Eco-Philosophy

On Fire for a Green New Deal

ON FIRE The Burning Case for New in a Green New Deal Paperback by Naomi Klein $22.00, paper. Penguin. 320 pages

On Fire is a critical book: it captures the burning urgency of this moment, the fiery energy of a rising movement demanding change now.

For more than a decade, Naomi Klein has tracked the evolution of the environmental crisis and the staggeringly high stakes of what we choose to do next. From the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of our Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented “ecological conversion,” Klein delves into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of “perpetual now” to how white supremacy and fortressed borders are a form of climate barbarism.

She paints a clear picture of interconnected social

and ecological breakdowns, and explains that climate change is not only a profound political and economic

challenge but a spiritual and imaginative one, too. Collected here for the first time, these prescient dispatches give us an invaluable window into the question—How

THE GREEN NEW DEAL

Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will

Collapse by 2028, and the Bold

Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth by Jeremy Rifkin $24.50, paper. Picador. 290 pages

A new vision for the future is quickly gaining momentum. Facing a global emergency, a younger generation is spearheading a huge conversation around a Green New

Deal and setting the agenda for bold political movement. Millennials, the largest voting bloc, are now leading on the issue of climate change. While the Green New Deal has become a lightning rod in the political sphere, there is a parallel movement emerging within business that will shake the very foundation of the global economy in coming years. Key

sectors of the economy are fast-decoupling from fossil fuels in favor of ever cheaper solar and wind energies

and the new business opportunities that accompany them. New studies are sounding the alarm that trillions of dollars in stranded fossil fuel assets could create a carbon bubble likely to burst by 2028, causing the collapse of the fossil fuel civilization. The marketplace is the endurance of indigenous knowledge.

The Reindeer Chronicles demonstrates how solutions to seemingly intractable problems can come from the unlikeliest of places, and how the restoration of local water, car-

bon, nutrient, and energy cycles can play a dramatic role

in stabilizing the global climate. Ultimately, it reveals how much is in our hands if we can find a way to work together and follow natures lead.

“If you want practical hope, this is it. If you want a place to dig in and make change, regeneration is the key. These are stories of people who work both intimately and at scale—and with love—to restore life to the land we all walk on, our beautiful home, the earth.” —Vicki Robin, coauthor of Your Money or Your Life

“These are times that call for us to reimagine everything. That imaginative capacity depends on the stories, the possibilities, the experiences we have in our memory and our ability to reassemble them in new and unique ways. If you

want to be part of that reimagining, you need the beauti-

ful, patient, humbling stories in these pages. Their implications are staggering, and also suggest that sometimes we on earth did we get here?

In this era of rising seas and rising hate, Klein also makes the case for the Green New

Deal: a practical framework that offers us a politically viable, just, sustainable path for-

ward for tackling climate collapse and growing economic inequality at the same time. Above all, Klein underscores how we can still rise to the existential challenge of the crisis if we are willing to transform our systems that are producing it, making clear how the battle for a greener world is indistinguishable from the fight for our lives.

“Once you have done your homework,” Greta

Thunberg says, “you realize that we need new politics.

We need a new economics, where everything is based on our rapidly declining and extremely limited carbon budget. But that is not enough. We need a whole new way of thinking… We must stop competing with each

other. We need to start cooperating and sharing the

remaining resources of this planet in a fair way.” “Naomi Klein is the intellectual godmother of the Green New Deal—which just happens to be the most important idea in the world right now.” —Bill McKib-

ben, author of Falter speaking, and governments will need to adapt if they are to survive and prosper. In The Green New Deal, renowned economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin delivers the polit-

ical narrative and economic plan for the Green New Deal that we need at this criti-

cal moment in history. The concurrence of a stranded fossil fuel assets bubble and a green political vision opens up the possibility of a massive shift to a post-carbon ecological era, in time to prevent a temperature rise that will tip us over the edge into runaway climate change. With twenty-five years of experience implementing Green New Deal-style transitions for both the European Union and the Peoples Republic of China, Rifkin offers his vision for how to transform the global economy and save life on Earth.

“In The Green New Deal, Jeremy Rifkin presents a survival imperative for the millions without work and for a planet that needs healing. In this timely book, he defines the urgent steps that will need to be taken

to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and

reclaim public infrastructure.” - Dr. Vandana Shiva, feminist, ecologist, and recipient of the Right Liveli-

hood Award save the world by doing less rather than more. Do your imagination, your activism, your sense of what’s possible a favor, and swim in this book.”—Rob Hopkins, author of

From What Is to What If

Eco-Philosophy, Deep Ecology

EROSION Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams $24.50, paper. Picador. 368 pages

Here be fierce, timely, and unsettling essays from an important and beloved writer and conservationist.

Terry Tempest Williams is one of our most impassioned defenders of public lands. A naturalist, fervent activist, and stirring writer, she has spoken to us and for us in books like Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. In these new essays, Williams explores the concept of erosion: of the land, of the self, of belief, of fear. She wrangles with the paradox of desert lands and the truth of erosion:

What is weathered, worn, and whittled away through wind, water, and time is as powerful as what remains.

Our undoing is also our becoming.

She looks at the current state of American politics: the dire social and environmental implications of recent choices to gut Bears Ears National Monument, sacred lands to Native People of the American Southwest, and undermine the Endangered Species Act. She testifies that

climate change is not an abstraction, citing the drought outside her door and at times, within herself. Images of

extraction and contamination haunt her: oil rigs lighting up the horizon; trucks hauling nuclear waste on dirt roads now crisscrossing the desert like an exposed nervous system. But beautiful moments of relief and refuge, solace and spirituality come in her conversations with Navajo elders, art, and, always, in the land itself. She asks, urgently: “Is Earth not enough? Can the desert be a prayer?”

Early in our evolution, we discovered as Homo Sapiens through need and necessity that our imaginations can summon power. Fire became a dream ignited that enabled us to feed ourselves and gather round to share stories. Stories are power. Power resides in community. When power is denied and oppresses others, we can resist, and when we resist together, something else can occur, something new emerges. This is the essence of erosion and evolution in human time. In geologic time, transformation can be slow and corrosive, or catastrophic and quick. It may be a cataclysmic moment or it may happen incrementally over time. Deep change requires both. And it is not without its ruptures. It can be associated with devastation or determination. It can also be beautiful. Weathering agents are among us.

This is a time of exposure…

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people,” David Orr writes. “But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healer, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”

What are the qualities most needed in this epoch of the Anthropocene? One of the qualities we might seek to cultivate is our capacity to listen…

Can you hear the trees speaking? Are we listening? This is the Liturgy of Home. There is only one moment in time When it is essential to awaken That moment is now. —Buddha This does not require belief, it requires engagement.

How serious are we?

—from Erosion by Terry Tempest Williams

Facing Earth Changes with Love

CLIMATE CURE Heal Yourself to Heal the Planet by Jack Adam Weber $27.99, paper. Llewellyn. 352 pages, b/w illustrations

For all the distressing news about climate crisis, there is scarcely any help for how to emotionally and spiritually cope with it. While acknowledging eco-anxiety and ecogrief, you can use this book not only to cope with climate distress, but also to leverage your

difficult emotions into potent forces for hope and re-

generation.

Climate Cure shows you how to revitalize your life and the world from the inside out, encouraging you to embody the phrase “heal yourself, heal the world.” Chinese

medicine physician and eco-activist Jack Adam Weber introduces you to the “triangle of resilience relationships” —with yourself (self-healing), the natural world,

and your community. He proposes that the breakdown of these relationships is at the root of climate disease and learning how to comprehensively revitalize them is our collective cure. Weber includes uncommon wisdom

and heartfelt, self-care exercises designed to help you A WILD LOVE FOR THE WORLD Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time edited by Stephanie Kaza $36.95, paper. Shambhala. 386 pp, photos

Joanna Macy is a brave and beloved scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology whose decades of writing, teaching, and activism have inspired people around the world. In this collection of writings, leading spiritual teachers, deep ecologists, and diverse writers and activists explore the major facets of Macy’s lifework. Combined with eleven pieces from Macy herself narrating pivotal moments that changed the course of her life, the result is a rich chorus of wisdom and compassion to support the work of our time.

Being fully present to fear, to gratitude, to all that is—this is the practice of mutual belonging. As living members of the living body of Earth, we are grounded in that kind of belonging. We will find more ways to re-

member, celebrate, and affirm this deep knowing: we belong to each other, we belong to Earth. Even when faced with cataclysmic changes, nothing can ever sepa-

rate us from Earth. We are already home. The practice

FACING THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth by Margaret Klein Salamon $14.99, paper. New Society. 142 pages, b/w illustrations

As the climate crisis accelerates toward the collapse of civilization and the natural world, people everywhere are feeling deep pain about ecological destruction and their role in it. Yet we are often paralyzed by fear.

Help is at hand. Facing the Climate Emergency gives

people the tools to confront the climate emergency, face their negative emotions, and channel them into

protecting humanity and the natural world.

Drawing on facts about the climate, tenets of psychological theory, information about the climate emergency movement and elements of memoir, coverage includes: ♦ How to face the climate crisis and accept your fears, anger, grief, guilt, and other emotions ♦ Turning negative feelings into tangible action to respond to the crisis ♦ Rising to heroism, becoming a “climate warrior,”

and maximizing your impact by joining the Climate Emergency Movement work through difficult emotions in order to

thrive and become part of the solution. This unique and inspiring book shows you how to take action in the spirit of authenticity and wholeness, interconnection and sustainability. “Climate Cure offers a feast of nutrients for soul enrichment and the energy-dense fuel required for driving the engine of sacred activism while at the same time, mercifully tending our intimacy with Gaia...[Weber] applies the healer’s loving touch to restore wholeness on both the personal and planetary levels. Climate Cure will break you open and then tenderly restore you to your oneness with the Source and the holy Earth.” —Carolyn Baker, author of Collapsing Consciously: Transformative

Truths for Turbulent Times

“Addresses what climate change and other planet-saving books often fail to address: healing the world begins deep inside us. This guidebook offers sound

psychological advice and spiritual inspiration for how

to regenerate our planet from the inside out.” —David Richo, author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships

of mutual belonging is the medicine for the sickness of the small self and can accompany us through the bardo, through the hard times ahead. —Joanna Macy Joanna’s innovative efforts at the intersection of systems theory, Buddhist practice, and social and environmental justice have produced important developments in areas ranging from anti-nuclear activism and climate change to grief work and indigenous rights. This is the bardo invitation: to not look away, to not turn aside, but to be fully present to what confronts us. The mirror wisdom is a radical teaching, calling for total attention, for depth of acceptance, a call to “just fall in love with what is.”

In this unprecedented collection, some 40 prominent artists, writers, activists, scientists, and religious lead-

ers offer reflections on Macy’s contributions to their personal development and to the growth of their fields. Among Joanna Macy’s books are Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects and Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy To learn more: www.joannamacy.net.

♦ Support material, including further reading, questions for self-reflection, and exercises to complete with like-minded groups

Written for the suffering multitudes struggling to cope and looking for answers, Facing

the Climate Emergency provides the motivation, guidance, and support needed to leave “normal” behind and travel the path of the

climate warrior, rising to the challenge of our time. “This is the most powerful, honest, and psychologically astute book on climate change I’ve ever read.” —Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute

“There’s competition for the most important words that can be spoken today, but Salamon’s directive ‘join the climate emergency movement!’ has now got to be at the top. Salamon’s motivational book, written by someone who has studied the human psyche but has the heart of a compassionate activist, is the lead-

ing guide to getting us beyond hopeful complicity and committing to climate action not as a priority but as the

priority.” —Gus Speth, co-founder, Natural Resources Defense Council

Margaret Salamon is a clinical psychologist turned climate warrior and founder of The Climate Mobilization: www.theclimatemobilization.org “In Western Civilization, our elders are books.” —Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild: Essays

“As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth.. .the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.”

“Having a place means that you know what a place means...what it means in a storied sense of myth, character and presence but also in an ecological sense...Integrating native consciousness with mythic consciousness.”

“All this new stuff goes on top turn it over, turn it over wait and water down from the dark bottom turn it inside out let it spread through Sift down even. Watch it sprout.

A mind like compost.”

Gary Snyder

“Being fully present to fear, to gratitude, to all that is—this is the practice of mutual belonging. As living members of the living body of Earth, we are grounded in that kind of belonging. Even when faced with cataclysmic changes, nothing can ever separate us from Earth. We are already home.” — Joanna Macy

“I am wildly in love with A Wild Love for the World. I can truly say that the stories in this book, and its life-transforming ideas and their practical applications, have changed Joanna Macy me. The personal stories and focus on positive collaborative engagement offer a breath of energizing fresh air as we move forward. Joanna Macy’s life, celebrated here in an engaging, inspiring, and practical compendium of approaches catalyzed by her ‘Work That Reconnects,’ offers each of us a light to cultivate resilience and illuminate the path ahead. Thank you to Stephanie Kaza and all the contributors, and to Joanna, for the love and brilliance that shine so brightly in this life’s work of heart.” —Daniel Siegel, author of Aware and Mind

“Serendipitous that this volume by and about one of our most far-seeing, exuberant, and empathic radiators of necessary wisdom is emerging in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. The book will be a talisman for many, a seed bundle, a way through the calamity.” —David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous

Gary Snyder on Wild and World

THE PRACTICE OF THE WILD Essays by Gary Snyder $25.50, paper. Counterpoint. 256 pages

Featuring a new introduction by Robert Hass, the nine captivatingly meditative essays in The Practice of the Wild display the deep understanding and wide erudition of Gary Snyder in the ways of Buddhist belief, wildness, wildlife, and the world. These essays, first published in 1990, stand as the mature centerpiece of Snyder’s work and thought, and this profound collection is widely accept-

ed as one of the central texts on wilderness and the

interaction of nature and culture.

Instead of vitriolic bashing of our human interaction with nature, Snyder shows that we could live in harmony with our sacred places. I recommend you read the essays one at a time, and take your time with them.

They really make you think about how each culture interacts with the region they are in, and how sometimes we do take our relationship to the wild the wrong way.

THE GREAT CLOD

Notes and Memoirs on Nature and History in East Asia by Gary Snyder $23.95, paper. Counterpoint. 131 pages

Throughout his remarkable career, Gary

Snyder has continued his study of Eastern culture and philosophies. From the Ainu to the Mongols, from Hokkaido to Kyoto, from the landscapes of China to the backcountry of contemporary Japan, from the temples of Daitokoji to the Yellow River Valley, it is clear how this work has influenced his poetry, his stance as an environmental and political activist, and his long practice of Zen. The Great Clod collects eight essays—with titles like

“Wild” in China,” “Ink and Charcoal,” “Walls Within

Walls,” “Wolf-Hair Brush” and “All He Sees is Blue”— which turn from being memoirs of travel to prolonged considerations of art, culture, natural history and religion. Filled with Snyder’s remarkable insights and briskly beautiful descriptions, this collection adds enormously to the major corpus of his work, certain to delight and instruct his readers now and forever.

Earth Energies & Eco-Design REBUILDING EARTH Designing Ecoconscious Habitats for Humans by Teresa Coady

It is estimated: earth’s population will expand to nine billion people over the next century. This explosion in ther stress on our environment, deplete our natural resources, and lead to increases in anxiety and depression due to overcrowding. In this visionary and uplifting book, Teresa Coady offers readers new hope. Rebuilding Earth is her blueprint for designing

and building the cities, buildings, and

homes of tomorrow.

Using the twelve principles of Conscious Construction—the first being “design for life, not machines”—Coady shows us how we can shift from an outdated Industrial-Age framework to a more humane, Digital-Age framework. This revolutionary approach will enable communities to harness various forms of green en-

ergy and reduce the amount of material needed to build

infrastructure while contributing to a healthier planet It is both poetic, and scientific, the perfect education.

The wild—often dismissed as savage and chaotic by “civilized” thinkers, is actually impartially, relentlessly, and beautifully formal and free. Its expression—the richness of

plant and animal life on the globe including us, the rainstorms, windstorms, and calm spring mornings—is the real world, to which

we belong. I am deeply grateful that I have been able to walk this path… and to have been able to speak and write my thoughts to whoever would listen. “A primer, an etiquette, a book of instruction, Gary Snyder’s The Practice of the Wild is an exquisite, far-sighted articulation of what freedom, wildness, goodness, and grace mean, using the lessons of the planet to teach us how to live.” —Gretel Ehrlich “What thoughtful beauty! How skillfully Gary Snyder interfuses the practical knowledge of an animal sense

with story, language, and song.” —James Hillman Tsung Ping, an early fifth-century painter whose work does not survive, is described as having done mountain landscapes when ill and no longer able to ramble the hills he loved. He wrote the perfect program for a recluse: “Thus by living leisurely, by controlling the vital breath, by wiping the goblet, by playing the ch’in, by contemplating pictures in silence, by meditating on the four quarters of space, by never resisting the influence of Heaven and by responding to the call of the wilderness where the cliffs and peaks rise to dazzling heights and the cloudy forests are dense and vast, the wise and virtuous men of ancient times found innumerable pleasures which they assimilated by their souls and minds.” “Classical poetry, calligraphy, the best source of temple incense—all figure in the text, which has something of the feel of a valediction. Elegant and thoughtful,

with much to read between the lines in commentary on

a long life’s work. Students and admirers of Snyder will be enchanted and intrigued.” —Kirkus Reviews Among Gary Snyder’s many books are Mountains and

$25.95, paper. North Atlantic. 298 pages

population is predicted to place fur-

Rivers Without End and The Real Work. (and society). We can then experience a new sense of purpose, health, and happiness.

Meaningful and lasting change, the author tells us, can only come through designing interconnected communities that are vibrant, resilient, and communal. Unlike most predictions of doom and gloom, Coady presents a refreshingly optimistic view of humanity and its future. This book will appeal to those in the construction, design and development finance industries, as well as anyone interested in improving their lives through understanding the connections between the environment and health. “This book extends current ideas about green building

to incorporate a much richer and deeper connection to

earth systems, wild habitats, and human behavior. Rebuilding Earth is an ambitious book that carries a reminder that our remarkable human resilience and intelligence ‘are strengths to be leveraged’ in reimagining and remaking a better world.” —Foreword Reviews

“Her goal is not to deny or reinvent the architectur-

al past, but to implement the essential elements of what

makes for greatness in any age. She asks fundamental questions. ‘What kind of world do we want to inhabit and bequeath? What landscape of the imagination do we want to erect around the lives of our children, knowing full well that the shape of these structures will both hone their memories and inspire their aspirations? Rebuilding Earth is a road map of hope.” —Wade Davis, author of One River

THE HALF-ACRE HOMESTEAD 46 Years of Building and Gardening by Lloyd Kahn & Lesley Creed $29.50, paper. Shelter. 160 pages, 9x9, colour photos

If you’ve read some of the impressive ‘art builder’ books by Lloyd Kahn, such as Builders of the Pacific Coast, Small Homes, and Tiny Homes, you’ll dig this view into the lovely details of the home, studio, workshop, garden, and life that he has built with his partner.

This is the story of Lloyd and Lesley building a home and establishing a garden on a small piece of land on the Northern California Coast over a 46-year period.

Lloyd, the former shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, has published seven books on owner building, showcasing hundreds of builders, and this is his first book on

his own work.

Starting with a vacant half-acre piece of land, they built their own home, created a garden with vegetables and fruit, and describe raising chickens, bees, and goats. The book also covers cooking, foraging, fishing, crafts, birds, butterflies, and tools. Their main theme is that this was all done by hand. They have never paid rent nor have they ever had a mortgage.

There are over 500 photos illustrating all the above fac-

ets of their lives and clear explanations of building skylights, maintaining a septic system, building greenhouses

and raised vegetable beds. There is a section on unique kitchen tools, as well as advice on useful tools used in construction. Lloyd’s transparent, seasoned tips on tools and processes—including the making of the book itself—is nourishing and valuable for any of us crafters.

Gardening & Farming

THE WELL-GARDENED MIND The Restorative Power of Nature by Sue Stuart-Smith $37.00, cloth. Atria Books. 340 pages, b/w photos

A distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener (co-creator of the wonderful Barn Garden in Hertfordshire) offers an inspiring and consoling work about the healing effects of gardening and its ability to decrease stress and foster mental well-being in our everyday lives.

The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Garden-

ing is one of the quintessential nurturing activities and yet we understand so little about it. The Well-Gardened Mind provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to

change people’s lives. Here, Sue Stuart-Smith investigates the many ways in which mind and garden can interact and explores how the process of tending a plot can be a way of sustaining an innermost self.

A constant process of being weeded, pruned, and fertilized keeps the brain healthy at a cellular level. The activity of the microglia exemplifies one of the fundamental laws that govern life—that health is not a passive process. What is taking place on a microscopic scale also needs to happen on a larger canvas. The mind needs to be gardened too. Our emotional lives are complex and need constant tending and reworking. The form this takes will be different for each one of us, but funda-

mentally, in order to counteract negative and self-destructive forces, we need to cultivate a caring and creative attitude. Above all, we need to recognize what

nourishes us.

Stuart-Smith’s own love of gardening developed as she studied to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. From

her grandfather’s return from World War I to Freud’s obsession with flowers to case histories with her own patients to progressive gardening programs in such places as Rikers Island prison in New York City, Stuart-Smith weaves thoughtful yet powerful examples to argue that gardening is much more important to our cognition than we think. Recent research is showing how green nature has direct antidepressant effects on humans. With practical tips for both mind and garden, The Well-Gardened Mind offers solace and pleasure, whether you are a “gardener” or not.

“A compelling and deeply moving account of how profoundly our well-being can be affected through contact with gardening and the natural world. This is a timely call of return. Read it.” —Edmund De Waal, author of The

Hare with Amber Eyes

KEEPING BEES WITH A SMILE Principles and Practice of Natural Beekeeping by Fedor Lazutin, with Leo Sharashkin $34.99, paper. New Society. 434 pages, colour photos

Are you a beginner beekeeper curious about bees or a practicing beekeeper looking for natural alternatives that work? Then this book is for you!

In the second edition of the best-

selling beekeeping guide Keeping Bees with a Smile, Fedor Lazutin, one of Europe’s most successful natural beekeepers, shares the bee-friendly

approach to apiculture that is fun, healthful, rewarding, and accessible to all. This new edition includes dozens of color photographs, new hive management techniques, and an updated version of “Lazutin hive” plans. Additional coverage includes: ♦ Keeping bees naturally without interfering in their lives ♦ Starting an apiary for free by attracting local bee swarms ♦ Building low-maintenance hives that mimic how bees live in nature ♦ Keeping colonies healthy and strong without any drugs, sugar, or gimmickry ♦ Helping bees to overwinter successfully even in harsh climates ♦ Enhancing local nectar plant resources ♦ Producing truly natural honey without robbing the bees ♦ Reversing the global bee decline... right in your backyard!

Keeping Bees with a Smile is an invaluable resource for apiculture beginners and professionals alike, complete with plans for making bee-friendly, well-insulated horizontal hives with extra-deep frames, plus other fascinating beekeeping advice you won’t find anywhere else.

SAVING SEEDS A Home Gardener’s Guide to Preserving Plant Biodiversity by Dan Jason $14.95, paper. Harbour. 96 pages, illus.

Much of our food comes from seeds. But where do our seeds come from? And where are they going? For much of human history, farmers saved their own seed stocks to ensure a good harvest from year to year. In the mid-twentieth century, governments became involved in seed saving, creating massive seed libraries cataloguing thousands of varieties. This biodiversity has come under attack in recent decades, as corporations have replaced heirloom varieties with genetic engineering and costly trademarks. In such an agricultural climate, saving seeds becomes both a practical act of preservation and powerful act of protest.

Gardening Everywhere!

TINY VICTORY GARDENS Growing Good Food Without a Yard by Acadia Tucker $28.95, paper. Chelsea Green. 168 pages, 2-colour illustrations

From the author of Growing Good Food, an illustrated guide to how to grow food in pots, containers, and community plots

Victory gardening is back in the headlines as more people resolve to grow food for the good of our country, and for themselves too. The trend toward self-reliance is likely to continue as we enter what’s projected to be a long recession. People are looking for help on how to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs in their own backyards, community gardens, and in tight urban spaces, too.

Tiny Victory Gardens shares information on how to participate in the victory gardening movement, even if you

LAWNS INTO MEADOWS

Growing a Regenerative Landscape by Owen Wormser 168 pages, colour photos

In Lawns Into Meadows, landscape designer

Owen Wormser makes a case for the power and generosity of meadows. In a world where lawns have wreaked havoc on our natural ecosystems, meadows offer a compelling solution. They establish wildlife and pollinator habitats. They’re low-maintenance and low-cost. They have a built-in resilience that helps them weather climate extremes, and they can park loads of carbon. They’re also really beautiful, all year long.

Wormser describes how to plant an organic meadow

that’s right for your site, whether it’s a yard, community garden, or tired city lot. He shares advice on preparing your plot, coming up with the right design, and plant-

ing—all without using synthetic chemicals.

He passes along tips on building support in neighbor-

NO-TILL INTENSIVE VEGETABLE CULTURE

Pesticide-Free Methods for Restoring

Soil and Growing Nutrient-Rich,

High-Yielding Crops by Bryan O’Hara $39.95, paper. Chelsea Green. 272 pages, 7x10, colour photos

No-till farming has rapidly grown in popularity among vegetable growers due to its high-quality, high-yield, high-profit results.

Renowned organic grower Bryan OHara perfected the technique during the multi-year transition of his Connecticut vegetable farm to a no-till system. His vibrantly healthy, resilient plants are testa-

ments to the value of allowing the inherent biological

functions in soil to do their work. In No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, O’Hara describes the methods he has developed, which are completely free of herbicides or other pesticides and require only a few acres of land and minimal capital investment. He asserts that this flexible, ecological methodology is as important for soil fertility as it is for his economic suc-

Over half of Canadian households grow fruits, herbs, vegetables or flowers for personal use, according to Statistics Canada. And each of these home gardens has the potential to preserve vital biodiversity, if only we would

let plants go to seed, harvest and preserve them. Saving Seeds is a clear and winsome introduction to the essentials of seed saving, from seed selection criteria to harvest and storage tips. It also addresses the role of seed-saving communities: local swaps, seed companies, friends and don’t have a yard. The book, which is

grounded in Acadias regenerative farming expertise, includes step-by-step guidance to finding the right containers, prepping your soil, starting your seedlings, growing plants indoors, and harvesting in a way that keeps

indoor crops growing year-round. Acadia describes how it’s possible to grow food in a way that’s good for the planet even in pots. She explains how to compost in indoor spaces (worms included). She also profiles 15 to 20 starter plants that are easy to grow indoors. Finally, the book includes recipes for canning, preserving, and drying the food you grow.

Acadia has also published Growing Perennial Foods. Mini Victory Gardens is another addition to Chelsea Green’s Citizen Gardening series, which also includes

$26.95, paper. Chelsea Green.

Lawns Into Meadows, by Owen Wormser. cess. This comprehensive manual delves into all facets

hoods where a tidy lawn is the standard. Owen also profiles twenty-one starter grasses and flowers for beginning meadow-makers, and offers guidance on how to grow each one. To illuminate the many joys of meadow-building, Owen draws on his own stories, including how growing up off the grid in northern Maine, with no electricity or plumbing, prepared him for his work. The book, part how-to guide and part memoir, is for environmentalists and climate activists, gardeners and non-gardeners alike. “This book tells us how to grow a meadow, and become a positive force on behalf of the planet. I highly recommend it.” —John Todd, author of Healing Earth

“It’s time to rebuild meadows wherever we can, including the deadscape we call lawn. Owen Wormser explains why, and how to do this, with oodles of highly readable, ecologically sound advice.” —Douglas Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope

of a dynamic, holistic growing system, including: ♦ No-till bed preparation techniques ♦ Use of fertilizers (including foliar feeds) ♦ Composting (preparation and application) ♦ Culture of indigenous microorganisms to support soil biology ♦ Pest and disease management ♦ Year-round growing ♦ Harvest and storage techniques

O’Hara also explores the spiritual dimension of managing a farm ecosystem: observing the natural balance between plants, soil, air, water, and sunlight and the ways in which working to maintain that balance influences practical production decisions.

Whether you’re a high-yield producer, a homesteader, or a market gardener, No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture is

the go-to vegetable grower’s manual for the twenty-first

century. O’Hara’s advanced yet accessible methodology will both help you respond to natural systems and adapt

to meet future challenges. neighbours and even how the Internet can support this time-honoured practice. In an era of community gardens, farmers markets and renewed interest in heirloom species, Saving Seeds is a timely call to ensure a more secure future for our seeds and ourselves.

Dan Jason, founder of Salt Spring Seeds, has also written The Power of Pulses, Some Useful Wild Plants, and Changing the Climate with the Seeds We Sow.

Regenerating the Earth

THE REGENERATIVE GROWER’S GUIDE TO GARDEN AMENDMENTS Using Locally Sourced Materials to Make Mineral and Biological Extracts and Ferments by Nigel Palmer & John Kempf $28.95, paper. Chelsea Green. 168 pages, 2-colour illustrations

Revitalize your garden—and go beyond

compost—by making your own biologically diverse inoculants and mineral-rich amend-

ments using leaf mold, weeds, eggshells, bones, and other materials available for little or no cost!

In The Regenerative Growers Guide to Garden Amendments, experimental gardener and author Nigel Palmer provides practical, detailed instructions that are acces-

sible to every grower who wants to achieve a truly sus-

tainable garden ecosystem—all while enjoying better results at a fraction of the cost of commercial fertilizer products. These recipes go beyond fertilizer replace-

ment, resulting in greater soil biological activity and

mineral availability. They also increase pest and disease resistance, yields, and nutrient density. Recipes include: ♦ Extracting nutrients from plant residues using simple rainwater techniques ♦ Extracting minerals from bones and shells using vinegar

SOIL SCIENCE FOR GARDENERS

Working with Nature to Build Soil Health by Robert Pavlis $18.99, paper. New Society. 208 pages, b/w illustrations

Healthy soil means thriving plants. Yet untangling the soil food web and optimizing your soil health is beyond most gardeners, many of whom lack an in-depth knowledge of the soil ecosystem. Soil Science for Gardeners is an accessible,

science-based guide to understanding soil fertility and, in particular, the rhizosphere the thin layer of liquid and soil surrounding plant roots, so vital to

plant health. Robert Pavlis, a gardener for over four decades, debunks common soil myths, explores the rhizosphere,

FARM THE CITY A Toolkit for Setting Up a Successful Urban Farm by Michael Ableman $19.99, paper. New Society. 108 pages, colour photos

An essential primer from one of North America’s largest urban farms.

Urban farming has the power to change diets, economies, and lives. Yet starting an urban farm can seem daunting with skills and knowledge that extend beyond growing to include marketing, sales, employees, community relations, and navigating local regulations.

In Farm the City, Michael Ableman, the “Spartacus of Sustainable Food Activism,” offers a guide to setting up and

running a successful urban farm, derived from the success of Sole Food Street Farms, one of the largest urban agriculture enterprises in North America. Sole Food Street Farms spans four acres of land in Vancouver, produces 25 tons

of food annually, provides meaningful work for dozens of disadvantaged people, and has improved the surrounding community in countless ways. Coverage includes: ♦ Selecting land and choosing the right crops ♦ Growing food in city farms, including plans for planting *Fermenting plant juices and fish *Culturing indigenous microorganisms Inspired by the work of many innovative traditional agricultural pioneers, especially Cho Ju-Young (founder of the Korean Natural Farming method), The Regenerative Growers Guide to Garden Amendments also includes a primer on plant-soil interaction, instructions for conducting a soil test, and guidance on compost, cover cropping, mulching, measuring the quality of fruits and vegetables using a refractometer, and other aspects of sustainable gardening—making it a must-have resource for any serious grower. “Nigel Palmer’s new book is filled with fermenta-

tion methods for the garden. It’s an exciting new DIY

resource for soil regeneration and plant health.”—Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation “Easy, affordable, and garden-tested amendment recipes to help grow nutrient-dense food? Yes, please! The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments made me wonder why I hadn’t started making my own amendments years ago. I was barely past chapter 2 before I started collecting egg and oyster shells to submerge in vinegar; comfrey and nettles were already fermenting by the end of chapter 3. Every gardener needs this knowledge!” —Chris Smith, director, The Utopian Seed Project and provides a personalized soil fertility improvement program in this three-part popular science guidebook. Coverage includes: ♦ Soil biology and chemistry and how plants and soil interact ♦ Common soil health problems, including analyzing soil’s fertility and plant nutrients ♦ The creation of a personalized plan for improving your soil fertility, including setting priorities and goals in a cost-effective, realistic time frame. ♦ Creating the optimal conditions for nature to do the heavy lifting of building soil fertility

Written for the home gardener, market gardener,

and micro-farmer, Soil Science for Gardeners is packed

with information to help you grow thriving plants. and harvesting ♦ Fundraising and marketing strategies, philosophies, and vital information for selling fresh products ♦ Navigating local government and regulations ♦ Engaging the community and building meaningful livelihoods.

Farm the City is an invaluable tool kit for entrepreneurs and activists looking to create economic and social value through urban agriculture.

THINKING LIKE A MOUNTAIN by Robert Bateman $21.00, paper. Penguin. 128 pages, 6x6, b/w illustrations

Nature has been Robert Bateman’s inspiration ever since he began painting birds from his bedroom window as a young boy. The wildlife he features in his paintings are expressions of his love and respect for the natural world.

A passionate environmentalist who has devoted his life to documenting the awesome power of nature, Bateman is deeply worried about the state of our planet and the fate of our natural heritage. Whenever he talks about his paintings, he talks about the environmental messages they convey, and those who have heard him speak have clamoured for a book that encapsulates his philosophy.

Thinking Like a Mountain is the result of many years of thinking, talking and writing about the world’s growing environmental crisis. Beautifully designed and illustrated with original drawings, it is a gathering of questions,

observations and ideas Robert Bateman has drawn from his own life experiences and gleaned from the writings of some of the visionaries who have influenced him.

As Einstein said, “We cannot solve the problems of today with the same thinking that gave us the problems in the first place.” Only a profound shift in philosophy, Bateman

believes, can save our species from extinction.

For a deeper look at Sole Food’s innovative agricultural work and its social mission, including many stories about the challenges and triumphs of our staff members, check out the book Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2016).

… the planet that every astronaut has said was infinitely precious. What is so wonderful about this sphere? It is surely our natural and human heritage in all its complexity. If we begin to think like a mountain, we will keep all that is truly valuable in this world and pass these treasures on to succeeding generations. All we need to do is pay attention and pay the price. I’d say the cost is more than worth it.

Thinking Like a Mountain is elegantly printed on 100 per cent ancient-forest-free paper that is 100 per cent post-consumer recycled and has been processed chlorine free.

EDIBLE AND MEDICINAL FLORA OF THE WEST COAST British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest by Collin Varner $22.95, paper. Heritage House. 224 pages, colour photos

A clear, concise guide to more than 130 edible and medicinal plants and fungi that grow wild throughout the west coast of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest states.

The coastal Pacific Northwest of North America is home to a multitude of edible and medicinal plant species, marine plants, and edible mushrooms.

This compact, full-colour foragers guide offers clear photography, descriptions, safety tips and warnings, and traditional culinary and medicinal uses for every type of wild-growing flo-

ra species in the region, including: ♦ Bigleaf Maple—used to make a delicious west-coast maple syrup; ♦ Yellow Morel Mushroom—a favourite of foragers but not to be confused with the false morel, which is poisonous; ♦ Sea Asparagus—perfect in a salad or as an accompaniment to seafood; and ♦ Evening Primrose—an introduced species to the region, used to treat a variety of ailments.

Practical, user-friendly, and safe, Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast is an indispensable guide for beginner and experienced foragers alike.

REWILDING Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature by Micah Mortali $23.50, paper. Sounds True. 224 pages, b/w drawings

In Rewilding, Kripalu director Micah Mortali brings together yoga, mindfulness, wilderness training, and ancestral skills to create a unique guide for reigniting your

primal energy—your undomesticated true self—and deepening your connection with

the living earth.

For eons, humans lived intimately with the earth. We were in the wild and of the wild. Today, we live mostly urban lives—and our vital wildness has gone dormant. As a result, we’re more isolated, unhealthy, anxious, and depressed than ever, and our planet has suffered with us.

Rewilding invites us to shed the effects of over-civilization and explore an inner wisdom that is primal, ancient, and profound. Whether you live in the middle of

a city or alongside the woods, the insights and practices on these pages will bring you home to your wild, wise,

and alive self.

Highlights include: ♦ Practice-rich content—mindfulness exercises, guided meditations, yoga and pranayama, inward sensing, forest bathing, and much more ♦ The “life-force deficit”—explore how our separation from nature affects us physiologically and spiritually ♦ Ancestral skills—such as tracking, foraging, building fires, and finding shelter

FOREST BATHING RETREAT Find Wholeness in the Company of Trees by Hannah Fries $19.95, paper. Storey. 190 pages, 6x6, colour photos, French flaps

People have been retreating to the woods for quiet, meditation, and inspiration for centuries, and recent research finds that time spent in the forest doesn’t just feel good but is, in fact, good for you. Inspired by the Japanese concept of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, poet Hannah Fries invites readers to bask in the company of trees, wherever you can find them. This elegant book, an “invitation to

become more permeable to the natural world around you,” is a beautiful invitation into direct experience of

the complexity and intelligence of forests.

As it turns out, I have spent a lifetime engaging in “forest therapy,” all the while thinking I was just playing in the woods. My mother, endlessly emptying my pockets of stones and seedpods, despairing of my muddy knees and elbows (which I still sport as a grandmother), would be relieved to know that what she called “daydreaming in the woods” is now called “forest bathing” —though I never came home clean!...

♦ Develop a sense of calm, clarity, connection, and confidence in both your daily life and the great outdoors ♦ What you can learn from nature’s teachers—lessons from mountains, rivers, trees, and our animal kin ♦ Rewild in the wild—guidelines around safety, preparedness, appropriate gear, and packing lists ♦ A mindful rewilding flow—put everything together in an immersive, step-by-step rewilding experience ♦ Understand the relationship between our health and the health of our planet—and how we can begin to heal both.

Part celebration of the natural world, part spiritual

memoir, and part how-to guide, Rewilding is for anyone who wants to embrace their wild nature and essential place in the living earth.

Rewilding can help you to take a deep breath, walk with your feet on the ground, and sit by a fire as you listen to the wind in the trees. It can help you settle

back into a wisdom that is older than language and written history, something foundational to who you

are. It can help us all remember what we are, where we belong, and how much we have to be grateful for on this precious planet, for the seasons still turn and birds still sing in the trees. Anyone can take a few minutes to breathe, to learn who we share this land with, and to become a part of our forests and wild communities again. We just need to slow down and open our senses to the wonder that is all around us.

How many miles do we walk without our feet ever touching the softness of the forest floor?...Forest bathing is a sensory immersion in green light and birdsong that leaves the bather renewed and clean. —Robin Wall Kimmerer, from the foreword

Fries combines her own reflections and guided mind-

fulness exercises with a curated selection of inspira-

tional writing from poets, naturalists, artists, scientists, and thinkers throughout the centuries and across cultures, including Japanese haiku masters, 19th century European Romantics, American Transcendentalists, and contemporary environmentalists. Accompanied by beautiful forest photography, Forest Bathing Retreat is a distinctive gift that invites frequent revisiting for fresh insights and inspiration.

It is an ongoing journey, this reaching out, and out again. And the universe, with all of its patterns and chaos and myriad threads of connection, is both terrifying and wondrous. Take a page from the trees: focus on being both rooted in the earth and searching among the stars.

THE RADIANT LIVES OF ANIMALS by Linda Hogan $25.95, cloth. Beacon. 112 pages, line drawings

From a celebrated Chickasaw writer, a spiritual meditation, in prose and poetry, on our relationship to the animal world, in an illustrated gift package. Concerned that human lives and the natural world are too often defined by people who are separated from the land and its inhabitants, Indigenous writer and environmentalist Linda

Hogan depicts her own intense relationships with animals as an example we all can follow to heal our souls and

reconnect with the spirit of the world. From her modest forest home in Colorado, and venturing throughout the region, especially to her beloved Oklahoma, she introduces us to horses, packrats, snakes, mountain lions, elks, wolves, bees, and so many others whose presence has changed her life. In this illuminating collec-

tion of essays and poems, lightly sprinkled with elegant drawings, Hogan draws on many Native nations’ ancient

stories and spiritual traditions to show us that the soul exists in those delicate places where the natural world extends into human consciousness--in the mist of morning, the grass that grew a little through the night, the first warmth of this morning’s sunlight. Altogether, this beautifully packaged gift is a reverential reminder for all of us to witness and appreciate the radiant lives of animals.

UNDERLAND A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane $22.99, paper. Penguin. 464 pages

New in Paperback

In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a jour-

ney into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of Greenland’s glaciers, to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea-caves, this is a deep-time voy-

age into the planet’s past and future. Global in its geography, gripping in its voice and haunting in its implications, Underland is a work of huge range and power, and a remarkable new chapter in Macfarlane’s long-term exploration of landscape and the human heart.

The way into the underland is through the riven

trunk of an old ash tree… Near the ash’s base its trunk splits into a rough rift, just wide enough that a person might slip into the tree’s hollow heart—and there drop into the dark space that opens below. The rift’s edges are smoothed to a shine by those who have gone this way before, passing through the old ash to enter the underland…

The way out of the underland is where nine springs

flow clear from the bedrock… We make our way to the end of the wood where the springs rise. The springs have organized themselves in a circle around a hollow in the chalk, filling a pool that is perhaps a foot deep and six feet across. The water in the pool is so clear as to be invisible, save for the root-like reflection of the branches above that it carries.

“Macfarlane has invented a new kind of book, really a new genre entirely.” —The Irish Times

“He is the great nature writer, and nature poet, of this generation.” —Wall Street Journal “Startling and memorable, charting invisible and vanishing worlds. Macfarlane has made himself Orpheus, the poet who ventures down to the darkest depths and returns—frighteningly alone—to sing of what he has seen.” —New Statesman Also by Robert Macfarlane is The Old Ways.