Overview

Reclaiming the Wild Soul takes us on a journey into Earth’s five great landscapes — deserts, forests, oceans and rivers, mountains, and grasslands — as aspects of our deeper, wilder selves. Where the inner and outer worlds meet we discover our own true nature mirrored in the Earth's wild beauty and fierce challenges. A powerful archetypal model for transformation, the “soulscapes” return us to a primal terrain rich in knowing, healing, and wholeness. To guide our path, each soulscape offers up wisdom in the form of soul qualities the modern world often undervalues and even undermines. We see how deserts model simplicity and silence, how forests help us make peace with uncertainty, how rivers and oceans reveal the power of flow, how mountains inspire our highest purpose, and how grasslands teach us about giving back. Weaving personal story with poetry, imagery, and explorations, Reclaiming the Wild Soul is simultaneously self-help and a courageous call to action. It is written for all those disillusioned with our hyper-paced, high-tech world, who decry what we are doing to the Earth, who feel the tug of their own wild souls longing for discovery and mystery — a new, yet ancient, way of being human.

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9781940468143

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Reviews

Mary Reynolds Thompson explores 'the breath of wildness, ' the reality of kinship that exists just beyond the reach of our senses -- or at least our most familiar senses. She has rolled up her sleeves and commenced what Thomas Berry called the Great Work of the 21st century: reconnecting to the rest of the natural world, for meaning. For soul. -- Richard Louv, The Nature Principle and Last Child in the Woods Mary Reynolds Thompson's book works simple magic to bind our broken souls back into full-round rapport with the more-than-human terrain. And as the land restores our sanity, we're empowered to work with new clarity to replenish the many-voiced vitality of the animate Earth. -- David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, Becoming Animal

Mary Reynolds Thompson explores 'the breath of wildness,' the reality of kinship that exists just beyond the reach of our senses -- or at least our most familiar senses. She has rolled up her sleeves and commenced what Thomas Berry called the Great Work of the 21st century: reconnecting to the rest of the natural world, for meaning. For soul. Richard Louv, The Nature Principle and Last Child in the Woods Mary Reynolds Thompson's book works simple magic to bind our broken souls back into full-round rapport with the more-than-human terrain. And as the land restores our sanity, we're empowered to work with new clarity to replenish the many-voiced vitality of the animate earth. --David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, Becoming Animal With ingenuity and subtlety, Mary Reynolds Thompson guides us in ways both old and new to enter Earth's archetypal wildscapes and allow them to infuse us and make us whole again, fully human. Woven with enchanting stories and wise counsel, Reclaiming the Wild Soul lavishly supports us, at this time of global crisis/opportunity, to return, emboldened, to Earth and to our own human wildness. -- Bill Plotkin, author of Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche and Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche Reclaiming the Wild Soul touches on so much that makes us more deeply human. But even more, we are invited into a new way of being human. Mary Reynolds Thompson identifies the most powerful qualities of our Earth's great landscapes. She then magically guides us back into a nearly lost realm where we truly feel that our imagination, our inner lives, and our physical selves are an integral expression of the planet herself. To go to the Earth for guidance, we simultaneously go inward to our deeper self and outward to the Great Self of oceans, rivers, deserts, grasslands, mountains, and forests. Reclaiming the Wild Soul is a beautiful, passionate, and trustworthy handbook for deeper transformation. --Lauren de Boer, executive editor, EarthLight, a magazine of ecology, cosmology, and spirituality Reclaiming the Wild Soul leads us on a journey of exploration, through imagery, poetry, story and creative imagination, to connect back to the five archetypal landscapes in Nature, and reconnect to our own inherent Nature. --Angeles Arrien, author of The Four Fold Way and Living with Gratitude With the urgency of Rachel Carson and the lyricism of Terry Tempest Williams, Mary Reynolds Thompson brings startling clarity to the myriad ways the earth's archetypal landscapes mirror our own pain, struggles, resources and triumphs. Simultaneously self-help and a courageous call to action, Reclaiming the Wild Soul is a vibrant and necessary addition to the literature on ecopsychology, Gaia consciousness, and the thinking person's interior life. --Kathleen Adams, director, Center for Journal Therapy, Inc.; editor, Expressive Writing: Foundations of Practice The future of religion and of the planet's health are both connected integrally with our gaining a new sense of reverence for the Earth. Mary Reynolds Thompson's writing provides a creative, fresh approach to this spiritual task. Through language that connects our inner depths with nature's mysterious and challenging beauty, she invites us to deepen our allegiances to our own true nature, to nature itself, and to the source of both. --The Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director, GreenFaith Reclaiming the Wild Soul is a gateway into the great spiritual journey of our time: that of nondual consciousness, also called spiritual ecology. These moving stories and images and poetry of Reynolds Thompson will carry you into a fresh, though ancient, realization: the deserts and forests and mountains are there in the universe, and yet simultaneously, they are vibrantly alive in the depths of our souls. --Brian Swimme, author of The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos and The Universe Story (with Thomas Berry) Reclaiming the Wild Soul is a must read for anyone on a joyous path to wholeness. Mary Reynolds Thompson's superb book takes us back to our deep roots in nature where our dreams and destiny intertwine. Her book ignites the soul with the earth's powerful wisdom and connects each of us to our deepest, wildest, wisest selves. --Terry Laszlo-Gopadze, editor of The Spirit of a Woman What an elegant concept for a book--to engage the reader in the process of surrender, to the light, the texture, the inward quality of the landscape. This is what real writing is--an extended active imagination, a dialogue with our surroundings. This book will guide you back to that connection--where the inner world and the outer world meet and simultaneously enrich each other. Mary Reynolds Thompson provides a graceful initiation into an I /Thou relation with the Earth. She is someone I'd like to walk with, into the Dark Wood. --Valerie Andrews author of A Passion for this Earth Mary Reynolds Thompson asks simple yet profound questions in exploring our connection with nature, and helping us reclaim our wild soul. And reclaim that soul, we must, if we are to find a way towards an Earth that can sustain itself in the face of human consumption and population. She writes in a way that makes you care about this planet, see its beauty on deep levels, and revel in precious moments of discovery and mystery. --Stephen Altschuler author of The Mindful Hiker In moments of illumination our souls expand, affirming that we are part of something far more spacious than our separate selves. Mary Reynolds Thompson provides doorways to those experiences, when our lives are forever changed, and our alignment with the soul of nature is sealed forever. --Ginny Anderson author of Circling San Francisco Bay Mary Reynolds Thompson has trekked the Himalayas, rafted rapids on the Klamath, backpacked the Grand Tetons, drifted down the Irrawaddy River in Burma. She has endured the blasting heat of the Badlands and the freezing winds of Patagonia! Reclaiming the Wild Soul is filled with her passion for the landscapes of the earth. As we face threats to our ecology that are so large we can hardly imagine them, Mary Reynolds Thompson invites us to slow down and connect more deeply with the earth so that we have a solid, rich, physical grounding to begin from. Reclaiming the Wild Soul should be required reading for all our politicians and policy makers. --Ellen Bass--Award Winning Poet

Author Information

"Mary Reynolds Thompson is a certified life coach and facilitator of poetry and journal therapy. Mary is the founder of ""Write the Damn Book"" and the creator of the Write the Damn Book coaching process. She serves on the faculty of the Therapeutic Writing Institute and the Council for the International Association for Journal Writers. She lives in Novato, CA. Lorraine Anderson grew up on a free-range chicken ranch in Cupertino, CA, in the days when the Santa Clara Valley was still known as the Valley of Heart's Delight. (It's now known as Silicon Valley.) She freelances as a writer and editor and teaches writing as an adjunct professor at Linn-Benton Community College in Corvallis, OR."

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