The Wishing Year: A House, a Man, My Soul A Memoir of Fulfilled Desire | 
 enlarge | Author: Noelle Oxenhandler
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy New: $11.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 57037
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 1400064856
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.603
EAN: 9781400064854
ASIN: 1400064856
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
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Condition: Brand New !!!
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Product Description
One New Year’s Day, Noelle Oxenhandler took stock of her life and found that she was alone after a long marriage, seemingly doomed to perpetual house rental and separated from the spiritual community that once had sustained her. With little left to lose, she launched a year’s experiment in desire, forcing herself to take the plunge and try the path of Putting It Out There. It wasn’t easy. A skeptic at heart, and a practicing Buddhist as well, Oxenhandler had grown up with a strong aversion to mixing spiritual and earthly matters. Still, she suspended her doubts and went for it all: a new love, a healed soul, and the 2RBD/1.5 BA of her dreams. Thus began her initiation into the art of wishing brazenly.
In this charming, compelling, and ultimately joyful book, Oxenhandler records a journey that is at once comic and poignant, light and dark, earthy and spiritual. Along the way she wonders: Does wishing have power? Is there danger in wishing? Are some wishes more worthy than others? And what about the ancient link between suffering and desire? To answer her questions, she delves into the history of wishing, from the rain dance and deer song of primeval magic to modern beliefs about mind over matter, prosperity consciousness, and the law of attraction.
As the months go by, Oxenhandler is humbled to discover the courage it takes to make a wish and thus open oneself to the unknown. She is surprised when her experiment expands to include other people and other places in ways she never imagined. But most of all, she is amazed to find that there is, indeed, both power and danger in the act of wishing. For soon her wishes begin to come true–in ways that meet, subvert, and overflow her expectations. And what started as a year’s dare turns into a way of life.
A delightfully candid memoir, unfettered, poetic, and ripe with discovery, Oxenhandler’s journey into the art and soul of wishing will inspire even the most skeptical reader to search the skies for the next shooting star.
Praise for THE WISHING YEAR
"This is a wonderful book, full of wisdom gleaned from a year of Noelle Oxenhandler's daring to embrace what she had previously denied herself--her own personal wishes. I highly recommend The Wishing Year for anyone wanting to learn more about what life has to offer when we pay attention to our heart's desires."
–Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big Life
"Do you want to know how wishes come true? Then read The Wishing Year. It's a book that beautifully illuminates the art and mystery of wishing--and it does so in a way that is inspiring, funny, serious, honest, heartfelt, and irresistibly readable."
–Jack Kornfield, author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
"The Wishing Year is an elegant exploration of the way thought shapes reality. Writing with great personal honesty and candor, Noelle Oxenhandler's exhilarating prose takes us deep into the pain and glory of being human."
–Mark Epstein, M.D., author of Open to Desire
“Oxenhandler's new book makes it okay to be a smart, sophisticated grow-up who also believes in magic. She dives beneath the new age veneer and deconstructs how wishes really come true.” –Susan Piver, author of How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 mind changning.... October 7, 2008
loved it. it makes me think in all different ways....the things around you and the things that happen to you make you think and react in a quite magical way
 Holds herself apart September 20, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book was enjoyable. I think the author made an honest effort to be fair and to believe. She had some preconceptions though that I thought held her back. 1. The experience of an unbeliever/cynic is more valid than someone who does not question and moves ahead with a premise. 2. It is somehow undignified and low class to want material things and, at the same time, makes you insensitive to the blight of others. 3. A person's wishes are something to be judged. Everyone lives their own life and our preception is our reality regardless of what others may think. We really don't have any authority to judge another just because their problem does not seem as important or as grave as others we can bring to mind. I would like to ask her if she thinks the world would be a better place if a majority of people were moving towards what gives them substance and satisfaction thereby reaching a place where they can contribute or by sitting in the dust lashing themselves feeling guilty. We are all unique gifts to this world, no exceptions, and we actualize that by following what gives us joy, not by gnashing our teeth over what we think is 'profane' in another.
I wouldn't discourage buying the book. I definitely go something out of it, but I never felt she was comfortable enough with the material. She always seems to hold herself apart, afraid to admit somethings to herself. She is a good writer, but she may have finished the book before she finished the lesson.
Five Shooting Stars September 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Five Shooting Stars for The Wishing Year! I am so thankful that I ignored
the first Amazon reviewer and bought it anyway. "See how our thoughts make
our world? I feel like saying--but I resist." (page 255)
One day I hope to get the nerve to try "Putting It Out There" myself. And if
this happens I plan to take this book, place it under my pillow, focus on
Noelle's poetic thoughts and words, and wish for a muse to sing through
me...
 Skip it and read Eat Pray Love September 19, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Ninety percent of this book is mind-numbingly boring. If you want to read a great book of this genre, go for "Eat Pray Love" and skip "The Wishing Year." The author is not particularly likable and there is waaaay too much academic rambling.
I wished this book would never end September 2, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I just finished the Wishing Year and my profoundest wish when I got to the end was that it wouldn't be over so soon. I wanted it to go on and on. Spending time with this author is like spending an evening with one of those mesmerizing friends who leans towards you over the table at your favorite bistro and says, "You won't believe what happened to me?" and then launches into a tale of meeting someone fascinating who transformed her life, or unexpectedly being offered a trip to an exotic place that she'd always wanted to visit, or another wondrous occurrence. You're left thinking, "why don't these things happen to me? Reading the Wishing Year is wish fulfillment in itself. You get to live Noelle's life for that year and it was a hell of a lot more fun than my life that year for sure.
The best thing about her approach to wishing was that it made sense of New Agey gobbledygook like the "Secret." I, like her, am an intellectual, skeptical sort who secretly visits psychics and semi-believes in some of this woo-woo stuff but feels guilty about it. Oxenhandler removes the guilt by explaining the ancient roots of wishing and other attempts at magical intervention, and comes up with some scientific theories about why it might work. Hey, even Plato believed it. (sort of).
I'm coming up with my wish list as we speak and will report back whether any of them came true.
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