The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die

By Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Book Overview

Clarissa Pinkola Est s, Ph.D., the internationally known poet, psychoanalyst, and author of the seminal classic Women Who Run With The Wolves (99 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, translated into eighteen languages, and a bestseller worldwide), touches our lives anew, rendering in the strong and lyrical voice for which she has become known a powerful series of her signature healing stories.These elegantly interlocked tales of loss, survival, and fierce rebirth center around Dr. Estes's uncle, a war-ravaged Hungarian peasant farmer and refugee, a faithful gardener, and a storehouse of stories who was one of the dancing fools, wise old crows, grumpy sages, and 'almost saints' who made up the old people in Est s's childhood.Told with graceful simplicity, deep feeling, generous humor, and profound optimism, The Faithful Gardener is, at its captivating core, the story of an open-hearted child who listened well to her old-country elders and who grew up to remember, to bear witness, and, as one of the premier storytellers of our times, to remind readers and listeners of all ages of that magisterial life force within all things that strengthens us in times of turmoil or transition, that faithful force which can never die.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006251380X
• ISBN13: 9780062513809
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Loved it!

I listened to the tape and read the book. If you want to know the true nature of survival - especially in times like these - this is the book for you. Full of hope and evidence of the ability of humans to survive, thrive and love - no matter what. I was sorry the book was over. I am every time I read it.

Good things have roots in fallow ground....

The stories are like layers of an onion where each depends on the one before it to exist. The horrors of war are only hinted at by the author's uncle but the reader easily draws parallels between the transitions in life with a fallow field, a fir tree covered with decorations and the emergence of new life and promise from a piece of fallow ground. The book is easily read in an hour and I blinked away tears as I finished. Since the first reading, my front lawn has been returning to Nature, just as the author's did, and every season of watching new life emerge reminds me of the story and that good things are always beginning.

We were born to be happy

It took me just under two hours to read this book, on the beach, last summer. It took my breath away, it made my eyes roll two fat tears of life-joy and life-pain. How can anyone get over the holocaust and other atrocities that are going on in the world today? Only if we believe that we were born to be happy and can find the strength to carry on, despite grand strokes of fate that wipe out healthy forests of life. Such a story of hope, I can't believe so few people/readers have bothered to write an editorial. I have already bought 6 copies of the book (in Italian, because I live in Italy) and everyone I've give it to is just amazed as I've been by it. Thank you Madame Estes Pinkola.

An inspiring story about storytelling and human nature.

This book was recomended to me at a time when I needed and recieved much healing. In a delightful and enchanting fashion it tells the story of a little girl whos long lost relative comes to be with her. The girls roots are from a place where storytelling is an intricate part of their culture. The actual tale is one of extraordinary inspiration, of philisophical and spiritual healing by revealing paralells to natures course. I will be forever comforted, moved and changed by reading and re-reading this little gem.

A beautifully crafted mosaic and inspiring story.

Estes weaves together a tale of life, death and rebirth. It inspires readers to perceive life's trials and difficulties in a new light... An enriching, affirming book.