"Nature and the Human Soul" a Book Review of Sorts

I read a lot of books. Too many books really. Any time I want to know something I immediately turn to a book. Which is fine, but all this reading takes a lot of time. Time in which I could be actually doing things. So in a way reading about something is a form of procrastination for me. An excuse. I can put off actually doing something until I've finished reading about it. Which is not really fine. Because often reading about it is as far as I'll get.

I've also come to realise that there are a lot of ordinary books out there, and life really is too short to waste time reading an ordinary book. I also find that I invest many hours reading a book, only to have it tell me something I already know. So with free time at a premium, I could save myself a lot of time by just listen to my inner wisdom first. Too much reading is just clutter for the mind.

You could say that "Nature and the Human Soul" by Bill Plotkin has changed my life. This is IT. This is the one book that I have been looking for my whole life. This is the book that I have been searching for in all my readings, all the ecology, sustainability, spirituality, pagan/wiccan books I have been reading to date have just been skirting around the issue. This book is the real deal. I admit that I haven't read the whole thing yet, but what I have read so far I am mighty impressed by. So impressed that I took all my other library books back. So impressed that I actually ordered a copy of it from Amazon to have for my own. I know I will be referring back to this book again and again.

"Nature and the Human Soul" offers a model for the life long spiritual development of our wild selves. The parts of our selves that are denied in our current culture of unremitting production and consumption. But the best thing about this book is that it's not just a theoretical model Plotkin's offering. There are actual practical guidelines for the "tasks" of each stage of development. I intend to work closely with the advice offered in this book. I don't know about you but I feel keenly that there's some dimension sorely lacking in my current life, and I hope the exercises in this book will help to address that.

This book is deep and dense and not always an easy read. But don't let that put you off. See if your local library has a copy. If you live in Brisbane, it definitely will (because I've currently got it!).