All My Relations: Living with Animals As Teachers and Healers

By Susan Chernak McElroy and   -

Book Overview

Susan Chernak McElroy has long believed that animals offer solace as well as lessons in living to anyone willing to listen. In her bestseller Animals As Teachers and Healers, she told others' stories of the healing power of animals. In this book, she tells her own stories.

Described by the author as a kind of prayer, the ten stories here explore concepts of ownership; naming, and unnaming, things; interpreting signs and language; animals as mirrors of the soul; and honoring one's own stories. Typical is the story about rats that explores what it means to be stigmatized, for both humans and animals. Included are suggestions for practices and meditations that will guide readers into deeper connection with their own stories and their own relationships with those creatures with whom they share their lives.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1577314301
• ISBN13: 9781577314301
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: New World Library
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

you do it

She's very perceptive and has grown from the same animal contacts I have, so I've enjoyed her book very much.

another inspiration

Ms McElroy's books are ever a delight to read. I spent a lot of time with tissue close at hand during this one. The stories are enlightening and often reminded me of lessons that I had, or perhaps had not, learned from the animals in my own life. The stories are not always cheerful, but they are thought-provoking if you see animals as more than property. Her story on the spiders in particular has made me take a different look at the creepy-crawly things that live in my house, which I'm sure they appreciate.

Soul searching and a must-read !

This is truly a warm, thoughtful, intelligent book filled with new insight and ideas to creatively enhance minds, souls, and works with animals and nature. Anyone who has a yearning to feel a deeper connection with animals or nature needs to read this book. Susan not only shares gifts of animals, but truly delves deeply into our relations with all of God's creation. It is one of the most important books I have read. I was profoundly moved. Bonnie Hess

Shifting Our Paradigm of Relationships In Nature

Susan Chernak McElroy's fourth book, All My Relations, is an excellent contribution to deepening our understanding of human relationships with animals. Having read her previous books and attended a few of her presentations, I realize that she may be one of the most original and insightful observers and storytellers of human - animal relationships in a generation. Her stories tell of a powerful and mystical oneness that not only she experiences with animals and other creatures, but of a level of understanding and experience that are available to us all if we are willing to embrace a different way of being with Nature. The exercises she offers at the end of each story are simple yet valuable pathways to reach and experience this deeper level. I highly recommend All My Relations not just to those persons with animals, but to all people, and the sooner in life - the better, such as for school english and literature classes. Perhaps it is not too late for the current generations of adults to be empowered to achieve a paradigm shift in the way we view and behave concerning all of our relations in Nature. Susan Chernak McElroy's book can serve as an instrument for achieving this paradigm shift.

kinship

I am not a writer, but if I could write about my feelings toward animals this is the book I would write. The book helped me write my own thoughts with guidance at the end of each chapter.