Bill Pfeiffer - Wild Earth, Wild Soul : a Manual for an Ecstatic Culture

Bill Pfeiffer has followed his own wild heart in growing ways to build an Earth-honoring culture. His passion to heal our alienation from the natural world led him to deep ecology and then on to aboriginal elders of Siberia and the Americas. Knowing that a shift in consciousness at the personal level is essential, he has developed workshops to bring us back to our true nature as conscious members of the sacred living body of Earth. It is good news for us all that Bill has chosen to share his approach and his methods in this manual. Ive known Bill for twenty years and would trust him with my life.

Joanna Macy

Bill Pfeiffer is a pioneer in bringing the technologies of Reunion to our wounded Western culture. This book was a blessing for me, both for its clear, vibrant articulation of basic principles of shamanic and ecological healing, and for its practical transmission of how to create powerful experiences for others.

Charles Eisenstein

Pfeiffers Wild Earth, Wild Soul is a recipe for realizing our greatest longing: to live in a culture rooted in the Earth where each of us is treated with love and respect. Filled with indigenous wisdom; this rich, practical offering provides a way for small groups to experience that now as well as hope for the well-being of future generations.

Thom Hartmann

A bridge is being built between indigenous beliefs that have been environmentally successful for millennia and the wise probing recently of intelligent non-Indians. Pfeiffer is an excellent bridge builder. Wild Earth, Wild Soul is a must read.

Ed Eagleman McGaa

Pfeiffer offers a valuable step forward in advancing our lives and the lives of our childrena life not only of compassion but also of ecstasy.

Manitonquat (Medicine Story)

Bill Pfeiffers book is a generous and deeply felt articulation of how we can approach sustainable habitation of this planet that is our home. And, most uniquely, it supports people in feeling, rather than suppressing, the deep emotions they have about the damage to our planet. And from those deep feelings, to trust the crafting of a genuine individual response to that damage.

Stephen Harrod Buhner, author of The Secret Teachings of Plants, The Lost Language of Plants, and Ensouling Language.

Wild Earth, Wild Soul: A Manual for an Ecstatic Culture is a major contribution to indigenous wisdom at a time when it is much needed by an ailing modernity. It provides an insightful entry into life-giving changes much craved for, and must be read with deep reverence.

Malidoma Some

First published by Moon Books, 2013
Moon Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach,
Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK
www.johnhuntpublishing.com
www.moon-books.net

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Text copyright: Bill Pfeiffer 2012

ISBN: 978 1 78099 187 0

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Bill Pfeiffer as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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by John Perkins

Ive known Bill Pfeiffer since he first came to one of my workshops in the mid-nineties. The subject of the workshop was ecstasy and indigenous wisdom. I noticed that a fire was starting to burn within him to really know this subjectnot as a temporary high but as a way of life.

During that time, I led many trips to the Amazon and the Andes where a wild and connected relationship with nature was part of the present, not a relic of the past. I shared with Bill much of what I learned. Bill, in turn, told me about his adventures in Siberia. There he experienced the ecstatic culture of several indigenous tribes embedded in a dazzling mosaic of rivers, steppe, and snowcapped mountains.

A bond formed between us, centered on this common experience and a common aspiration. How could we preserve ancient wisdom and adapt it for our own people? How could we change the modern vision that technological progress will provide ultimate fulfillment into an Earth-honoring dream?

A Shuar shaman deep in the Amazon once told me:

The world is as you dream it. You in the North have dreamed of lots of cars, huge buildings, extreme materialism. Your dream came true and now threatens to destroy the Earth as we know it. But you can change that, create sustainable societies among your people. Just help your people change that dream.

Wild Earth, Wild Soul sprang from the Earth herself. It takes complex concepts and puts them together in a user-friendly way. It doesnt merely ask, What if? It shows the reader how to. It is a manual for creating a culture that works with, not against, nature. Bill makes it clear that to achieve this balance, we must go deep into our own souls. Its not about duplicating the customs and mores of Native cultures, but rather is about having the courage to take the amazing journey into the depths of who we are. On that journey, we can find a different way to see; reality becomes a high-definition experience that is malleable and full of possibility.

Talk is cheap. Bill invites you to see for yourself through his Wild Earth Intensive. You will soon find out what that is.

And he takes the long view. Yes, we need to do everything we can to slow and stop the Earth-destroying juggernaut of materialistic consumption, but at the same time we need to start putting in place the kind of culture our descendants will inherit with gratitude. That will require patience, discipline, and tenacity. Bills recipe makes this sacred work a joy.

Whats most original about Wild Earth, Wild Soul is not the parts, but the whole. Where else are you going to find the ingredients of a thriving nature-based culture all in one place along with a practical method of experiencing them?

Read it and take it to heart for our childrens sake. And also take it to heart if you long to inhabit a world imbued with beauty.