The Fruitful Darkness: Reconnecting with the Body of the Earth

Halifax, an ecologist and anthropologist, encounters Tibetan Buddhist meditators, Mexican shamans and Native American elders in this highly personal odyssey, a lyrical farrago of field notes, reflections and reminiscence marred by New Age ecobabble. Author of Shaman: The Wounded Healer , Halifax believes that deep ecology (which attempts to fuse environmental awareness with spiritual values) ranks with Buddhism and shamanism as a way to understand the interconnectedness of all creation and to regain a view of life as sacred. In rapt prose she recounts her explorations--geographic and mental--from Japanese Zen meditation to hallucinogenic plants, from the Dogon people of Mali to the Mayan rain forest. The terrain she covers may be familiar to spiritual seekers, but it is too fuzzy to be of value to environmentalists. (Apr.)