{"id":3443,"date":"2020-02-11T15:49:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T15:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/druidry.org\/\/facing-the-darkness"},"modified":"2020-02-20T16:38:14","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T16:38:14","slug":"facing-the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/resources\/facing-the-darkness","title":{"rendered":"Facing The Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"

A review by Les Prince of Facing The Darkness by\u00a0Cat Treadwell ~ Moon Books ~ <\/em>ISBN 978 1 78099 900 5 ~
\nOn first inspection\u00a0this book seemed a wonderful\u00a0idea; like many people I know, clinical depression has been a constant presence in my life since\u00a0childhood, and I applaud any and every attempt\u00a0to offer help to those similarly burdened.
\nAs I began to read the book,\u00a0I further warmed to\u00a0it.\u00a0 Cat Treadwell approaches the ‘topic’ from a\u00a0decidedly pagan and druidic point of departure,\u00a0but that doesn’t\u00a0 preclude its quiet wisdom from\u00a0being available to non-Pagans and non-Druids.\u00a0This is not a work of psychotherapy or clinical\u00a0psychology (I can hear the murmurs of appreciation as I type), but a book written from the heart\u00a0by someone who clearly knows the ‘dark\u00a0 place’\u00a0well.\u00a0 It is structured around the four elements\u00a0(Earth, Air, Fire and Water). Its primary message,\u00a0came across loudly as a compassionate but\u00a0nonetheless urgent appeal to those languishing in\u00a0the ‘dark place’ to understand that the way out of\u00a0it lies in their own hands.\u00a0 To this end there is a\u00a0succession of ideas, some quite\u00a0 challenging,\u00a0aimed at understanding what the ‘dark\u00a0 place’ is\u00a0and what role it might have in someone’s life. To\u00a0accompany these is a series of personal testimonies, and these underline another theme of the\u00a0book: ‘You (we) are not alone in this; others have\u00a0been there as well,’ a seriously important point to\u00a0make because the dark well can be a desperately\u00a0lonely place.
\nSome of the suggested activities\u00a0will undoubtedly work for some but not others, and probably\u00a0then only some of the time. But it doesn’t matter.\u00a0This is a warm, brave and compassionate hand\u00a0held out to those of us who may, at times, feel that\u00a0everyone and everything is either against us, or\u00a0simply utterly irrelevant, pointless and empty; in\u00a0short for those of us who at times are\u00a0 overwhelmed by anomie, alienation and ennui (I\u00a0promised myself that I’d sneak those three words\u00a0into this review by hook or by crook, and I\u00a0 did,\u00a0hurrah!). If you find yourself slipping at times\u00a0into the dark place, or spend time helping others\u00a0who do, then I can warmly commend this book to\u00a0you. It \u00a0deserves a wide and appreciative\u00a0audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A review by Les Prince of Facing The Darkness by\u00a0Cat Treadwell ~ Moon Books ~ ISBN 978 1 78099 900 5 ~ On first inspection\u00a0this book seemed a wonderful\u00a0idea; like many people I know, clinical depression has been a constant presence in my life since\u00a0childhood, and I applaud any and every attempt\u00a0to offer help to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":3444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews"],"acf":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/druidry.org","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/druidry.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}