Average customer rating:
- Tessa
- Interesting History of California
- Sacred Ground
- A wonderful, accomplished novel
- Generational Tale of Discovery
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Sacred Ground
Barbara Wood
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0312275374 |
Book Description
Barbara Wood combines unparalleled storytelling with meticulous historical detail. Marimi, a healer in her tribe, the Topaa, is unprepared for what fate holds in store for her. Because of jealousy among the tribe, Marimi is placed under a curse that impacts how her familys legacy unfolds. Sacred Ground tells the story of the female descendants of Marimi. It tells of their loves, their betrayals, their losses, their families, and the ruthless ambition that would forge a new country.
Download Description
A novel that spans 600 years, tracing one family from the Native Americans in early California to the present day.
Customer Reviews:
Tessa .......2007-06-28
great web of family history invloved with this one! it reminds me of Anne Rice and the "Witching Hour" another "can't put down" I look forward to reading more From Barbra Wood
Interesting History of California .......2006-07-16
Although the viewpoint can change in a flash, I found the history of California in this story to be interesting and the characters worth caring about.
Sacred Ground.......2005-08-21
Very well written. Kept you going from chapter to chaper to find out what happens next. I finished in 2 days.
A wonderful, accomplished novel.......2005-05-13
Dr. Erica Tyler, an anthropologist in modern-day Los Angeles, comes across an intriguing situation. An earthquake has revealed a hidden cave containing the ancient bones of a young woman - one whose tribal affiliation strangely cannot be identified. In pursuit of the woman?s identity, she clashes with Jared Black, an attractive lawyer assigned to protect Native American interests. In a parallel tale set 2,000 years earlier, the young healer Marimi, happily married and expecting a child, is cast out of her tribe for breaking a taboo. Determined to survive, she and two other children, also outcasts, walk a great distance to form their own tribe. Marimi and her female descendants have the gift of foresight, and we see examples of how their lives intertwine with major events in California?s history.
I found myself having to suspend disbelief a little too often during my reading of this tale. For example, we?re expected to believe that a young woman, barefoot and heavily pregnant, physically carried a young child hundreds of miles to a new land: a rather superhuman feat! Also, the way all of the loose ends are tied together in the end, though satisfying, may cause some raised eyebrows. Despite these flaws, Wood is a wonderful, accomplished storyteller. Her prose flows smoothly and easily, making this a pleasant afternoon?s read
Generational Tale of Discovery.......2004-06-10
When Erica Tyler, a controversial archaeologist, takes a stand regarding the discovery of the 2000 year old bones of an aboriginal woman found after an earthquake disturbs a cave in the Los Angeles region of Southern California, she embarks on an incredible journey of love and self-discovery while uncovering the story of an unknown Indian tribe whose history parallels that of the state of California.
As Erica battles both the Native American tribes who disagree with archaelogists interfering with the graves of their own, and her boss who is intent on turning the cave into a museum financed by a wealthy and influential benefactor, she relates the troubled story of her own past, an ordeal of abandonment, foster homes and trouble with the law. Concurrently, in an every other chapter format, Wood retells the bittersweet history of the Topaa tribe, founded by medicine woman Marimi, an outcast from an Arizona tribe forced to traverse the desert and settle her family near the Pacific ocean. Unbeknownst to Erica, the strength of Marimi and her descendants, warrior women who suffer from the dehabilitating headaches of prescience, infuse her with willpower and steadfastness of her own and with the help of lawyer and love interest Jared Black, she finds her way as did Marimi and her kin.
As always, Wood weaves a powerful tale of healer women whose compassion and sense of obligation acts as a strong repellant for all things negative. Her pages on the Topaa tribe fascinate; the reader cannot help but finish this novel in one or two days. Reminiscent of Michener's 'Centennial', without the cumbersome geological first chapters, her personal stories regarding the different generations of women remind me of an adult version of the American Girls series, where individual stories are intertwined with great moments of American history to allow the reader to empathize with the times and the time's emotions. Here, Wood delivers a page-turning tale of a strong yet subjugated people who make up the backbone of today's California. Nicely done.
If you are looking for a romance tale, this novel focuses more on self-discovery and the resolution of identity. As in other examples of Wood's work, Jared, although a fine masculine specimen, is depicted as more of a helpmate playing second fiddle to Erica's strong first. I also thought that the ending was a little rushed, but perhaps this is due only to the fact that usually I expect a Wood novel to be almost 500 pages.
All in all this is recommended to all who are fans of Ms. Wood or like novels depicting strong women in less than perfect situations.
Customer Reviews:
How Americans Commemorate their History.......2005-06-16
For the most part, there are no sites in the United States which are religiously sacred to most Americans -- as are various sites in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, or Buddhist traditions. But Americans have their own hallowed places which have a secular and a spiritual significance in inspiring reflection on our nation's history and values. Although some hallowed sites (such as Independence Hall or the Statue of Liberty) are not battlefields, many of them are. In this book, "Sacred Ground: Americans and their Battlefields" Professor Edward Linenthal tells their story. Appropriately enough, Professor Linenthal is a professor of Religious Studies, (rather than, say, history), at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh.
Professor Linethal describes the history of five of our country's most revered battlefields: Lexington and Concord, which marks the opening of the Revolutionary War, the Alamo, part of the war for Texan independence, Gettysburg, a pivotal Civil War battle, Little Big Horn, the scene of "Custer's Last Stand", and Pearl Harbor, the scene of Japan's December 7, 1941, attack which brought the United States into WW II.
Professor Linenthal begins his consideration of each battlefield with a short -- I think too short -- summary of the facts of each battle. He then proceeds to discuss in detail the manner in which Americans have commemorated and remembered the events that occured and why they have viewed them as significant. Much of his study involves reflections on the nature of history as memory and history as it occurred -- a subject which has recently received a great deal of attention. He shows how many Americans have had a need to commemorate these battles for a set of reasons that may only be partial -- and that commemorative activities change and expand as people's perceptions change and become more inclusive.
Professor Linenthal points out, Gettysburg has been celebrated because of the valor of the combatants, North and South, and because of the role reunions and commemorations at Gettysburg played in effecting sectional reconciliation -- at the expense of realizing an important purpose of the Civil War in ending slavery and bringing African-Americans into full participation in American democracy. The Alamo has been celebrated as a symbol of American valor and love of freedom; yet the celebration has downplayed the important role played by Mexican Texans in the struggle as well as many questions that could be raised about the conduct of the United States in the wars with Mexico. The Little Big Horn Battlefield has been the site of protracted controversy over the United States's Indian policy, leading to sharp conflict between General Custer's admirers and his opponents and, ultimately, to a renaming of the battlefield. Pearl Harbor has had controversies regarding the factors which lead to the surprise attack, the Hiroshima bombing, and the attitude of people in the United States towards the Japanese. Lexington and Concord have been appropriated by some Americans as symbols of dissent from current American policies (as the minutement rebelled against the British) rather than as celebrations of the willingness of Americans to fight and die for freedom.
The story is told well and thoughtfully with good, if sometimes overwhelming detail. Professor Linenthal gives a great deal of attention to the role of the National Park Service (which is responsible for all the sites discussed in his study with the exception of the Alamo) in balancing the competing needs for site preservation, historical interpretation, and contemplation in administering the battlefields. I found the discussion of Little Big Horn particularly fascinating and complex. The reader needs to know more, however, about the Little Big Horn and about Custer to fully understand the discussion. Interestingly, Custer is the only person to figure prominently in two of the battles Linenthal discusses: Gettysburg and Little Big Horn, and the book should have brought this out.
This book initially appeared in 1989 with a second edition that takes the story through 1993 -- time enough to include the 50-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor in which Professor Linenthal participated. The story could be brought up to date. This book is still a valuable study of the meaning, and of the changes in meaning, that Americans invest in their sacred spaces.
Average customer rating:
- Essential environmental cultural studies reading
- Must read for visitors to Glastonbury or Sedona
- more than meets the eye
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Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona
Adrian J. Ivakhiv
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
ASIN: 0253338999 |
Book Description
Recent years have seen a growing popular fascination with so-called "earth energies" associated with sacred or powerful places. Two such towns are Glastonbury, England, and Sedona, Arizona, each luring tens of thousands of pilgrims annually, and spawning growing communities of New Age devotees. In this richly textured account, Adrian Ivakhiv focuses on the activities of these towns' pilgrim-migrants, both spiritual and political.
Customer Reviews:
Essential environmental cultural studies reading.......2006-01-16
I think we can safety say that it's extremely difficult to produce thoughtful work that engages the slippery interface of 'environmental studies', geography and cultural studies. There are lots of reasons for this, not least is the need for any cultural scholar to bend over backwards to avoid any kind of 'essentialist' claim regarding what is 'out there'. However, for most committed environmental activists who happen to be academics, such distinctions are just that: academic. We are situated, embodied and imbricated in place, 'nature', whatver you wish to call it, and what matters most is how we can best draw on the strengths of post-structural theory in order to illuminate precisely how the boundaries are blurred between nature and culture.
Ivakhiv's book is a stellar example for anyone who hopes to produce thoughtful cultural studies about where we live, and how places inform us and vice versa. The author is clearly someone who is comfortable with theory, and yet is an unabashed lover of travel, of wild places, of the human need to designate places as 'sacred' or otherwise. The result is a grounded, clear and lucid exploration of how places -- in this case, Glastonbury and Sedonia -- can come to be seen and experienced in such vividly different ways. From the real estate developer to the spiritual seeker to the wildlife biologist, Ivakhiv presents facets of place, while never losing his own location in the telling. Perhaps this is how we are to write as cultural geographers, environmental psychologists, or whatever nature/culture scholars may call themselves -- from a first person, yet never falling into pure memoir.
This book was overlooked when it came out, and yet it should be celebrated as one of the few 'environmental thought' books to come out that weaves geography, environmental studies, and post-structural theories. And it certainly is not limited to those who are doing religious studies. It's appeal is wide and it's fun to read. I highly recommend this book!
Must read for visitors to Glastonbury or Sedona.......2004-06-12
This book offers the most clear-headed assessment of all the beliefs surrounding those two centers of New Age/ecospiritual/countercultural mysticism. Rather than debunking *OR* simply repeating all the speculative ideas, he puts them into a much broader context where they begin to make a deeper and more satisfying kind of sense. I would highly recommend it to anyone travelling to Glastonbury or Sedona.
more than meets the eye.......2004-04-23
It's unfortunate that this book seems to have been marketed primarily to a religious studies audience. The back blurb calls it "A captivating study of people and politics at two New Age spiritual sites," which it is, but it's also much more than that. Ivakhiv's accomplishment is that he shows that these seemingly minor, peripheral places (towns of 10-15,000 people) are really central to global political-economic-environmental developments and conflicts. For "Gaia's pilgrims," they are central because they are two of the most potent of Earth's "power spots," with healing "energy vortexes" and such things. But for the rest of us they are central because they concentrate - like a magnifying glass - the "tangled webs of power, desire, and imagination" that fuel what he calls "postmodern capitalism" (the image-based commodification of everything), globalization, urbanites' love of rural nature, ruralites' resentment of those rich urban second-homers, others' rampant need to cash in on it all, etc. etc.
There's a richness of ideas here drawn from big-name philosophers like Foucault, Heidegger, Deleuze and Gauttari, Latour, Haraway, and environmental theorists I'd never heard of, but miraculously the book remains understandable and clear-headed throughout (well, almost). You could even use the four middle chapters as your personal tour guide while hiking in the woods outside Sedona or climbing the "Tor" in Glastonbury. And you probably learn more about those vortices (vortexes?) than in half a dozen books you'll pick up in Sedona's bookshops - and about King Arthur and the Grail, the British "travellers", Frederick Bligh Bond (Glastonbury Abbey's archaeologist who ended up in Woodstock NY of all places!) and lots more. And if you really want to know about "poststructural environmentalism" or "relational, performative, discursive, and co-constructive materialism" (!), you'll love the 43 pages of dense footnotes. A gem. Just wish the publisher would put it out in paperback (I got my copy used, but 50 bucks is a lot).
Book Description
What does race have to do with religion? According to Khyati Y. Joshi, quite a bit. In this compelling look at the ways that second generation Indian Americans develop and change their sense of ethnic identity, she reveals how race and religion interact, intersect, and affect each other in a myriad of complex ways. In a society where Christianity and whiteness are the norm, most Indian Americans are both racial and religious minorities. At the same time—perceived as neither black nor white—they are a racially ambiguous population. One result of these factors is the racialization of religion, on which Joshi offers important insights in the wake of 9/11 and the intensified backlash against Americans who look Middle Eastern and South Asian.
Drawing on case studies and in-depth interviews with forty-one second-generation Indian Americans, Joshi analyzes their experiences involving religion, race, and ethnicity from elementary school to adulthood. She shows how their identity has developed differently from their parents' and their non-Indian peers', and how religion often exerted a dramatic effect. She maps the many crossroads that they encounter as they navigate between home and religious community, family obligations and school, and a hope to retain their ethnic identity while also feeling disconnected from their parents' generation.
Through her candid insights into the internal conflicts that contemporary Indian Americans face as they negotiate this pastiche of experiences, and the religious and racial discrimination they encounter, Joshi provides a timely window into the ways that race, religion, and ethnicity coincide in day-to-day life.
Customer Reviews:
Timely & fascinating look at the ethnic identity of 2nd gen. Indian Americans.......2006-07-26
For her book "New Roots in America's Sacred Ground", Dr. Khyati Joshi interviewed over 40 second-generation Indian Americans, asking questions about their youth and adolescence in this country and about their experiences with religion throughout their lives. In the process, she elicits thoughtful, introspective answers that reveal much about the beliefs and perceptions of this population.
She explores how deeply intertwined religion is with race and ethnic identity for these second-generation immigrants, specifically in the context of a society that is largely defined by Christian normative values. Joshi looks at a broad array of topics through the eyes of her research participants, including their experiences of discrimination, the myth of the model minority, and the impact of their trips back to India; but the common thread is how Indian Americans experience and interpret religion in their lives and the impact this has on their identity.
What struck me about the book was how heart-wrenching and moving many of her participants stories were: stories that detail discrimination, feelings of isolation, and cultural confusion. As a second-generation Indian American myself, I couldn't put the book down, perhaps seeing a lot of my childhood and adolescence in these shared experiences. Joshi, whose academic background is in theology, social justice, and education, is adept at navigating these rich narratives, charting out their complex themes, and presenting them for her readers in a lucid and compelling manner. In the end, "New Roots" is a one-of-a-kind and commendable work that I would recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the Indian American experience.
Average customer rating:
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Sacred Ground (Arabesque)
Adrienne Reeves
Manufacturer: Kimani Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 0373830092 |
Book Description
Makima Gray has prayed for guidance in building her town's new medical clinic, and she's sure that Gabriel Bell's property is the perfect location. Gabe insists he's not at liberty to sell, but Makima won't give up…nor can she deny that she's flattered by Gabe's attentions. But past hurts and present complications lead to an error in judgment that may drive Gabe away forever.
Gabriel Bell was astonished to inherit his great-grandfather's land, along with clues to a mysterious treasure. But every second he spends with beautiful, determined Makima convinces him that winning her trust—and her heart—is the most important quest of all.
Customer Reviews:
An unparalled personalized biography........2007-03-04
English and literature teacher Raylene Hinz-Penner presents Searching for Sacred Ground: The Journey of Chief Lawrence Hart, Mennonite, the chronicle of a modern-day Cheyenne leader who strives to guide his people with a balance of Cheyenne tradition, Mennonite faith, and practical modernity. Thoroughly researched, drawn from extensive interviews, and sporting a chronology, references, and an index, Searching for Sacred Ground follows Hart's life from his boarding school education to marriage, service as a Navy fighter pilot, his efforts to teach others about Cheyenne culture, to his refinement of a respectful and deeply spiritual leadership style. An unparalled personalized biography.
Book Description
In 1992 Doug Preston and his family rode horseback across 400 miles of desert in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. They were retracing the route of the Navajo deity Naayéé' neizghání, the Slayer of Alien Gods, on his quest to restore beauty and balance to the Earth. More than a travelogue, Preston's account of the journey is a tale of two cultures meeting in a sacred land.
The engaging account of a family's experience in tracing the path of the Navajo creation story in the Four Corners area.
Customer Reviews:
Talking to the Ground.......2007-01-17
As a native of New Mexico I found this book wonderful. I live with a Navajo who was raised very traditionally and he found the book wonderful also. Douglas Preston is the best.
Enchanting adventure in the Navajo Nation.......2006-03-10
It helps immensely to have travelled to the Navajo Nation when reading this story. I found that I had minor interest in the developing family story, compared to the lore and myth of the SW Native Americans. If you've travelled to the SW and are familiar with horses, you'll love this book.
scholastic reality.......2006-02-24
It's a pleasure to enjoy the author's background studies (dry) and then his reality (with large hail stones) on a search that leads to more respect... for everything.
Reading this book caused me to yearn for some concrete search of my own, and that is the dream this book passes along. It was given to me as someone else's favorite book. I can see why. Thanks.
Blending the Physical and the Myth.......2000-09-27
A wonderful read, both encouraging and disheartening, with some real family values thrown in. A graphic, first-hand description of the way things were and are, and might be. Mr. Preston provides many enduring messages about the sanctity of life and living that the Bilagaana have nearly completely lost in our rush of subservience to the technology god.
a must-read for anyone interested in American culture.......1999-10-17
This book and its predecessor, Cities of Gold, chronicle the amazing, arduous, foolhardy, inspired journeys of a "yankee" in search of the traces of cultures his own people have nearly annihilated. Unlike many memoirists, Preston doesn't shrink from chronicling his own failures and misjudgments, and that's what makes him so accessible to the people he meets along the way, and to the reader him or herself. Most of us will probably never have the guts to make these journeys or get to know all these people - that's what makes this book such a radical act of anti-tourism. Above all it's a poignant homage to "the people." (They know who they are!) If you're a horse person, a traveler to the southwest, or if you're just interested in the question "what is American?" you have to read these books now. And don't miss the great story about the skinwalkers - it's enough to keep you cold in July.
Amazon.com
Sometimes purposeful, sometimes footloose, the act of undertaking a pilgrimage is "both a preparation for death and a hedge against it." So writes Rosemary Mahoney, who knows well whereof she speaks. A reluctant churchgoer, and less interested in religion per se than in the faith that underlies it, she travels in this absorbing narrative to some of the world's great pilgrimage sites: Ireland's Croagh Patrick, Lourdes, Santiago de Compostela, Canterbury, the banks of the Ganges. "As I got into the rhythm of it," she writes, "I found that the more I walked, the more I wanted to walk." Walk she does, over hundreds of miles, observing and recording along the way, talking with ascetics and skeptics, joining the multitude whose physical beings wander in order that their minds might turn toward the divine. And to what end is all this hard slogging? "Dunno, really," one of Mahoney's fellow travelers shrugs. "When it's done, you feel very good about it." Fans of travel narratives and religious memoirs alike will find much pleasure, and much on which to reflect, in Mahoney's pages. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
The Singular Pilgrim is a riveting account of one woman's personal quest to find the root of belief among modern religious pilgrims. The intrepid Rosemary Mahoney undertakes six extraordinary journeys: visiting an Anglican shrine to Saint Mary in Walsingham, England; walking the five-hundred-mile Camino de Santiago in northern Spain; braving the icy bathwater at Lourdes; rowing alone across the Sea of Galilee to spend a night camped below the Golan Heights; viewing Varanasi, India's holiest city, from a rubber raft on the Ganges; soldiering barefoot through the three-day penitential Catholic pilgrimage on Ireland's Station Island. A fiercely observant traveler and an insightful writer, Mahoney offers a witty and provocative chronicle of her adventures.
Customer Reviews:
An engaging tourist rather than pilgrim.......2006-12-22
As a travel writer, Rosemary Mahoney is engaging and observant. She has a keen eye for the absurd, and unlike, say, Paul Thereau, she presents the people she encounters in a sympathetic or at least relatively non-partisan light. I found her book compulsively readable and enjoyable.
As a pilgrim, however, I found her disappointing. This book lacks the extra dimension that Kathleen Norris's "Cloister Walk" or Peter Matthiessen's "The Snow Leopard" have, where the author is sincerely searching and is changed by that search. Instead, Mahoney seems to do what she accuses herself of doing early on in the book -- she takes out religious issues to play with them a bit and then tucks them away again. I very much felt she was playing at being a pilgrim here, more to write an entertaining book than anything else. On that level, she succeeds very well.
The reader joins her as a tourist, then, and as an observer of others' walks of faith rather than a participant. She does a marvelous job recreating some very interesting places and the colorful characters she encounters. Her most memorable--even haunting--character is the young man who becomes her guide in Varanasi; in the perceptively written passages involving him, Mahoney shines.
A Little Bit Lost.......2004-02-14
Rosemary Mahoney is, I think, one of the best travel writers around. Nothing can beat her "Whoredom in Kimmage," in fact, for writing about a place by a person not from that place. This book is more about spiritual traveling, though, and I sense that Mahoney was on more alien ground. It's just as beautifully written, but not always as insightful as one wants. But that doesn't detract from the experience of reading it, which will leave you feeling as if you have been on an amazing pilgrimage of your own.
Best American Travel Author.......2003-09-03
I never purchase books, and I've bought three copies of the Singular Pilgrim to give away to friends. Yup, it is that good. Not only does Ms. Mahoney achieve the rare state of sublime travel writing in which you feel that you are with her as a fellow pilgrim, but she manages to add little surprizes within several of her adventures that add extra insight. In addition, she struggles with her Catholic background in a very clear-eyed way without indulging in self-pity or excessive anger.
I agree with a fellow reviewer that the chapter on the journey to Varanesi was especially moving.
I think Rosemary Mahoney is second only to Colin Thubron in travel writing, and I've read dozens of travel books. My only regret is that she did not visit a Buddhist country, where I believe she might have had a more spiritually satisfying experience.
Many thanks Ms. Mahoney!
Carl Strasen
A wonderful book........2003-08-29
This is a fantastic book - entertaining, honest and beautifully written. The essays are thoughtful and informative, and amusing enough to keep me up late several nights in a row. The essay about Mahoney's experience in Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges, is one of the best pieces of nonfiction I've ever read. Highly, highly recommended.
Singular Pilgrim's Progress.......2003-05-30
There are all sorts of pilgrims making their tours. Chaucer knew this, of course, and his crew is composed of all from the reverent to the venal. Some of his pilgrims, like the Wife of Bath, were journeying just for the fun of it, but none of his pilgrims were confessed skeptics, out to see what they could see and write a book about the experience. That is what Rosemary Mahoney has done in _The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground_ (Houghton Mifflin), not just once but within six of the most celebrated pilgrimages, and not just Christian pilgrimages, but a Hindu one, too. She has a fine eye for detail, an attraction to odd people, and a smooth way of telling a story, so that the armchair pilgrim gets to go vicariously on these jaunts with little risk except perhaps laughing at people who ought to be solemn, and questioning the purpose of pilgrimages and of worship itself.
Every year in May, there is an Anglican National Pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Walsingham, an English village. The procession is attended not only by pilgrims, but by protesters. Methodists, Presbyterians, and others who think that the procession is too close to Catholicism shout down the parade and put up signs like "This procession & mass denies the Word of God which forbids it." Lourdes is very Catholic and very kitschy. Mahoney's first physically demanding pilgrimage was to the city of Santiago de Compostela in Spain via walking El Camino de Santiago, hundreds of miles across northern Spain. Mahoney's view of the pilgrims here, as she hobbles with crippling tendonitis, is the most cynical; as befits a "new" ancient route, the pilgrims on it are New-Agey secular seekers, taking the hike during some free months in between jobs, to find a spouse, to heal a karma, or to lose weight. Mahoney's Hindu pilgrimage was to Varanasi, the ancient city on the Ganges where the very best cremations happen and where reverent Hindus go to bathe in the fetid waters. In the Holy Land, she is amused by how different churches insist that they own, say, the authentic place where the water-into-wine miracle. The struggle for authenticity has manifested itself in different religions or different branches of one religion trying to claim possession of particular sacred sites, and Mahoney notes, "Everyone was fighting to own a piece of the man who lived for peace and said, _Own nothing_." The final pilgrimage is to Saint Patrick's Purgatory on Station Island in the middle of Lough Derg, a rigorous pilgrimage including sleep deprivation, cold, midges, and mind-numbing recitations of rigid prayers, perhaps in anticipation of purgatory's entertainments.
Mahoney is a wonderful guide to these strange locales, practices, and people. She examines her own beliefs throughout, and contrasts them with those of her mother, a staunch Catholic. Conversations with her mother are remembered frequently throughout the book. There is serious introspection here, and serious inquiry into a form of human activity that has many participants, but she has conducted the research with irrepressible humor. At the end of the Camino trip, she reflects that although she was still unsure why she had walked all that way, "... I felt I had accomplished something strange and monumental." Yes, and that can be said of her book as well.
Book Description
Examines the relationship between spiritual disciplines and the natural world.
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