Product Description

From time immemorial, artists and poets, prophets, and shamans have drawn strength and inspiration from walking the earth. In The Earth Path, bestselling author Starhawk takes the reader on a journey into the heart of the natural world, showing how we can have a more intimate connection with the world that surrounds us.

Institutionalized religions have sacred texts -- messages written in holy books that are the inspiration for their beliefs and rituals. But the sacred texts for Wicca, like other ancient native or indigenous traditions, are written in nature -- in the magic circle of the elements: air, fire, water, and earth. With The Earth Path, Starhawk, an activist, ecofeminist, and leader in the women’s spirituality movement, places you in the center of that magical circle. As you become attuned to the rhythms of the earth, your thinking will shift from focusing on isolated objects to marveling at the multitude of interconnecting patterns and relationships in nature. These patterns and connections can hold the key to your own spiritual renewal and restore your sense of responsibility for preserving this world that nurtures and sustains us.

Filled with awareness exercises, inspiring meditations, and magical rituals, The Earth Path not only teaches the reader to respect the ecology of our natural world, but shows how to spiritually connect with and channel the powers inherent in nature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #378897 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Released on: 2004-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Fans and followers of Starhawk (The Spiral Dance; etc.), a founding member of the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft, will welcome her latest offering. Well organized, each chapter contains reminiscences of personal and group experiences, exercises and suggestions for prayer and ritual. Many of her tenets apply not only to those interested in the practice of Wicca but to readers seeking a better understanding of the world around them: "Once we have learned to hear, then we can begin to understand. And only after we understand do we begin to speak, to intervene." Yet she astutely cautions: "To change a drum rhythm in a group of drummers, you first have to match it and join with it. But when you are within a system, part of the whole, that system is also changing you. It is difficult to maintain your own rhythm and not simply become part of what you are trying to change." Starhawk presents an array of exercises and practices for sharpening observation and listening skills. She engages readers' spirits and minds through her illustrative storytelling, offering ways to communicate more fully with the world and suggesting ways to act. While those unfamiliar with her passion for protest may find themselves distracted by the all-too-frequent appearance of her political soapbox, they will appreciate her tools for connecting with nature.
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About the Author
Starhawk is the author of nine books, including her bestselling The Spiral Dance, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, and Webs of Power, winner of the 2003 Nautilus Award for social change. She has an international reputation, and her works have been translated into many different languages. Starhawk is also a columnist for beliefnet.com and ZNet. A veteran of progressive movements who is deeply committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism, she travels internationally, teaching magic, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism. Starhawk lives part-time in San Francisco, in a collective house with her partner and friends, and part-time in a little hut in the woods in western Sonoma County, where she practices permaculture in her extensive gardens and writes.

Customer Reviews

A thoughtful spiritual exploration of our relationship to the Earth
Reading this book was eye-opening. I've already been starting to manifest a greener lifestyle, but reading this book helped me recognize how much harm is being done to the Earth by consumer choices and corporations. It also showed me how I could make even more choices when it came to how I take care of the Earth.

What I really liked was how Starhawk used the elements to explain and illustrate her concepts. I found her suggestiosn for how to take care of the Earth really useful, as well as recognizing a need to step some of my efforts.

Overall an excellent book and much needed.

A MUST READ!
This book is absolutely fantastic, period. I started a Starhawk collection of books after having read this one. She teaches us what it really means to be a Witch in this new millennium. She shows us how being a Witch isn't just a belief system, it's a social and political responsibility. She reminds us that we are the Guardians of the Balance, but you have to read it in her own words yourself. This book is hope for the future: a genuine awareness-raiser. Starhawk shows us the importance and beauty of our Goddess. I have learned so many things from this book, and so will you.

A useful book
In The Earth Path, Starhawk discusses the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water and ways that we can connect with each in order to work towards healing the environmental damage we've done to the Earth in the past. The book is mainly concerned with returning to amore natural state of living, i.e. growing own food.

This is a very "Starhawk" book. There is a lot of good advice as well as inpiring and emotive writing, hidden amongst a dearth of tangents on anything from the latest protest to seedballs as a microcosm of the Earth. Starhawk is infamous for her political rants and for the most part, I don't mind them. Occasionally in this book though they took away from the advice she was trying to give about permaculture.

My other complaint is that she'd be explaining how you would go about desiging or building a particular drainage system or the like and yet never fully explain why. Once or twice she just lanched into "Here's how to do this," with no explanation as to the purpose of it. The implication was that you already knew why.

Other than that, I enjoyed each of the explorations on the elements. I liked how she applied the elemental energies to practical everday things we could see in effect in our areas and all the practical exercises to connect with each element were simply enough for a relative beginner but a more advanced practitioner could still find beenfit from them. I particularly liked how she talked about how you could work with each element to better the environment, for example the chapter on fire talked about cnserving household energy usage.

I also found the book to be motivating to get out there and do something. I think the practical sugestions is what helped there. Instead of just saying "The envornment is realy important so we should heal it," and stopping there, Starhawk then goes on to say exactly how you can make small steps toward doing just that. It was also good that she tied in the knowledge of and respect for naturein with the spirituality of Paganism. She made a very good point that although most Pagans reer nature, most don't know terribly uchaout it.

This is basically a good book with some minor irritants. I don;t think it'll go down a a classic but it is usful and a great jumping off point or Pagans wanting to explore a more environmentally friendly way of living.

Rating: ***1/2 (3.5 stars out of 5)