressive politics as championed by Bernie Sanders.

“Anyone fleeing to Vermont to escape retrograde politics elsewhere will learn much from this book!”
—Steve Early, author of Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City

“Artists, dreamers, craftspeople—they all discovered Vermont during a great migratory culture clash that began in the 1950s and continues today. How these newcomers changed the Green Mountain State, and how it changed them, is the fascinating subject of Yvonne Daley’s deep and personal study.”
—Jon Clinch, author of Finn and Kings of the Earth

“A love letter to a time and a place.”
—Randal Smathers, director of the Rutland Free Library

“I cannot imagine a more authoritative and inspiring voice than Yvonne Daley’s to guide us on this dazzlingly relevant journey.”
—Elizabeth Rosner, author of Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory

“Vermont experienced an invasion of self-proclaimed ‘freaks’ who transformed the state in ways that were both profound and long lasting. Daley captures this brilliantly in her riveting account of how so much of the cultural and political life of the state was changed by them.”
—Tony Marro, former editor of Newsday

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Yvonne Daley is the author of five previous books and director of the Green Mountain Writers Conference.

DATE:  Thursday, June 7th at 6:30pm

LOCATION:  Vermont Farmers Food Center (The founders of the market are profiled in Yvonne's book!)

ADMISSION:  Free and open to all.