Synopsis:
Interweaves Christianity, anthropology, ecology, Buddhism, and Shamanism in a journey of personal discovery
Reviews:
Halifax, an ecologist and anthropologist, encounters Tibetan Buddhist meditators, Mexican shamans and Native American elders in this highly personal odyssey, a lyrical farrago of field notes, reflections and reminiscence marred by New Age ecobabble. Author of Shaman: The Wounded Healer , Halifax believes that deep ecology (which attempts to fuse environmental awareness with spiritual values) ranks with Buddhism and shamanism as a way to understand the interconnectedness of all creation and to regain a view of life as sacred. In rapt prose she recounts her explorations--geographic and mental--from Japanese Zen meditation to hallucinogenic plants, from the Dogon people of Mali to the Mayan rain forest. The terrain she covers may be familiar to spiritual seekers, but it is too fuzzy to be of value to environmentalists.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Radical ecospiritual memoirs and meditations from a globe- trotting seeker of truth. Halifax (Shamanic Voices, 1991, etc.--not reviewed) boasts impressive New Age credentials: ex-wife of psychologist Stansilav Grof; former assistant to Joseph Campbell; creator of California's spiritually experimental Ojai Foundation; student of assorted shamans and of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (who offers a grateful introduction). During her decades of world travel--her memories here range from circumambulating a sacred Tibetan mountain to eating peyote in Mexico's Huichol Sierras--Halifax has evolved a worldview that rejects what she calls Western society's ``dualistic'' perspective in favor of one that perceives ``a self coextensive with all phenomena.'' Simply ``by being born,'' Halifax contends, we share ``the World Wound''--a state of universal suffering--that we can escape through several paths, or ``Ways'': the Way of ``Traditions''; of ``the Mountain''; of ``Language''; of ``Story''; of ``Nonduality''; of ``Protectors''; of ``Ancestors,'' and of ``Compassion.'' Each Way involves a return to ``the fruitful darkness''--the shadow side of things, found in the root truths of Native religions, in the fecundity of nature, and in the stillness of meditation. Halifax writes of these paths, and of how she's walked them, in loamy, para-poetic prose: ``Mountain's realization comes through the details of breath. Mountain appears in each step. Mountain then lives inside our bones, inside our heartdrum.'' While declarations such as these, examined in reason's cool light, can seem opaque, even wooly-headed, they gather real force as they roll over pages, ultimately offering a warm and potent testament to the author's beliefs and to a life lived vigorously for the sake of the spirit. Not for those enamored of logic and common sense. But those who wish to ``hear,'' as Halifax puts it, the ``language of the river, rock, and wind,'' will find much to listen to. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Halifax, a Zen Buddhist, anthropologist, and author ( Shamanic Voices , Viking, 1991), writes of her experience of psychomental crisis and of her need to reconnect with the earth. She recounts how she found transformation through the virtues of silence, story, and nonduality, among others, with a reverence for ecology, Buddhism, and shamanism playing the largest roles in her transformation. She discovers that generosity is the root "perfection" out of which grow wholesomeness, patience, energy, natural concentration, and wisdom. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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