Shards and Circles: Artistic Adventures in Spirit and Ecology

By Daniel D. Dancer

As his stories unfold, Daniel Dancer reflects on spirituality, indigenous knowledge, quantum physics, psychology, and ecological principles. Humor, synchronicity, delight, and heartfelt struggle are... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1552127842
• ISBN13: 9781552127841
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

wisdom and inspiration from wild nature

A view of the world in alignment. For those who have always felt at odds with this culture, and this place in time, who see the world through different eyes. Daniel Dancer has so beautifully articulated so many of my own thoughts and perceptions. If you are a lover of beauty and life, and you feel connected deep down to the rhythms and patterns of the natural world, you will feel the same way. As I read, I kept having this feeling that we were of one mind. Page after page, Dancers words triggered sacred memories of deep impressions that live inside me, from my own experiences. It's comforting to know that there is someone else who sees and feels the world the way I do. Dancer is possessed of a rare strength of spirit, and a huge loving heart. In this book, he shares his soul, and the depths of his insight with the world. The work he is doing, is an elegant merging of awakening consciousness, creating real community, and Art-making, all in the context of a humble reverence for nature. Simply put . . . well, it's brilliant in deep respect, dancingwater (artist/ educator)

Desperate Prayers of beauty

This book changed my life. I read it nearly 3 years ago and still it is impacting me. Page by glorious page, insights flooded me and tears welled in my eyes over and over. I was astounded at what I was reading...the earthy brilliance and heartful awareness that was given as beauty to the unsuspecting and open mouths of the spiritually hungry. Most certainly this author must be gifted, to have his feet rooted so sweetly in this wild earth while still capable to having the vast perspective of a soaring bird. This is rare. Something spilled from this book into me, telling a story beneath the stories, which, in themselves were mind-opening and beauty provoking. What I heard underneath it all was a story of a man curious enough in mystery and keen in his vision to dive into a world seldom seen...a world that is calling desperately for our attention now...an invisible, Holy world that feeds on beauty, ceremony and tears. To allow this powerful understanding in, opens hearts and breaks into long held patterning. It can change the world. I am forever grateful that this book is here to feed us through perilous times with it's luscious and cohesive expanse.

Immersion in Ecopsychology

Anyone who has been moved by David Abram's "Spell of the Sensuous," is sure to feel the same about this gem by environmental artist Daniel Dancer. Here ecopsychology is demonstrated - vividly, authentically - rather than simply being talked about. Dancer's stories of immersing himself in landscapes, and then assembling found objects into art forms as gifts, as expressions, as spontaneous shamanic undertakings invites readers to reflect not only on their own ways of communing with the vibrancy and brokenness of the natural world but also of how we all can deepen the ways in which we open our hearts to the healing powers of nature. It has been several months since I read "Shards and Circles", and yet without even opening the book, powerful images come to mind - vignettes of stories I shall never forget. I remember how, in contrast to Dancer's usual style of composing his art in the same episode in which his encounter with objects begins, one story reveals that it took him several years of returning to a particular place before he was moved to express a resolution to the mystery initially posed to him by a half-burned shard of paper. The psychological cleansing that came for him by waiting was powerful and suggests to me possibilities for my own recurring visits to special spots. I was brought to tears by a chapter in which the power of place and simple acts of releasing feathers with his young children in a ritualistic manner gave Dancer a chance to transform the pain of divorce and home-leaving into an intimate moment of wonder and bonding that his children, surely, will never forget. Finally, I applaud the author for presenting his stories so truthfully that even his mis-steps became learning experiences for this reader. Sparely, beautifully written, Daniel Dancer's words are windows of possibility for wounded souls in a wounded world.

Damaged Wilderness Transformed to Sacred Art

Daniel Dancer gives a revolutionary new meaning to both art and ecology, and he does so by melding the two in a way that is inviting, thought-provoking, consciousness-raising, and inspiring. A photographer who has documented many endangered lands, he seeks out the wounded places on the earth. In clearcut forests, beaches clogged with litter, a stretch of the Columbia River that faces the Hanford Nuclear Plant, and other places, he gathers waste left by human presence and recreates it, then and there, as art. His book, written with humor and playfulness, a naturalist's attention to detail and a philosopher's sense of the broader picture, tells the stories of these places and the works that arose from them. Like the artist Andy Goldsworthy, Daniel Dancer's work uses the elements of a place and arranges them in the context of that place. Both make three-dimensional art that is meant to be ephemeral. Ultimately, however, Goldsworthy's pieces are exquisite creations that are only about themselves. Dancer's work, on the other hand, springs not only from a particular place but also from the ways that humans have interacted with that place. These fascinating works involve the artist himself and us, the witnesses/readers not only in the sorrowful reality of What Is, but in the attitude that transformation is possible. They invite us to bring attentive presence to beautiful, damaged places and to find what is sacred and meaningful everywhere.