Already Home: A Topography of Spirit and Place by Barbara Gates

By Phil Catalfo

Shambhala.

The cofounder and coeditor of the vipassana periodical Inquiring Mind provides a thoughtful, elegantly written exploration of the boundary between self and place--the ways in which the places where we live express their natural and cultural histories, and how our experiences of those histories in the present inform our understanding of who we are. In a time when our understanding of "reality" and ourselves is heavily influenced by the mass media, which encourages ignorance and inattention, Gates's book-length essay details her years-long effort to know and inhabit her world, her community, her neighborhood, her body, and her self--and encourages us to do the same in our own lives.

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