Barefoot on Holy Ground: Twelve Lessons in Spiritual Craftsmanship

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 496 pages
• Published by: Wellspring/Ballantine
• Edition: 1st Edition May 1, 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0345435095
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0345435095
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 14.1 ounces

Product Review
There's a new breed of spiritual seeker emerging in the world, says author and teacher Gloria Karpinski in Barefoot on Holy Ground. "I call them disciples--awake, aware, committed, and global in their worldview," she writes. Nonetheless, no matter how spiritually sophisticated we fancy ourselves, we are still works in progress, which is why Karpinski compiled this contemporary guide to spiritual growth. Drawing from numerous traditions, she offers a vast holy ground for the new breed of disciples to walk upon. The book's organization can seem disjointed, as when it jumps from "Opening the Heart Chakra" to "Breaking the Should Syndrome" in the same chapter. Yet Holy Ground is certainly comprehensive, with chapters covering spiritual topics such as love, will, faith, and creativity. In every chapter, Karpinski offers minilectures and numerous exercises. When she delves into "shadow work," Karpinski provides a solid Jungian discussion about facing one's dark side, then slips into her seminar voice, listing 21 signs for "Recognizing the Shadow," including "You need to ridicule anything" and "You have a well-defined list of pet peeves." Fortunately, these shifts in narrative are only mildly distracting, and and the blend of theory and application ultimately serves the reader well. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
Karpinski (Where Two Worlds Touch), a spiritual teacher and counselor, offers a basic introduction to spirituality that will prove serviceable for those with no background in New Age thought but unenlightening for readers with any amount of experience. As this is a beginner's handbook, Karpinski deals with the "big issues": knowledge, revelation, discernment, body, love, will, faith, power, creating, transforming, enduring and serving. Karpinski's scholarship is sometimes sloppy, as when she claims that the Bible calls the Holy Spirit "the Light Body," or when she begins spiritual anecdotes with urban-legendish introductions about how a business consultant, family physician or art therapist told her that a particular inspirational story was true. The book has a glaring lack of primary sources, and too many of Karpinski's true-story examples are culled from daytime television talk shows, with Oprah Winfrey being the guru of choice. On the positive side, Karpinski writes with evident passion, gathering spiritual wisdom from many traditions, religions and teachers, including her own journey. Her application exercises are practical and thorough, even for readers who are not of a New Age bent. Still, the book's weaknesses far outweigh its strengths. In the crowded arena of New Age spirituality primers, this has few original insights to offer.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Reader Reviews
This is a long-awaited second book by a woman known in select international spiritual circles as "the teacher's teacher." (Gloria Karpinski also wrote "Where Two Worlds Touch," which is now a classic.) To such a clairvoyant, who sees what the rest of us cannot (and most of us will not), the most reliable "primary source" is always the information emerging from the human energy field and from the high spiritual guidance that one has been trained over long years to hear. To a teacher who has devoted her life to "reading" her fellow seekers--an act of supreme service--there is no higher source than the scriptures and histories found within the human energy field. So we find out fascinating things from "Barefoot on Holy Ground." How did the author's call girl client manage to bless and release each of the countless anonymous men she'd been with? What was it like to "talk to" an unborn baby who had been traumatized by the Holocaust? Who was the small dark-haired child another client kept seeing in her visualizations? These are marvelous, instructive stories that carry unshakable truths.. And can this teacher write!! Within the author's riveting personal story about guidance and house-hunting, I found this: "There were times when my faith was diced up and eaten by my shadow." And earlier I was brought up short by this warning: "Our egos have been reading the same books we have." And this "There's an old saying around therapy circles that if we don't develop it, we'll marry it." I loved (and feared) this exercise: "If you look at your home as if it were in a dream, how would you analyze the symbolic content of each room?" And I breathed easier when I read this piece of radical comfort: "The longing for 'Thy Will' is the longing to be oneself." The magic of this book is that if you follow the author's guidance to find out whether something is your truth or not, the truths you connect to in this and her earlier book will change your life. I was only 3/4 along in "Barefoot" when I found myself xeroxing pages for a friend who had had a rough childhood, and others for a friend in conflict. This is a good sign. This highly respected spirit-led psychic has written a book that is loaded with warnings about the traps inherent in a life of discipleship. Spirituality is a craft, she believes, not a hobby. She makes it clear that such a life, one of grownup searching, loving, and releasing, is worth every effort it takes. "Barefoot on Holy Ground" is filled with Light.