Journey to the Ancestral Self: The Native Lifeway Guide to Living in Harmony with the Earth Mother

It is somewhat difficult to enter the indigenous world of immediate experience and intuitive awareness from Western culture. Teaching it is even more difficult. Putting this transition in words, so people can read about it is even more difficult. Yet he does it. This book is the best book of its type, of the over 500 I have read. It is a book I go back to as I grow, because I find new ideas when I reread it, and this is not true of many books for me. If you have an interest in indigenous cultures- even European- and in expanding awareness, or in learning how shamanic indigenous cultures lived, this is a book well worth getting. I have personally given 10 copies away to relatives and friends. This is a treasure trove, a smorgasbord of useful ideas. Dover will, in my opinion, reprint this book, in another 30 years, because it is such a classic.

Western society is more and more fragmented. Indigenous cultures, before contact, weren't. This book is clearly written from the perspective of someone who has spent a lot of time among indigenous peoples. Really good books are such that you can read them several times, and get new insights each time. This book is like that, and I re-read it once a year, to get new insights. It has a lot of the heart of indigenous cultures. The heart of the problem is usually a problem of the heart, and this book is very useful for getting to the heart of issues. As a community organizer, student of minimal equipment wilderness survival, and even just human being trying to improve, I have used this book a lot. I have given at least 7 copies of this book to friends. I wish there were more books like this in print. It is really, really good. This is easily among the best 10 books I've read in my life.

Many books have 10-20% useful information, padded with verbiage. This is a heart-touching book worth reading repeatedly- with 100% useful material, really more like 150%, because it is so good that as I grow, I go back and reread it. It is easy to read, and very profound. I got a B.A. in Anthropology, and all of my useful notes together do not equal what is in this book. This book, and Tad James' first book on Huna, are all I sought getting my BA, and didn't get. We don't know what healthy community is; we know only the pathology of the average. This describes the elements of healthy human living, of a healthy community. I paid to donate this book to 3 University libraries, so that other people, seeking as I was seeking, could find this. I didn't know this kind of high level awareness could be put in print. For my interests, I've never found a book even close to being as good as this one is.

This book not only gives a person a fresh perspective, it goes into detail HOW to begin anew - how to re-learn and re-live a common path and lifeway we all once walked. This is not a "dyed-in-the-wool" self help or new age book. The book shelves are lined with them. Anyone asking questions, and then questioning the resultant answers about their most basic belief systems will most likely renew their spiritual enthusiasm after reading this book. If you're a Seeker by nature, a questioner, this book will rejuvinate you. If you're living a lifestyle in the mainstream, and comfortable with what you know (or think you know), this book may challenge much of what you've been taught since you were a child. Especially re-assuring is the basis for the commonality we all share. Debunks the precept that Native Culture "primitivity" is inferior to the modern, civilized way of living. Outdoor enthusiasts will be challenged to view the world they love so much in a new light of Stewardship and Appreciation.

Good review of Native American culture, focusing on Aninishnabeg. Written from the inside out. Really neat, because it's not a book for the head, it's for the heart.