A modern handbook for the journey, Soulcraft is not an imitation of indigenous ways, but a contemporary nature-based approach born from wilderness experience, the traditions of Western culture, and the cross-cultural heritage of all humanity. Filled with stories, poems, and guidelines, Soulcraft introduces over 40 practices that facilitate the descent to soul, including dreamwork, wilderness vision fasts, talking across the species boundaries, council, self-designed ceremony, nature-based shadow work, and the arts of romance, being lost, and storytelling.

Review from Drew: Soulcraft is perhaps my favorite book I’ve ever read, and certainly the most impactful. It served as a sort of jet fuel for me during my first year of spiritual seeking - I remember slowing myself down to make it last longer, and always seemed to open to just the right page to receive the wisdom I needed at that moment. Bill Plotkin is a true living elder, and I highly recommend his books and his programs at the Animas Valley Institute to anyone seeking a nature-based path to healing their wounds and discovering their purpose.

There is something about you brighter than the sun and more mysterious than the night sky.

Review from Drew: Adyashanti is another one of those living spiritual elders, who I believe to be a true enlightened being. This book is a collection of his dharma talks that he has given at retreat sessions throughout the years. It’s one of those books that you more feel than comprehend - sometimes at the end of a chapter I’m not quite sure what I read but I feel this glowing in my heart and this closeness to Spirit that always signifies Truth when I feel it.

Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom, and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Review from Drew: I might catch some hate for this one but I loved The Alchemist, especially for the time in which I read it, right near the beginning of my spiritual journey. Sometimes, so much more can be said it short, simple fiction than in any nonfiction format.

Retold in Thich Nhat Hanh’s inimitably beautiful style, this book traces the Buddha’s life over the course of 80 years—partly through the eyes of Svasti, the buffalo boy, and partly through the eyes of the Buddha himself. Old Path White Clouds is a classic of religious literature.

Review from Drew: This book feels like getting a hug the entire time you’re reading it, which is for a while, because it’s quite long. It’s Tich’s straightforward, low-frills telling of the story of the Buddha in narrative form - how he came to enlightenment and built his sangha, the people he touched along the way, and the main tenets of the teachings of Buddhism. It’s soft and slow and such a joy to come home to in our face-paced world.

Though set in a place and time far removed from the Germany of 1922, the year of the book’s debut, the novel is infused with the sensibilities of Hermann Hesse’s time, synthesizing disparate philosophies–Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism–into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man’s search for meaning.

Review from Drew: It’s simple and straightforward, written in an engaging narrative style, and you’ll feel goosebumps all along the way. I also love the fact that Herman Hesse had to pause his writing of this book between Part II and Part III and live alone on a mountain for several years in order to feel enlightenment, before he felt like he could write about it.