Return to the Garden

Shakti Gawain was one of the first personal growth authors I ever got into and remains to this day one of my favorites. Metaphysically, she was a pioneer and a revolutionary, introducing many of the concepts that are common knolwedge to people on a mataphysical path today: we create our own reality, the art of visualization and the mirror principle in relationships just to name a few. At the time I read all her books and listened to all of her tapes. I learned so much from this woman and learned to really cherish her as a teacher and person. In this light, you can imagine how pleased I was when this book came out: her autobiography. What a priviledge to take a peak into the life of such an influential teacher. Her bio is very candid: she reveals the good and the ugly of her own personal journey. But it is also inspiring as well as fascinating as we get to take a look at the human potential movement through the sixties and seventies, with all the experimenting that was going on at the time. Overall this book is a great read, especially for people that are into Shakti's other work, but I think possibly even for people that have never encountered her material before. The woman has had quite a fascinating and eventful life, making this book very interesting indeed.

Shakti Gawain's intensity of feeling and commitment to truth made me feel as if I'd known her all my life. We were drawn to the same workshops and books and I identified with her experiences both as a child and as an adult. "Return to the Garden" is packed with practical advice and wisdom. I particularly enjoyed Gawain's insight about our need to make a commitment to our own healing and to the healing of the planet. The sharing of her life story enables us to learn about different paths and techniques to self healing-discovering our shadow parts and our disowned energies and how to deal with the Earth's light and dark forces.Gowain is able to explain complex psychological concepts in simple terms- issues such as projection, transference, counter transference, subpersonalities, aware ego, and the difference between consciousness and spirituality. Gowain's description of channeling a universal power is both validating and helpful.

I have almost finished this book and have really enjoyed it. I am a bit disappointed with the quality of the writing, its pretty basic, but the content is very interesting. Shakti Gawain has led a very rich life, one that I relate to in many ways. She has participated in all kinds of spiritual/conciousness-raising practices and discusses many of them here. Her extensive trvaels are fun to read about, too. If you have read any of her other books and are curious about her personal experiences, read this.