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Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered by Machaelle Small Wright
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First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Machaelle Small Wright
34 books39 followersMachaelle Small Wright is a nature researcher, teacher, flower essence researcher and developer, and cofounder of Perelandra, a nature research centre in the Virginia countryside. Since 1976, she has been working directly with nature intelligences in a co-creative relationship.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
June 27, 2016
I read this book years ago before I began to write reviews. Now I´ve re-read the book in an updated and revised version.
The author begins with an account of her childhood, where she was neglected and eventually abandoned. Her mother, Dorothy, was a “disturbed” woman who became an alcoholic, while her father, Isodore, was always away on trips. Machelle had to lie about her age to find jobs in order to survive. Well, she must have learnt everything there is to know about self-reliance!
Machaelle arranged to get herself into a good Catholic girls` academy and converted to Catholicism. The school was no bed of roses, and a couple of the nurses were “mad”; one was “destructively mad”.
Later, she joins the CCNV (Community of Creative Non-Violence), where she meets her future partner, Clarence.
The two purchase a large property in Virginia, which is to become the renowned nature research centre, Perelandra.
Machaelle experiences “going home” and begins every day to meet a teacher on a bridge (not on the physical plane), who gives her instructions, including the basics of meditation; this continues for two years. She “astral travels” and performs services to people in distress.
Later, she writes a letter to Pope Paul VI and formally resigns from the Catholic Church.
She begins to read about Findhorn and learns about devas and nature spirits. After she asks aloud to work with these beings, they make contact with her.
The various devas (e.g. the Carrot Deva) identify themselves and give her instructions as to “what seeds to buy, what fertilizer to use, how far apart to plant the seeds, when to thin the plants and how much space to leave between them”, etc, etc. Each deva had its own vibration and, after a while, Machaelle could recognize the energies of the specific devas; she developed the ability to call on these by “aiming” her awareness at the deva´s own vibratory pattern. Eventually, she just needs to say “I´d like to be connected with the Deva of the Carrot”, and so on.
She also connects with the Overlighting Deva of the Garden and the Soil Deva. She receives just the information she needs at the moment.
We are given transcripts of some of Machaelle's channellings of the Overlighting Deva of the Garden, the Landscape Angel, the Angel of Sound, the Spinach Deva, and the Lilium Auratum Deva.
When they are running low on wood to burn, she is told by the Deva of the Woods where she can find a dead thirty-foot tree that will serve their needs.
The devas “create the package that includes the different components of a plant – once the package begins to take on five-senses form, the nature spirits take over – it is the responsibility of the nature spirits – (to) fuse to a plant its light, its essence, its life pattern and cycles.”
Machaelle meets with Peter Caddy (of Findhorn) and is told to remember that she is the creator of the garden. She is to “take a position of equal partnership with the devas and nature spirits”. She has to “face her own power and responsibility and not see herself as someone less than the devas and nature spirits”; she is different, not less.
She learns to visualize and manifest; she is told to verbally request and visualize one cubic foot of a specific manure. She connects to the deva of manure (yes, there is a deva of manure!), who pulls together the various energies of the manure. She connects with the nature spirits and then the energy of the manure joins her. She feels the manure “take on a sense of physicalness”; when she opens her eyes, there before her is the cubic foot of manure.
This was the episode that I remembered best from my first reading, years ago –how this manure manifests just beside her. The manifestation process had taken two hours.
At the end of the book, we are given a useful “simplified energy cleansing procedure” which you can use for an object, a room, building or community, etc. I´ve tried this myself – it wasn´t hard and seems to have worked.
The book is well-written and inspiring (though I´ve never before heard that one can write “a woods” and can´t find it in the dictionary either). Machaelle is thorough in her descriptions, and funny. She is an amazing person. I recommend that you read this absolutely original book.
The author begins with an account of her childhood, where she was neglected and eventually abandoned. Her mother, Dorothy, was a “disturbed” woman who became an alcoholic, while her father, Isodore, was always away on trips. Machelle had to lie about her age to find jobs in order to survive. Well, she must have learnt everything there is to know about self-reliance!
Machaelle arranged to get herself into a good Catholic girls` academy and converted to Catholicism. The school was no bed of roses, and a couple of the nurses were “mad”; one was “destructively mad”.
Later, she joins the CCNV (Community of Creative Non-Violence), where she meets her future partner, Clarence.
The two purchase a large property in Virginia, which is to become the renowned nature research centre, Perelandra.
Machaelle experiences “going home” and begins every day to meet a teacher on a bridge (not on the physical plane), who gives her instructions, including the basics of meditation; this continues for two years. She “astral travels” and performs services to people in distress.
Later, she writes a letter to Pope Paul VI and formally resigns from the Catholic Church.
She begins to read about Findhorn and learns about devas and nature spirits. After she asks aloud to work with these beings, they make contact with her.
The various devas (e.g. the Carrot Deva) identify themselves and give her instructions as to “what seeds to buy, what fertilizer to use, how far apart to plant the seeds, when to thin the plants and how much space to leave between them”, etc, etc. Each deva had its own vibration and, after a while, Machaelle could recognize the energies of the specific devas; she developed the ability to call on these by “aiming” her awareness at the deva´s own vibratory pattern. Eventually, she just needs to say “I´d like to be connected with the Deva of the Carrot”, and so on.
She also connects with the Overlighting Deva of the Garden and the Soil Deva. She receives just the information she needs at the moment.
We are given transcripts of some of Machaelle's channellings of the Overlighting Deva of the Garden, the Landscape Angel, the Angel of Sound, the Spinach Deva, and the Lilium Auratum Deva.
When they are running low on wood to burn, she is told by the Deva of the Woods where she can find a dead thirty-foot tree that will serve their needs.
The devas “create the package that includes the different components of a plant – once the package begins to take on five-senses form, the nature spirits take over – it is the responsibility of the nature spirits – (to) fuse to a plant its light, its essence, its life pattern and cycles.”
Machaelle meets with Peter Caddy (of Findhorn) and is told to remember that she is the creator of the garden. She is to “take a position of equal partnership with the devas and nature spirits”. She has to “face her own power and responsibility and not see herself as someone less than the devas and nature spirits”; she is different, not less.
She learns to visualize and manifest; she is told to verbally request and visualize one cubic foot of a specific manure. She connects to the deva of manure (yes, there is a deva of manure!), who pulls together the various energies of the manure. She connects with the nature spirits and then the energy of the manure joins her. She feels the manure “take on a sense of physicalness”; when she opens her eyes, there before her is the cubic foot of manure.
This was the episode that I remembered best from my first reading, years ago –how this manure manifests just beside her. The manifestation process had taken two hours.
At the end of the book, we are given a useful “simplified energy cleansing procedure” which you can use for an object, a room, building or community, etc. I´ve tried this myself – it wasn´t hard and seems to have worked.
The book is well-written and inspiring (though I´ve never before heard that one can write “a woods” and can´t find it in the dictionary either). Machaelle is thorough in her descriptions, and funny. She is an amazing person. I recommend that you read this absolutely original book.
March 22, 2013
I read this book shortly after it was published. It literally fell off a bookstore shelf as I was pulling out another book. The title grabbed me and I ended up buying this one.
To say it changed my life is an understatement. First, Machaelle's courage and resilience in a difficult situation inspired me. Her creativity and willingness to do what it takes to survive made her into one of my heros. Second, her experience with nature hit me like a ton of bricks.
It opened my eyes and my heart. I began playing with her kinesiology techniques immediately. I read many of her other books. I began using her Medical Assistance Program techniques and still use them to this day, several times a day! I visited Perelandra when it was open to the public.
This little book opened an entirely new world for me and I can not recommend it highly enough. When the student is ready, the teacher appears...
To say it changed my life is an understatement. First, Machaelle's courage and resilience in a difficult situation inspired me. Her creativity and willingness to do what it takes to survive made her into one of my heros. Second, her experience with nature hit me like a ton of bricks.
It opened my eyes and my heart. I began playing with her kinesiology techniques immediately. I read many of her other books. I began using her Medical Assistance Program techniques and still use them to this day, several times a day! I visited Perelandra when it was open to the public.
This little book opened an entirely new world for me and I can not recommend it highly enough. When the student is ready, the teacher appears...
June 2, 2011
Even the name of this book pulls me in...Into a world that is so much more than we see.
While in part this is an autobiography of the woman who founded Perelandra in Culpeper County VA, the threads of how she began to work with nature intelligences in a highly practical and scientific manner (don't scoff at that statement unless you've read her detailed instructions that work) provide background to teaching how each of us can learn to work co-creatively with nature.
Yes, co-creation within a garden plot, and also with work projects.
This book sets the stage for her teaching.
I highly recommend her website (www.perelandra-ltd.com) and her manuals on how-to work with these processes.
I'll add too that she's funny and has an odd sense of humor. And, she's very real.
I had an earlier version of this book too but may have passed it along.
While in part this is an autobiography of the woman who founded Perelandra in Culpeper County VA, the threads of how she began to work with nature intelligences in a highly practical and scientific manner (don't scoff at that statement unless you've read her detailed instructions that work) provide background to teaching how each of us can learn to work co-creatively with nature.
Yes, co-creation within a garden plot, and also with work projects.
This book sets the stage for her teaching.
I highly recommend her website (www.perelandra-ltd.com) and her manuals on how-to work with these processes.
I'll add too that she's funny and has an odd sense of humor. And, she's very real.
I had an earlier version of this book too but may have passed it along.
October 9, 2020
I've never met Machaelle Small Wright, but I think she's one of my favorite people. She's funny and grounded, even while writing about her devastating childhood and incredible spiritual experiences with nature (I'm not sure she would describe them as spiritual, but I think that's a reasonable interpretation). She basically had to raise herself, and lived through some of the most pivotal moments in mid-late 20th century history, to boot, and created an experimental garden that ended up becoming her life's work. I've read this book several times over.
July 29, 2008
This may not be for everyone, but I enjoyed this book so much. It's the life story of the author and the transformations that she went through as a teenager with abusive/alcoholic parents. Her experiences led her to many unusual and astounding philosophies and ways of being in the world which I find fascinating. If you cringe at the term "new age," in any or all of it's forms, this one isn't for you.
March 30, 2012
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the first part of this book. It was well written and compelling. I felt an instant kinship with the author. Unfortunately further in I had to discontinue my reading, allowing my copy of the book to sit on my coffee table for over a week before deciding to re-shelve the book.
I understand this is an account of Ms. Wright's own personal experiences, perhaps later in life I will be more open to her insight.
I understand this is an account of Ms. Wright's own personal experiences, perhaps later in life I will be more open to her insight.
March 15, 2020
I loved this book. It is the time of garden dreaming and planning so the timing was perfect. Understanding how we can co-create with nature instead of manipulating or dominating nature in the service of our gardens is so important as we work to heal the earth.
June 5, 2023
A WOMAN’S JOURNEY FROM CATHOLICISM AND ORGANIC GARDENING TO…?
Author Machaelle Small Wright wrote in the Introduction to this 1987 book, “[This book] is a book about the intelligent world of nature we traditionally know as devas and nature spirits and about the need for us to change our relationship with that world and, ultimately, our relationship with the planet… we now need to turn our attention to nature itself, recognize the intelligence inherent in all natural form on Earth and allow it to teach us what we need to know in order that we may apply that information to our lie an our technology, and pull ourselves out of the present ecological mess. The nature intelligence I speak of contains within it truth---a truth that has been present since the beginning of time and available to us all down through the ages…I first consciously tapped into this truth in 1976 when… I decided I wanted to become a student of nature and be taught by nature. I immediately discover that there is an extraordinary intelligence inherent in all forms of nature… that contained within this intelligence are the answers to any question we could possibly have about nature… This information is just sitting there for us. All we have to do is decide we want to hear it.” (Pg. xi-xii)
She recounts her life story, eventually summarizing, “From this point on, everything turned around for me and things started ‘going my way.’ My husband simply lost interest in me. I never saw him again until the TV news reports on the murder of a young husband… All my spare time was spent at the Cathedral… I was a member of Apostolic Action for almost three years… it was the mid-sixties. There was a movement of change and renewal going through the Church.” (Pg. 67-69) She continues, “In January 1971, a newly ordained Paulist priest, a Catholic lawyer and five of us ‘young folk’ from the Newman Center started a thing called the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV). All of us… lived together in a house…” (Pg. 73)
She continues, “There were two reasons why it was correct for me to become a part of CCNV… First, it catalyzed my opening to the concept of ecological nonviolence… The second reason was Clarence Wright, a Paulist seminarian who lived down the street from CCNV… We fell in love like to fools hit by a truck… [Some people] accused me of snatching Clarence away from the loving arms of the Holy Mother Church… My partnership with Clarence also caused me to lose all of my old Church … buddies… I soon found myself surrounded by new people… [who] moved in a more liberal flow within the Church. They were people who were very comfortable with the idea that Catholics should discover and formulate their theology.” (Pg. 75-76) She adds, “In… 1972, Clarence and I decided to share the joy of our relationship… We found another priest to say the Mass. And with seventy-five friends, we celebrated our relationship… by standing up to the Church and saying ‘no’ to their demand to have a ‘proper’ wedding, I saw that the true essence of Christianity lay WITHIN MYSELF…” (Pg. 82)
She goes on, “With our move to the woods came a rapid series of changes for me. I became a vegetarian… I spent large blocks of time alone---in the woods… I first noticed something different about the woods when I was alone in the house at night. I could feel an energy… I had read a science fiction book by C.S. Lewis called ‘Perelandra’… I felt that our woods… had not lost the spark of perfection… we named our land ‘Perelandra.’” (Pg. 85-87)
She began hearing ‘voices.’ “Clarence suggested that I meditate… I saw an arched stone bridge … to my left there was a young man … who looked like a Buddhist monk… Without talking to or looking at me, he began transmitting instructions… as if he flowed his mind directly into mine… I knew that this was the ‘person’ who was going to help me, to be my teacher. For the next two years, I met this man on the bridge.” (Pg. 87-90) She continues, “As I moved into this new world, my connection with the Catholic Church became more distant… I wrote to Pope Paul VI to inform him that I was RESIGNING from the Catholic Church… it was important for me to … formally cut my ties.” (Pg. 92)
She summarizes, “Everything that happened to me happened for a reason. When Clarence handed me [two] Findhorn books, that little action didn’t come from nowhere. I had gone through years of preparation.” (Pg. 94) She adds, “I had the same experience that Dorothy Maclean had at Findhorn when she first connected with devas… Each day I would go into meditation and open my connection with the devic level. A deva would come into my awareness and identify itself. I was then given instructions.” (Pg. 100-101) She explains, “Nature spirits rarely choose to be visible to humans, and when they do, it’s for a specific purpose… it can be to give the person tangible proof of their existence, or it can be at a moment of high celebration..” (Pg. 114) She says, “My one disappointment was that I would not be sharing in Findhorn’s experience of growing a garden under adverse conditions…” (Pg. 126)
She even visited Findhorn in 1978: “Once the community members at Findhorn believed I wasn’t some weird, half-crazed broad … and that my experiences in the garden were, in fact, real, they asked me to talk… But during the last week there, I began to question whether or not I had talked TOO much… had I broken some … trust, between myself and the devas and nature spirits?... When I left Findhorn, I braced myself for the possibility that my education in the garden was over. Of course I was wrong…” (Pg. 147-148)
After the winter frost hit, “I moved into the garden to do the last process… [it] took seven full days… I found that even if the form of the plant was dead, the energy … of the plant, had remained a part of the whole energy of the garden… The nature spirits that had worked with that … faded into the Elemental Annex… It’s difficult to communicate this experience because of its depth, its extraordinary mixture of peace, gentleness and love…” (Pg. 142-143) She suggests, “I sometimes feel that vegetarianism has become to the New Age movement what getting arrested was to an anti-war movement---a badge solely designed to show others that we are seriously committed.” (Pg. 169)
She concludes, “We contain within us all the universal truths. All universal knowledge. Everything that is, is known to us. Our soul self has a limitless capacity to enfold and know all… when we choose to experience Earth, we choose to learn what it is to reflect this vast reservoir of knowing through the dense tool we call our physical body.” (Pg. 172)
She explains, “Perelandra has continues to function as a nature research center and sanctuary for devas and nature spirits. It is dedicated to learning from and understanding the overlighting intelligences contained within all nature, the Aquarian relationship between nature and Earth, and the co-creative partnership between nature and man that ultimately will allow him to fully reflect his higher self through his physical form and actions.” (Pg. 209)
This book will mostly appeal to those interested in ‘spiritual’ approaches to gardening.
Author Machaelle Small Wright wrote in the Introduction to this 1987 book, “[This book] is a book about the intelligent world of nature we traditionally know as devas and nature spirits and about the need for us to change our relationship with that world and, ultimately, our relationship with the planet… we now need to turn our attention to nature itself, recognize the intelligence inherent in all natural form on Earth and allow it to teach us what we need to know in order that we may apply that information to our lie an our technology, and pull ourselves out of the present ecological mess. The nature intelligence I speak of contains within it truth---a truth that has been present since the beginning of time and available to us all down through the ages…I first consciously tapped into this truth in 1976 when… I decided I wanted to become a student of nature and be taught by nature. I immediately discover that there is an extraordinary intelligence inherent in all forms of nature… that contained within this intelligence are the answers to any question we could possibly have about nature… This information is just sitting there for us. All we have to do is decide we want to hear it.” (Pg. xi-xii)
She recounts her life story, eventually summarizing, “From this point on, everything turned around for me and things started ‘going my way.’ My husband simply lost interest in me. I never saw him again until the TV news reports on the murder of a young husband… All my spare time was spent at the Cathedral… I was a member of Apostolic Action for almost three years… it was the mid-sixties. There was a movement of change and renewal going through the Church.” (Pg. 67-69) She continues, “In January 1971, a newly ordained Paulist priest, a Catholic lawyer and five of us ‘young folk’ from the Newman Center started a thing called the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV). All of us… lived together in a house…” (Pg. 73)
She continues, “There were two reasons why it was correct for me to become a part of CCNV… First, it catalyzed my opening to the concept of ecological nonviolence… The second reason was Clarence Wright, a Paulist seminarian who lived down the street from CCNV… We fell in love like to fools hit by a truck… [Some people] accused me of snatching Clarence away from the loving arms of the Holy Mother Church… My partnership with Clarence also caused me to lose all of my old Church … buddies… I soon found myself surrounded by new people… [who] moved in a more liberal flow within the Church. They were people who were very comfortable with the idea that Catholics should discover and formulate their theology.” (Pg. 75-76) She adds, “In… 1972, Clarence and I decided to share the joy of our relationship… We found another priest to say the Mass. And with seventy-five friends, we celebrated our relationship… by standing up to the Church and saying ‘no’ to their demand to have a ‘proper’ wedding, I saw that the true essence of Christianity lay WITHIN MYSELF…” (Pg. 82)
She goes on, “With our move to the woods came a rapid series of changes for me. I became a vegetarian… I spent large blocks of time alone---in the woods… I first noticed something different about the woods when I was alone in the house at night. I could feel an energy… I had read a science fiction book by C.S. Lewis called ‘Perelandra’… I felt that our woods… had not lost the spark of perfection… we named our land ‘Perelandra.’” (Pg. 85-87)
She began hearing ‘voices.’ “Clarence suggested that I meditate… I saw an arched stone bridge … to my left there was a young man … who looked like a Buddhist monk… Without talking to or looking at me, he began transmitting instructions… as if he flowed his mind directly into mine… I knew that this was the ‘person’ who was going to help me, to be my teacher. For the next two years, I met this man on the bridge.” (Pg. 87-90) She continues, “As I moved into this new world, my connection with the Catholic Church became more distant… I wrote to Pope Paul VI to inform him that I was RESIGNING from the Catholic Church… it was important for me to … formally cut my ties.” (Pg. 92)
She summarizes, “Everything that happened to me happened for a reason. When Clarence handed me [two] Findhorn books, that little action didn’t come from nowhere. I had gone through years of preparation.” (Pg. 94) She adds, “I had the same experience that Dorothy Maclean had at Findhorn when she first connected with devas… Each day I would go into meditation and open my connection with the devic level. A deva would come into my awareness and identify itself. I was then given instructions.” (Pg. 100-101) She explains, “Nature spirits rarely choose to be visible to humans, and when they do, it’s for a specific purpose… it can be to give the person tangible proof of their existence, or it can be at a moment of high celebration..” (Pg. 114) She says, “My one disappointment was that I would not be sharing in Findhorn’s experience of growing a garden under adverse conditions…” (Pg. 126)
She even visited Findhorn in 1978: “Once the community members at Findhorn believed I wasn’t some weird, half-crazed broad … and that my experiences in the garden were, in fact, real, they asked me to talk… But during the last week there, I began to question whether or not I had talked TOO much… had I broken some … trust, between myself and the devas and nature spirits?... When I left Findhorn, I braced myself for the possibility that my education in the garden was over. Of course I was wrong…” (Pg. 147-148)
After the winter frost hit, “I moved into the garden to do the last process… [it] took seven full days… I found that even if the form of the plant was dead, the energy … of the plant, had remained a part of the whole energy of the garden… The nature spirits that had worked with that … faded into the Elemental Annex… It’s difficult to communicate this experience because of its depth, its extraordinary mixture of peace, gentleness and love…” (Pg. 142-143) She suggests, “I sometimes feel that vegetarianism has become to the New Age movement what getting arrested was to an anti-war movement---a badge solely designed to show others that we are seriously committed.” (Pg. 169)
She concludes, “We contain within us all the universal truths. All universal knowledge. Everything that is, is known to us. Our soul self has a limitless capacity to enfold and know all… when we choose to experience Earth, we choose to learn what it is to reflect this vast reservoir of knowing through the dense tool we call our physical body.” (Pg. 172)
She explains, “Perelandra has continues to function as a nature research center and sanctuary for devas and nature spirits. It is dedicated to learning from and understanding the overlighting intelligences contained within all nature, the Aquarian relationship between nature and Earth, and the co-creative partnership between nature and man that ultimately will allow him to fully reflect his higher self through his physical form and actions.” (Pg. 209)
This book will mostly appeal to those interested in ‘spiritual’ approaches to gardening.
July 21, 2018
Although this is an old book, it is timeless. I loved it and keep thinking about it over and over. For me, the concepts in it were life-changing. The book is in 3 parts. The first part tells the story of the author's childhood, which was incredibly tough. It's almost a complete separate book, but I believe she included it because experiences she had to endure as a child contributed to the person she became as an adult. The second part of the book is about her creation of a large garden. This was my favorite section of the book. Using principles she read about in books about Findhorn (a famous garden in Scotland), she discovers how to interact with nature in order to understand the spirits of the plants, insects, and animals in the garden. There are some amazing incidents described in the book, which I will not mention in order not to spoil it for the reader. Finally, the book has a section describing how she developed the understanding and skills she used to create this incredible garden using a technique called "co-creation." If you are interested in spirituality, manifestation, nature, or gardening, you will love this book. I did.
November 25, 2008
For the open-minded. The author co-creates gardens with nature spirits with amazing results. I read a lot of spiritual/New Age type books and she definitely holds her own in writing about the insights & experiences she's had.
March 7, 2010
Title says it all.
February 15, 2022
This was one of the most interesting and bizarre books I've ever read. Machaelle's personal story had me transfixed and I just couldn't put the book down.
Once that part was over though, I did struggle a bit with her explanations of her manifestation processes etc. Now, I'm open to all the mysteries of the world but found sections hard to comprehend and I really, really wanted to understand fully what she was talking about as I do believe in what she says. She is a woman way ahead of her time and I love all that she stands for. I just think it's going to take quite a while for the majority of humanity to catch up.
In saying all that, I really loved it and it will remain a cherished book in my collection. I will research her theories more and then reread her book for clarity.
PS: I did skip the foreward as it wasn't gelling with me, and instead read it once I'd finished the book which was better for me.
Once that part was over though, I did struggle a bit with her explanations of her manifestation processes etc. Now, I'm open to all the mysteries of the world but found sections hard to comprehend and I really, really wanted to understand fully what she was talking about as I do believe in what she says. She is a woman way ahead of her time and I love all that she stands for. I just think it's going to take quite a while for the majority of humanity to catch up.
In saying all that, I really loved it and it will remain a cherished book in my collection. I will research her theories more and then reread her book for clarity.
PS: I did skip the foreward as it wasn't gelling with me, and instead read it once I'd finished the book which was better for me.
March 5, 2018
I devoured this book. There is something about a humble, no bullshit spiritual memoir that has me captivated. I love a personal narrative, which is what about half of this book is. She uses it as a premise to understand how she comes to be the steward of a very special piece of land and the co-creator with nature spirits and devas. This book is probably too out there for the average skeptic, but I loved it. Would recommend it to anyone who has room for a little bit of woo.
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July 26, 2024One of the most bizarre books I’ve ever read. I honestly don’t know what to make of any of it… while also acknowledging how little we “know” about others’ experiences and our world. As a Christian, I find myself trying to understand how (if at all) her experiences can fit into my faith… while also thinking about the idea that the Bible is a limited viewpoint (ie, it can’t possibly address all facets of life as we know it)
June 28, 2021
What a life Machaelle lived! An epic tale of survival based on incredible tenacity and creativity in the face of parents that abandoned her, but still behaved so that she had to make excuses for them too in order to survive!
But then she discovers her psychic abilities and I'll leave you to discover what happens next!
But then she discovers her psychic abilities and I'll leave you to discover what happens next!
July 4, 2021
The incredible story of her growing up with everything against her! Just to read about that was enough, but then here awakening to her connection with spirit and the elementals on how to connect with them and enhance the growth of plants was the coup de gras.
May 17, 2023
Finished the memoir section and loved it. Dropped off after the fairies entered. May try again someday. Really like the title.
December 25, 2023
A fascinating book that answered a lot of my questions about nature intelligence 💗
January 7, 2024
This one took me by surprise. I loved the storytelling in this but towards the end it kind of fizzled out. still worth it!
April 19, 2025
Just not my thing.
November 10, 2022
Finally got around to reading this after yet another friend said I must. So I did. It gives me a little more insight into how some people think, and the biographical part was entertaining but I'm glad it's over. LOVE the title. Oh well.
After 10 years, getting ready to clear out and give away books, I decided to read it again to see how my opinion might have changed. Parts of the book may be useful for some people. I did enjoy it more this time but I cannot connect to the descriptions of various energy beings who are able to make miraculous sudden changes in the material world - for instance, all bugs suddenly move to one plant only, or several rows of carrots instantly die while one row simultaneously doubles in size. If it were not for the "magical" events, I would be more inclined to appreciate the possibility of nature energy responding to our thoughts and emotions.
After 10 years, getting ready to clear out and give away books, I decided to read it again to see how my opinion might have changed. Parts of the book may be useful for some people. I did enjoy it more this time but I cannot connect to the descriptions of various energy beings who are able to make miraculous sudden changes in the material world - for instance, all bugs suddenly move to one plant only, or several rows of carrots instantly die while one row simultaneously doubles in size. If it were not for the "magical" events, I would be more inclined to appreciate the possibility of nature energy responding to our thoughts and emotions.
July 29, 2011
Illuminating. This book is a gentle reminder (or acknowledgement)of the unseen forces surrounding us. I first learned about Perelandra in January from some new friends at the Monroe Institute, and was reminded of the healing properties recently (still looking into those). Synchronicity stepped in when another friend loaned me this book, which she bought years ago. The first part reads like a novel with the story of Wright's difficult childhood. She puts it in perspective beautifully. If you're a gardener with an open mind, this book's for you. If you love nature, this book's for you.
January 2, 2012
There is a lot of beauty in this book...both the long first chapter where the author describes a pretty horrific childhood but is able to find the spiritual lessons for later strength in adulthood as well as her information about co-creative science at Perelandia. I also found so hoo-haw...emeralds are from Venus, animals are souls from another planet...but that comes with the territory. Overall it was a clearly written and gentle reminder about the energy in plants and the natural world around us...and how we can work with nature to co-create.
Currently reading
January 10, 2011I found this book in a box while unpacking records and it had my Mom's name in it...apparently handed down and by the best book critic I know. I began it yesterday and already hate putting it down. Although it is a bit "new-agey", it touches on a lot of internal dialog which is something I lean toward. If you are looking to take a deeper look inside at what makes you tick, I might recommend this one...but be warned, I am only a short way in!
May 13, 2013
I found this book in a used bookstore up in Oregon this winter, and bought it for a friend. Instead I ended up starting it and couldn't put it down. I have been in waiting mode, preparing for a transition, and this book has helped me push through into a new place in life.
Read
October 8, 2014Behaving as if the God in all life Mattered 07072011 Machaelle Small Wright updated and revised 1997 from 1983
Crock of shit!!! Carrots sprout from seeds in seconds and rock move and are replaced for balance. Only out of balance thing is this lady's head. Wish there was more to it!!
Crock of shit!!! Carrots sprout from seeds in seconds and rock move and are replaced for balance. Only out of balance thing is this lady's head. Wish there was more to it!!
October 17, 2007
This is another groundbreaking book for me that made me realize how much I limit my perceptions to what I have been conditioned to believe.
Want to read
January 13, 2009AND read the Perelandra Wookbook: A Complete Guide to Gardening with nature Intelligences
July 26, 2010
wonderfully honest. Inspiring. Beyond the ordinary.
January 5, 2012
Loved this book and her story. She lives an unusual life, but is an inspiration to me and others about living consciously on and with the planet and her inhabitants. The title says it all.
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