Book Reviews

nature spirits: the remembrance

"Star and Furrow" magazine
The Journal of the Biodynamic Association - Summer 2013.

Your book is a tremendous achievement and I hope it will get a lot of rich response from the human world, but also from the elemental world. They will surely have taken note and continue to do so. H. Herrmann - The Natural Beekeeping Trust

A short note to thank you for your fine work in Nature Spirits: The Remembrance. I thoroughly enjoyed both the narrative style and lucid content. Your generosity in sharing your insights and experiences regarding this most important and neglected area of this extraordinarily beautiful world is most appreciated.
With Gratitude, Kevin Parker, Publisher Literary Festivals' UK

I've just received your impressive book which I will review in a coming issue of Caduceus. Simon Best, editor of Caduceus Magazine - and reviewed in Issue 85.

Cygnus Books - A gift from the Elemental world!

Review by Alanna Moore in Geomantica Magazine, Australia.

I love books about nature spirits, so I was keen to review this one. It did not disappoint. The author explains to us that: “One of the most pressing assignments facing our newly awakening consciousness is the healing of our environment. We must learn to read in the great book of nature once again. The nature spirits are waiting to be reunited with us and as emissaries of higher spiritual beings they wish to be of great assistance to us at this time. But we have to step into their world and meet them in their own territory. It is time to engage in dialogue and relearn a living world wisdom from the elemental kingdom...”

In the chapter What Can We Do and How Can We Help?, Raven provides us with a solid background in preparation. A quote from Dorothy Maclean via the devas of the Findhorn Community in Scotland is insightful: “The touch of the angels cannot come when you are beset with doubts, burdens and self-limitations. When you are master of yourself and your conditions, you are one of us… and there is a whole dynamic world ready for an intelligent relationship with an aware humanity.”

She suggests a meditative approach to contacting the devic world, whereby you start off by: “Send[ing] your love and gratitude out into the immediate environment. ... When you have reached a place of stillness, quietly ask for help and guidance on your path, and then say the words ‘I am, listening’. Listen. Allow yourself to enter into a gracious trance of receptivity, while maintaining a link with your body awareness, and in time you will receive the guidance you need to work with the intelligence of the land.”

The author is a singer-songwriter who performs regularly on the British music festival scene, and she is a lifelong student of spirituality, specialising in the Western esoteric tradition and the work of Rudolph Steiner. She has spent the last 14 years living in the remote hills of mid-Wales and she writes of her own experiences with the devic kingdoms. She says of her life’s work: “The task of the troubadour has always to been to listen to the wind and anticipate the future, to discern the fine nuances of a spiritual age and to play the dual roles of receiver and transmitter. My many years as a song writer and performer have encouraged me to go ahead and petition the hidden spirit within nature to reveal its inspirations and imaginations.”