Earth Dreams: Finding Light in the Shadow

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Summary: Author's experiences with a vision quest, shadow work
Review: "Earth Dreams" is a chronicle of the experiences of Elizabeth Brensinger as she engages in her "vision quest" and how it affects her life afterwards. The author and several others travel to a remote area of Utah where they receive instructions for engaging in a vision quest. From there each goes their own way into the canyons and seeks out their special spot to begin their spiritual journey. Each then spends three days and nights alone in the canyon.

A well-written account, the author bares her fears and triumphs as she deals with the quest and her journey into her own spiritual canyons, shadows and dreams. Through it all she comes to renew her passion and purpose in life.

A recommended read for people who are interested in the concepts of a vision quest, shadow and dream work, or similar therapeutic devices.

Rating:
Summary: Author's experiences with a vision quest, shadow work
Review: "Earth Dreams" is a chronicle of the experiences of Elizabeth Brensinger as she engages in her "vision quest" and how it affects her life afterwards. The author and several others travel to a remote area of Utah where they receive instructions for engaging in a vision quest. From there each goes their own way into the canyons and seeks out their special spot to begin their spiritual journey. Each then spends three days and nights alone in the canyon.

A well-written account, the author bares her fears and triumphs as she deals with the quest and her journey into her own spiritual canyons, shadows and dreams. Through it all she comes to renew her passion and purpose in life.

A recommended read for people who are interested in the concepts of a vision quest, shadow and dream work, or similar therapeutic devices.

Rating:
Summary: A powerfully spiritual book
Review: Earth Dreams: Finding Light In The Shadow by environmental preservationist Elizabeth Brensinger is the true and personal story of a woman's vision quest, undertaken in solitude for three days and three nights in a remote Utah canyon. A captivating reminder of the miraculous and meaningful joy of life given to us by the nurturing Mother Earth, Earth Dreams is a powerfully spiritual book with echoes of majestic wild beauty and highly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in metaphysics, spirituality, Jungian psychology, and the phenomena of the "vision quest".

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Summary: Finding the Gift of Shadow
Review: Liz Bresinger's spiritual memoir, presents a humorous, educational and uplifting description of her experience on a Canyonlands vision quest and the more difficult aspect of questing, the reincorporation. This book could be of interest to anyone who has quested or contemplating a quest, as well as anyone interested in the integration of the shadow. The 'Shadow" of the subtitle refers to shadow in the Jungian sense - what Marie Louise von Franz defines as 'the dark, unlit, and repressed side of the ego complex' or, more generally, a name for all that is within that cannot be known directly.

In the first half of the book Brensinger describes the eleven day Canyonlands vision quest. In the second half of the book, we become privy to the author's process of first recognizing the essence of her particular quest experience and then her process of integrating this essence into her life. As the author walks out of the canyons, anger and disappointment and extreme fatigue beset her - an experience different from the joy and light for which she had hoped. Through this she comes to understand that the gift of her quest is the gift of shadow. Shadow, already her unacknowledged companion, will now become her teacher - the vehicle through which she will come to accept her limitations, her human imperfectability, her gifts to the world, her passions, her essential goodness. With the passage of time she sees this with greater clarity and focus. She demonstrates through ceremony, dreams, synchronicities and journaling how she brings light and connection to the qualities of her shadow self. This process of her own self acceptance becomes a gift, in the form of this book, back to the larger community.