This is the autobiography of Machaelle Small Wright, describing her upbringing and the founding of Perelandra. ( )

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 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. ( )

Full review located at http://paganbookreviews.com/2008/07/30/behaving-as-if-the-god-in-all-life-matter...

A beautiful book written by a beautiful and dedicated soul. A must for those of us who know we are all connected and are all one, no matter what skin we may wear. ( )

This is a wonderful book; part auto-biography, part guidelines for living. Wright advocates a world-view which celebrates the divine spirit in all things, which is a lovely and compassionate way to look at the world. Well worth reading. ( )