By Jesse Wolf Hardin, New Page Books (Career Press);(Reviewed by Windweaver)
As I began to read this book, I was puzzled by the title. Gaia Eros? What does that mean? I looked at the chapter titles, and discovered that each of them stands alone very nicely; there’s no need to read doggedly from front to back. This is not a textbook, where each chapter builds on the instructions from the one before. Then it hit me, after I began to reread Wolf’s words. This is no mere compilation of essays.
Perhaps this volume could best be described as a collection of love letters; some serious, some whimsical, some practical, some esoteric, but always spiritual. To the Great Mystery that is Mother Earth, the author passionately, eloquently, and tirelessly conveys his love, commitment, and reverence. As Wolf invites us to develop our sense of belonging to Gaia, to honor and care for the earth, he explains in inspired and picturesque language the how and why of New Nature Spirituality.
Calling upon his two decades of experience care taking and “rewilding” a stretch of river canyon in New Mexico, Wolf gives us lessons from Nature through the eyes of the bobcats and the roots of the red willows. He builds an indelible image upon the mind’s eye of his Sweet Medicine Sanctuary. In “Lessons of the Furry Buddhas” he writes:
To be wild is to be “willed:” true to our authentic needs and nature. Never pretend to be anything but what you are.
In “The Sacred Ground,” Wolf writes of our “holy Gaian beings.” He elaborates on the substance that forms us, feeds us, shelters and then ultimately reclaims us, then gently chides us for our foolish obsession with washing off any evidence of its existence.
Gaia Eros calls each of us to new levels of awareness and activism, to become teachers and healers. To recognize and honor the eternal Earth Mother for her gifts and blessings, and to seek to reverse the harm that mankind has wrought.
This book belongs on every bookshelf, not just those of us Pagans and Earth-centered Spirituality types. It is for everyone who is aware of, or wants to be, –or even is just willing to entertain the possibility of—the ultimate sacred interconnectedness of all things on the living goddess planet we call Gaia. It should be read over and over, until we get it.
This book is not an easy read. I would have found a dictionary close by to be a big help. Wolf uses words like loci, indigenous, inspirited, sentience. Nor is this some “fluffy bunny” New Age eco-philosophy guide.
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