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January 14, 2015

FARMING SOUL - A TALE OF INITIATION by Patricia Damery







A FARMING SOUL
A TALE OF INITIATION
Second Edition
by
Patricia Damery

Robert Sardello (Introduction)

A "FEAST" OF A BOOK!
USING SPIRITUAL, ECOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLORATION TO RECONNECT TO OUR DEEPER SELVES AND PHYSICAL RELATIONSHIP WITH MOTHER EARTH.


INTRO
(FROM AMAZON)
Farming Soul questions theories and assumptions that date back to the days of Freud, assumptions which separate spirituality from psychology. Patricia Damery finds answers through unconventional teachings and her relationship to the land--answers that are astonishingly intertwined.

In Patricia's individuation process she learns the importance of being rooted in a particular place and guided by the tenets of Rudolf Steiner's Biodynamic® agriculture. Her professional journey to become a Jungian analyst is a path filled with review committees and unorthodox teachers.

Farming Soul offers perspective on the complicated dynamic of the therapist/patient bond and a personal account of when to rely on one's inner authority. This is a book about soul embodied and the essential recognition that spiritual, ecological, and psychological exploration is essential to reconnecting to our deeper selves.
  • Paperback: 184 pages
  • Publisher: Leaping Goat Press; second edition (July 4, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0991309820
  • ISBN-13: 978-0991309825
 REVIEW
The author, Patricia Damery has written a book that gives us a source of Carl Jung's legacy.  She informs us of his, many rejected teachings and as we read, we follow her own her travels to being one,  as a Jungian analyst. You will find yourself reading the book rather slowly to take in the Jungian psychology.  She gets your attention by showing the four parts of our body, the astral, mental, physical and etheric.She writes the book as though it was a conversation.
Biodynamic faming has been  practiced for over ten years by Ms. Damery and her husband. It is the re-entry  to Mother Earth.
"Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms, evening the holistic development and relationship of soil, plants, animals as a self nourishing system without any introduction from the outside. This happens through the loss of nutrients from the export of food. We often don't take note of being one with everything.   We don't take notice of Mother Earth as we go about our hurried lives, sometimes thinking only of our silly wants.A journey you will want to take with Mother Earth and Patricia Damery.

I was given a complimentary copy of FARMING SOUL from the author, Patricia Damery for my view of the book.

I would give this book 4 STARS.


AUTHOR
Growing up on a small farm in the Midwest,  I was of the last generation to be raised in the small farming culture of our country. My mother was a teacher, her own father a commercial artist, and, of course, my father farmed. I have always been stretched between these two very different cultures, and my life decisions reflect that.
Patricia Damery
I got away from the rigors of farming as soon as I was able. When I went to college I studied chemistry, mainly because I scored high in sciences, and, I suspect now, because I am unconsciously drawn to alchemy (as was Carl Jung). I taught high school one year before deciding that was not for me. Although I did not stay in teaching, I was introduced to the study of Jungian psychology through a graduate program in psychology at Sonoma State University near Santa Rosa, California.  The openness and creativity of California ignited my love of both psychology and the beautiful, varied land, and as a result, I decided to reside here and to study psychology.

After getting a degree in psychology and becoming licensed to practice psychotherapy, I entered a training program at the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. Farming Soul: A Tale of Initiation is in part about this experience as well as my return to farming after meeting my husband Donald. Through a farming crisis (also the subject of Farming Soul) we became trained and then certified in Biodynamic agriculture.

I have written two novels, Snakes and Goatsong, both about our relationship to the earth and to each other, as well as various professional articles published in Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, and Psychological Perspectives. I also co-edited an anthology Marked by Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way (Fisher King Press, 2012)

 
 

LINKS

1 comment:

Malcolm R. Campbell said...

This is a wonderful book. Nice to see your review.

Malcolm