Every tradition has people who saw something clearly and paid for it. A respected scholar who met a stranger in a marketplace and became a poet. A woman sealed into a cell beside a church, who left the earliest surviving writing in English known to be by a woman. A boy so afraid of hell he became a monk, and then the teacher virtually every Rinzai Zen line today still traces through.
We build materials around those people, and around the texts they left behind, so a classroom, a circle or a single reader can meet them in their own words.
Who it’s for
One body of material, set up for the room you’re in.
Classrooms
Social studies, ELA and world religions teachers, counselors, and public, private and Montessori schools. Standards alignment, quizzes and answer keys come with it.
Homeschool
Families teaching at the kitchen table and co-ops teaching together. Clear readings, quizzes and answer keys, with family and co-op licenses.
Circles & Groups
Men’s and women’s groups, church small groups, interfaith circles and book clubs. Built around discussion questions and a practice for each meeting. No grades.
Yoga Teachers & Studios
Teacher trainings, studio workshops and teachers who want to go deeper into the texts behind the practice.
Chaplaincy & Reentry
Chaplains and program coordinators in correctional facilities, juvenile justice and reentry programs. Written for adults with their own lives and questions, and printed in bulk.
Products
Five shelves, sorted by format.
Grades 8–11
Curriculum
Nonfiction reading passages built on real lives, with primary sources, questions and a Teacher Guide. Our first is World Religions Through Six Lives: Rumi, Julian of Norwich, Mirabai, Hakuin Ekaku, the Baal Shem Tov and Zhuangzi, six figures from six traditions, ready to teach as a unit, a weekly routine, or a set of sub plans. More packets, on Sikhism, Confucius, the Transcendentalists and others, are in production.
Workbooks for reflection and practice, for a group or for one reader working alone. The first, Mind Muscle, a mindfulness workbook for grades 3–5, is in the works.
The complete text of a classic, in a public-domain translation, with a companion built in: short introductions, journal prompts, a practice for each session, and questions for a group. You shouldn’t have to buy a second book to use the first. The first, The Cloud of Unknowing, is in the works. Editions of the Tao Te Ching, the Dhammapada and others are in production.
The Aware Educator began as a video course that schools licensed for their teachers, on bringing attention and compassion into the room. The new edition, a participant workbook and a facilitator guide for a staff cohort, is in final production. Contact us to bring it to your school.
A Sufi poet, an English anchoress, a Rajput princess, a Zen master, a Hasidic healer and a Chinese philosopher. Read their stories free, with discussion questions for class. Tap an emblem to begin.
Every quotation is traced to a real text and a named translator, with the date on the page. Where no public-domain translation exists, we make a new version and say so. If we can’t source a line, we don’t print it.
Legend is taught, not hidden
Where a famous story is tradition rather than documented history, we say so, and we ask readers to tell the difference.
Taught, not preached
We teach about traditions. We don’t ask anyone to believe anything.
Ready when you are
Answer keys, pacing and discussion questions come in the box. A packet a teacher has to rebuild before Monday isn’t finished, and neither is a session plan a group leader has to rewrite the night before.
Robert Fludd, Philosophia Sacra, 1626. Public domain. Source: Wellcome Collection.
From the archive
Everyone draws wisdom as a circle.
In 1626 an English physician named Robert Fludd engraved Hochma, the Hebrew word for wisdom, as a wheel of light ringed in cloud. A Zen master drew it as a single brushstroke. A Tibetan painter drew it as a mandala. Our readers meet all of them.
Licensing
Buying for more than one room? We offer small school, building and district licenses, family and co-op terms for homeschoolers, and printed class sets of 25 or more. Schools can try World Religions Through Six Lives for a semester before they commit. Facilities and programs can buy in bulk, and we invoice your business office or work from a purchase order.
