Customer Reviews

Body and Earth: An Experiential Guide (Middlebury Bicentennial Series in Environmental Studies)

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Andrea Olsen's book wakes up your conscious being and brings back your connectedness to earth. It makes you grateful for gravity and the nature that surrounds you and you might begin to be in awe of yourself and others. As Bebe Miller already said, this book will be with you for a long time. Body and Earth touches all your senses with its beautiful art work and its suggested exercises are easy and joyful to complete if you wish to do so. Here are just some of the "exercises" the book suggests: Water - notice how just by sipping some nice clear water it transitions from an external to an internal state. Movement - imagine creating a short dance for every day of the week and how this might wake up your senses and might relate to your sense of space. Food - write your own story of digestion as food moves through you to nurture you. Oh, and your place. Choose a small area outside and investigate it: where is water, what insects live on it, how is life like from the perspective of an insect, what plants are on this chosen place of yours and how do they smell and even taste? The book truly invites you to investigate yourself and all that surrounds you. This book is so much fun and so enjoyable that you learn a lot along the way without even noticing. It's a great gift for anyone.

This is also a wonderful book for body workers and their students. As a Yoga teacher I have had the opportunity to work with Andrea and I know that her suggestions really work because you have a chance to experience yourself what she teaches. It brings anatomical teachings back to life. To paraphrase Andrea, this book will make you feel and as you feel you are becoming a caretaker of body, a caretaker of earth. I think we have already caused too much pain to both, so this book might encourage us to heal and act.