‘The Gospel of Jesus Green: Home for All, Not Just for Humans’ by Neil J. Whitehouse
Wipf & Stock, 2024 ISBN: 979-8385200245 Reviewed by Chris Holmes [...]
‘The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)’ by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison
Allen Lane, 2024 ISBN: 978-0241635902 Reviewed by Ian [...]
‘Earth Wisdom for our Global Crisis’ by Carlos Glover
Earth Wisdom Teachings, 2023 ISBN: 978-1739749828 Reviewed [...]
‘Another England: How to Reclaim Our National Story’ by Caroline Lucas
Hutchinson Heinemann, 2024 ISBN: 978-1529153064 Reviewed by Ian Mowll [...]
‘When the Woods Sang: Returning to the Singing Earth’ by Stina Gray
Campano Edizioni ISBN 978-8-86528-632-6 Reviewed by Ian Mowll _____________________________________________________________________________________ [...]
‘What’s Gotten Into You: The Story of Your Body’s Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night’s Dinner’ by Dan Levitt
Harper, 2023 ISBN: 978-0063251182 Reviewed by Ian Mowll ___________________________________________________________________________________________ This [...]
‘Walks for Mind and Spirit – Britain’ Edited by Madeleine Sadler
Duncan Petersen (2023) ISBN 978-1739668419 Reviewed by Piers Warren [...]
‘Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources’ by M. Kat Anderson
University of California Press ISBN 978-0520280434 Reviewed by Ian Mowll [...]
‘Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe’ by Brian Swimme
Counterpoint, 2022 ISBN-13: 978-1640093980 Reviewed by Ian Mowll. [...]
‘The Path to Forgotten Freedom: Healing Unresolved Ancestral Trauma’ by Nicola Smalley
The Way of the Buzzard ISBN: 978-1-7391669-0-8 [...]
‘Choosing Earth: Humanity’s Great Transition to a Mature Planetary Civilization’ by Duane Elgin.
First Edition: March 2020, Second Edition: January 2022 ISBN: [...]
‘Otherlands: A World in the Making’ by Thomas Halliday
Allen Lane, 2022 ISBN: 978-0241405741 Reviewed by Ian Mowll. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ [...]
‘Magical Britain: 650 Enchanted and Mystical Sites’ by Rob Wildwood
Wild Things Publishing (2022) ISBN 978-1910636305 Reviewed by Piers Warren ___________________________________________________________________________________________ [...]
‘To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest’ by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
Timber Press, 2021 ISBN: 978-1643261324 Reviewed by Marian Van Eyk [...]
‘Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: A Celtic Guide to Listening to Our Souls and Saving the World’ by John Philip Newell
William Collins, 2021 ISBN 978-0008466367 Reviewed by Ian [...]
‘The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God’, by Rupert Sheldrake
Inner Traditions, 1994 ISBN 9780892815104 Reviewed by Stephen Wollaston (aka [...]
‘The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe’ by Jeremy Lent.
Profile Books, 2021-07-27 ISBN: 978-1788165648 Reviewed by Marian Van Eyk [...]
‘The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning’ by Jeremy Lent
Prometheus Books, 2017 ISBN: 978-1633882935 Reviewed by Ian Mowll [...]
‘Evolution: The Whole Story’ by Steve Parker (Ed)
Foreword by Alice Roberts Thames & Hudson, 2015 [...]
‘Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love’ by Elizabeth A. Johnson
Bloomsbury, 2014 ISBN: 978-1472924018 Reviewed by Brendan James ______________________________________________________________________________________________ [...]
‘The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times’ by Matthew Fox
iUniverse, 2020 ISBN: 978-1532093418 Reviewed by Ian Mowll [...]
‘The Missing Lynx: The Past and Future of Britain’s Lost Mammals’ by Ross Barnett
Bloomsbury Wildlife, 2019 ISBN: 978-1472957344 Reviewed by Marian Van Eyk [...]
‘How to See Nature’ by Paul Evans
Batsford, 2018 ISBN: 978-1849944939 Reviewed by Marian Van Eyk McCain [...]
‘Origin Story’ by David Christian
Allen Lane, 2018 ISBN: 978-0241254684 Reviewed by Ian Mowll [...]
‘Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life’ by Peter Godfrey-Smith
William Collins (2017) ISBN: 978-0008226299 Reviewed by Ian Mowll [...]
‘The Children’s Fire: Heart Song of a People’ by Mac Macartney
Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2018 ISBN: 978-1788600453 Reviewed [...]
‘Thomas Berry – A Biography’ by Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim and Andrew Angyal
Columbia University Press ISBN: 978-0231176989 Reviewed by [...]
‘Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom For Living Spirit-Based Change’ by Sherri Mitchell
With a Foreword by Larry Dossey North Atlantic Books [...]
‘Science and Spiritual Practices’ by Rupert Sheldrake
Coronet, 2017 ISBN: 9781473630109 Reviewed by Marian Van [...]
‘Fertile Edges: Regenerating land, culture and hope’ by Maddy Harland
Permanent Publications, 2017 ISBN: 978 1 85623 309 [...]
‘The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World’ by David R. Boyd
ECW Press, 2017 ISBN: 9781770412392 Reviewed by Marian Van Eyk McCain [...]
“Nature’s Allies: Eight Conservationists Who Changed Our World” by Larry A. Nielsen
With political leaders who deny climate change, species that are fighting for their very survival, and the planet’s last places of wilderness growing smaller and smaller, it is all to easy to succumb to despair and to give up because, after all, what can a single person do? Well, one person can do a surprising amount. In Nature’s Allies, Larry A. Nielsen uses the stories of eight people to show that through passion and perseverance, we can each be a positive force for change.
‘Gossip from the Forest’ by Sara Maitland
In this beautifully written book, Sara Maitland sets out on a series of walks through ancient forest and woodland in Britain seeking the symbiosis between forests and fairy stories. She expresses a deep concern that the future of these two sources of healthy life experience is endangered.
‘Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology’ by Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden
A physicist and a professor of molecular biology lead us into a new scientific world in which physics and biology talk to one another – and the results are very exciting. In the past quantum physics pretty much had the monopoly of physics, and biology was limited to the world of classical science. The experiments by which the quantum world was understood required very precise conditions which are not found in the messy world of Nature. However, as this book demonstrates life at every level depends on the movement of fundamental particles that are governed by quantum rules.
‘Uprooted: On the Trail of the Green Man’ by Nina Lyon
This book on the Green Man—that ubiquitous but endlessly varied symbol that takes the form of a human face sprouting greenery—is impossible to pigeonhole and its message is hard to pin down in a few sentences. But the Green Man is unpindownable. Not just because his origins are so ancient and so complex but because he represents something that is still alive and real and omnipresent. Despite humankind’s efforts to ‘conquer’, ‘tame’ and ‘manage’ Nature, Nature resigns supreme—because of course we are Nature, subsumed within it, just like everything else in the living world. So what this author has produced, as a result of her journeying around the UK and other parts of Europe in search of the Green Man – and her amusing but often rambly and confusing meanderings through history, literature, folklore, religion, sex, magick, shamanism, metaphysics and endless speculative cogitation – is a book in which the Green Man is never pinned down, yet ever present.
‘Spiritual Activism: Leadership as Service’ by Alastair McIntosh and Matt Carmichael
Spiritual activism is about being both ‘spiritually active,’ i.e. inspiring others, as well as being ‘spiritually grounded,’ i.e. being a compassionate activist with protests and practical action. It has ten chapters covering a wide range of territory, each ending with a case study featuring a well-known person who has been involved in spiritual activism such as Julia Butterfly Hill, Gandhi, Muhammad (pbuh) and Desmond Tutu.
‘Embracing Complexity: Strategic Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence’ by Jean G. Boulton, Peter M. Allen and Cliff Bowman
We have, in our western society, the god of science. So often we hear “scientists say…” in the press. And, for many people, this implies a statement of authority. But the problem is that western science is essentially value-less. This mind-set has led to such things as testing on animals, factory farming and the proliferation of deadly weapons. How did we get to this place and what can be done about it? Whilst the book covers a lot of territory, this is the key question it addresses.
‘A Cree Healer and His Medicine Bundle: Revelations of Indigenous Wisdom–Healing Plants, Practices, and Stories’ by David Young, Robert Rogers and Russell Willier
pbk 328 pp North Atlantic Books 2015 ISBN: 978-1583949030 Reviewed [...]
‘The Shepherd’s Life: A Tale of the Lake District’ by James Rebanks.
James Rebanks was born into a family which has farmed in Cumbria for at least 600 years and he learnt his shepherding skills from his grandfather and father from early childhood. As a young man he stretched his wings and went to Oxford, but that only made him more aware of the depth of his connection with the Lakes and farming. His book draws us into an extraordinary understanding of his small, remote upland world and its sheep and shepherds.
‘The Triumph of Seeds: How grains, nuts, kernels, pulses and pips conquered Nature and shaped human history’ by Thor Hanson
Just as William Blake talked about seeing the world in a grain of sand, Thor Hanson is able to see the whole world in a seed. And through his writing, he opens that world to us. From the tiniest, almost invisible seed of an epiphytic orchid to the forty-pound coco de mer, seeds come in all shapes and sizes and colours and employ an amazing diversity of methods for dispersing themselves and finding their way to somewhere they can germinate and grow. On that search and that settlement of seed into soil, now rests the whole of life on land—our own human lives included.
‘Collected Papers of Michael E. Soulé: Early Years in Modern Conservation Biology’ by Michael, E. Soulé
This book contains skilfully collected presentations of the many faceted concerns of conservation combined with peer-reviewed scientific research in the broadest areas of biology, environmental studies and genetics. With well prepared overviews and summary paragraphs of the fourteen presented papers, the book serves as an essential text book for students of conservation biology and also as a fascinating general knowledge source for any layperson interested in the multitude of synchronous and symbiotic relationships within the plant and animal kingdoms and in the concept of the planet as a living, holistic being. It is a collection that would provide stimulating reading for anyone seeking deeper understanding of the ways in which the strands of the web of life are woven together.
SACRED SEED: A Collection of Essays. Compiled and edited by the Global Peace Initiative of Women with an introduction by Vandana Shiva
This is a collection of essays dedicated, as the front matter tells us, …to all those working to preserve and care for the Earth and Her life systems…the most dangerous war humankind is engaged in is the war against nature. Until we can learn to live peacefully with Nature we will not live peacefully with one another. The seed is frequently referred to in belief systems because it provides such a powerful metaphor for the hidden depths within natural systems that are essential to our existence on this planet, both physically and spiritually; the spiritual and the practical are brought together seamlessly in the essays in this book.
‘Excellent Beauty: The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of the World ‘ by Eric Dietrich
Have we not always been led to believe that religion is the purveyor of mysteries and all that is supernatural rather than natural? And have we not learned that science destroys mystery by discovering truth? In fact, as Dietrich—professor of philosophy at Binghamton University—so thoroughly and competently explains, religion is actually a biological phenomenon, a property emerging from the process of human evolution. Meanwhile science, we have all discovered, is what destroys our mysteries and reveals to us all that is real about the world.
‘Brilliant Green: The Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence’ by Stefano Mancuso and Alessandra Viola
We recognize the familial bonds we have with other animals, for like us they all have eyes and a heart and a brain and, despite vast differences of form, we are all variations on a theme. But a plant—well that is ‘something else.’ It is sedentary, fixed in place, lacking internal organs, lacking a face. To our anthropocentric human minds, plants are either commodities or decorations. We don’t see them for who they actually are: fellow beings with whom we and all other life forms share the vast co-operative adventure called life on Earth. For in fact, plants process information, just as we do. They sleep and wake, just like us. Like us, they can see, feel, touch and remember. They can also communicate with each other and with other organisms They just do it differently, that's all.
‘Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation’ by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox
'Occupy Spirituality' is a superb dialogue between two important contemporary progressive Christian thinkers and activists. Though the subtitle partly suggests the book is focussed on the younger generation, there is nothing within the pages that is not relevant to us all, to the times in which we live and to the materialistic greed, bigotry and complacency that is bringing about the greatest spiritual crisis human and more-than-human life have ever faced. If this gives the impression this might a negative read, then it would be a wrong one. The book is truly inspirational. This is a spirituality that is prepared to get its hands dirty, to do something and work towards positive changes.
‘The Herbalist’s Bible: John Parkinson’s Lost Classic Rediscovered’ by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal
The Herbalist’s Bible is a translation of a description of fifty of the 3,800 herbs outlined in John Parkinson’s ‘Theatricum Botanicum’. Parkinson, master herbalist to Charles 1, published his ‘Magnum Opus’ in 1640. It was never reprinted and is now an extremely valuable rare book. The recent publication of The Herbalist’s Bible makes this valuable contribution to the literature of Western Herbalism accessible once more. Unique amongst many herbal reference books, this book contains reproductions of the original manuscript complete with detailed line drawings, alongside a modern translation, including descriptions of therapeutic applications illustrated with high quality photographs.
‘Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for our Times’ by Matthew Fox
This is a book about Meister Eckhart, the 13th/14th century mystic who was born near Gotha in what was the Holy Roman Empire and is now in Germany. But the book is about much more than Meister Eckhart himself. Matthew Fox picks out key thinkers, philosophers, social and eco activists from modern times and shows how they have been influenced by, or resonate with, Meister Eckhart.
‘Sacred Earth Celebrations’ by Glennie Kindred
With her whole-hearted commitment to celebrating the Earth and its cycles, Glennie Kindred delves into the living tradition of our Celtic ancestors and arrives at a magnificent collection of sacred ceremonies based on the eight Celtic festivals: the Summer and Winter Solstices, the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, the four cross-quarter points of Imbolc, Beltain, Lammas and Samhain. However, the celebrations in the collection are not in any way fixed or immutable; for her …they help us to discover more about ourselves and our intrinsic connection to Earth. Glennie believes we are free to celebrate the festivals in whatever way we choose, and her book is packed with suggested ways to do just this.
‘Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe’ by Bob Berman and Robert Lanza
Lanza is a cell biologist and his co-author Berman is an astronomer. What they are saying—and explaining very cogently in this book—is an updated but by now well scientifically backed version of the idea Bishop Berkeley was trying to promote back in the early 18th century, i.e. that there is in fact no objective ‘reality’ out there, independent of the consciousness and perception of living organisms.
‘The Universe Story In Science and Myth’ by Greg Morter and Niamh Brennan
This book describes our planet's whole evolutionary journey from the Big Bang to the present day, as revealed to us by science. It then goes on to explain why the story is so relevant for our time and to discuss some of the many inspirations we can draw from it.