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Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with Reptiles and Amphibians is a must read! This riv­eting book pro­vides a unique glimpse into the fas­ci­nating world of rep­tiles, amphib­ians, and the people who love them. Finally, there is some good PR for herps, as well as proof that I’m not insane or alone in my desire to kiss a snake. —Donald Schultz, Producer and Host of Discovery tele­vi­sion series I Was Bitten, Feeding Frenzy More Info »

“Richards wants to shape edu­ca­tion by story rather than by infor­ma­tion, by resisting con­sumerism rather than edu­cating for it. The goal of edu­ca­tion, he reminds us, ‘is not to make better schools, but to make a better world.’ And ‘the ulti­mate rel­e­vance of a school is what kind of civ­i­liza­tion it inspires our chil­dren to create.’ Modern indus­trial cul­ture has pretty much defined edu­ca­tion in its terms; we can do much better today and must. The metaphors, nar­ra­tives and values of our edu­ca­tional system are out­moded. A Wisdom Education Movement can bring alive new values that assure a ‘nur­turing, cre­ative, joyous, inspiring place.’ This book is well worth reading; and dis­cussing; and arguing; and enacting.” —Matthew Fox, author of Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet More Info »

Fireflies at Absolute Zero is a map of a life, written in loca­tion and longing, its cal­lig­raphy the sur­real moments between dream and waking. The poems are shaped by myth, the Gaelic poetic tra­di­tion, dream worlds, per­sonal his­tory, and the grey-​​green land­scape of the Salish Sea. From snow­fall in the Hoh rain­forest to the sen­su­ality of a lover’s touch, the poems span decades of a life in motion, finally finding a home between the moun­tains and waters of the Pacific Northwest. More Info »

The essence of ‘ayni’ is sacred reci­procity. Ayni emerges out of a uni­versal per­spec­tive in which impor­tance is placed on the rela­tional flow of energy as a process of estab­lishing and main­taining bal­ance. Ayni can be seen as a code of con­duct – a sacred agree­ment to engage in a bal­anced exchange between self and other. What is given may not be any­where near as impor­tant as how it is given. In ayni, it is the heart that counts. Ayni can be estab­lished among people, between humans and all other beings, and between all beings and the ani­mate Cosmos. More Info »

This col­lec­tion con­nects us to our­selves, each other, and the earth. As an impor­tant part of our own envi­ron­ments, we’re also part of the com­plex­i­ties of nature, including human nature and those odd thoughts and moments that bring humor, wonder, per­plexity, and prayer. More Info »

“The International Appalachian Trail runs north from Mount Katahdin seven hun­dred miles to the end of the Gaspé Peninsula. Inspired by Basho, Ian Marshall hiked it for six sum­mers, probing the poetics of haiku while exploring a vast and beau­tiful wilder­ness little known in the US. Marshall is an engaging trail com­panion and a superb story teller, with a self dep­re­cating wit and sharp intel­lect that spice up his obser­va­tions and ideas. Like Basho, he finds the mirac­u­lous in the common and ele­vates the humble walk into a spir­i­tual prac­tice, sprin­kling his nar­ra­tive with lovely orig­inal haiku that seem to have con­densed in the moment, like droplets of dew. Backpackers will appre­ciate his pun­gent descrip­tions of life on the trail, and eco­critics will savor his abun­dant insights on poetry, nature, and cul­ture. This lively book serves up a classic blend of high adven­ture, lit­erary pil­grimage, and self dis­covery. It tastes as tart and fresh as wild rasp­ber­ries.” —John Tallmadge, past-​​president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and author of The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City More Info »

“McDowell often ends his poems with a chal­lenge to “Jim,” a ques­tion usu­ally asking him to make sense of his life. . . . we over­hear this final ques­tion as if it were directed at us. One of the joys of reading McDowell’s poetry is pre­cisely this that his ques­tions urge us to make deeper sense of our own lives. You will dis­cover, along with him, the almost seam­less way the ordi­nary and non-​​ordinary real­i­ties of our soul’s deep dreaming sup­port and create a multi-​​layered world to live in. It is a world that intrigues us while reading the poem and that lingers long after we lay the poem aside.” —Tom Cowan, from the fore­word of Night, Mystery & Light More Info »

“Shimmering up and down the orig­inal Tree, nature, Western Solstice is a gnosis that explores intense sen­sual vivid­ness, being, and the flesh through the ter­res­trial details of a large and gen­erous human empathy. Political, fierce, and tender, Leonore Wilson’s poems take ‘cadence inside her­self,’ and ‘anti-​​matter and matter fla­gel­lating, pal­pi­tating’ into mys­teries of life and death, female pres­ence, the planet, gender, and music. Her process is trans­for­ma­tive; the reader’s expe­ri­ence is deli­cious­ness, Gaia, sweet sub­stance, ’Eden to the wasp, shelter and elixir’: like eating ‘Billy Holliday’s lim­bering voice’; like ’con­sum­mating fallen dark­ness and dif­fused and fas­ci­nating’; or, like ‘being fed clear to the core, and dis­tance bent backwards’ — chords of an embodying, gor­geous, and inti­mate art.” —‘Annah Sobelman, author of In the Bee Latitudes and The Tulip Sacrament More Info »

The poems in this book are an attempt to speak in a common tongue with moun­tains, rivers, and forests. Too often poetry is thought of as the domain of human cre­ativity with its source in the depths of the imag­i­na­tion. We use it to speak of the world, but not to the non-​​human world — let alone with it. The poems in Estuaries sug­gest that speech and poetry are fun­da­men­tally rooted in the ecosystem — the detritus of fallen leaves, the cur­va­ture of a river bend, and the sound of rain on a heron’s wings. All of this might be regarded as the speech of the Earth. When we speak or write poetry that engages these voices we become par­tic­i­pant in the pat­terns of the water­shed. More Info »

“This is poetry for the soul…It took me down into my depths, beck­oning me to dig fear­lessly into my com­posted dreams, com­mit­ments, and deep yearn­ings. I resisted the urge to read the entire col­lec­tion in one sit­ting, instead rumi­nating over each poem as one might a grand painting or a sacred gospel.” —Christopher Uhl, PhD, author of Developing Ecological Consciousness: Path to a Sustainable World More Info »

“Richards writes skill­fully and soul­fully about the most pressing issues of our times, and the deeper crisis out of which they have emerged. Drawing from a vast trove of knowl­edge about the world’s reli­gious, mys­tical, and philo­soph­ical tra­di­tions, he extracts the most valu­able gems, pol­ishes them with the rev­o­lu­tionary insights of modern sci­ence, and forges a radiant, new cos­mos­ophy — a uni­versal wisdom that honors the wisdom of the uni­verse. The beauty of this mythos is that it, like the cosmos, is not static but dynamic, inviting our active par­tic­i­pa­tion and imag­i­na­tive engage­ment. This book suc­ceeds in instilling rev­er­ence for a living uni­verse and hope for a dying planet. May Cosmosophia blossom and flourish in the hearts of all beings!” —Darrin Drda, author of The Four Global Truths More Info »

“In the lin­eage of Oliver, Stegner, Lopez and Thoreau, Jamie K. Reaser’s exquisite year-​​long record, Huntley Meadows, guides us as readers to a sacred return. In this living homage to fur, feather, scale and root we remember the deep love pos­sible for a place through the sea­sons. The spirit of a shaman-​​poet and the keen eye of a nat­u­ralist come together in these pages. The end result is a col­lec­tion of verses wherein a spe­cial place is given a voice. Listening to such voices offers all of us res­ur­rec­tion and renewal.” —Frank Owen, cre­ator of the online poetry expe­ri­ence, nekyia.poetry More Info »

“Here at the end of the Cenozoic Era with the life sys­tems with­ering away, a sur­prising cre­ativity appears, a kind of mys­tical bal­ancing act. The world’s spir­i­tual tra­di­tions are entering into deeply engaged con­ver­sa­tions through which the riches of each are ignited in new ways. With The Salmon in the Spring, Jason Kirkey has boldly carved out his place in this exciting work with his orig­inal inter­pre­ta­tions of the con­cepts and sto­ries of ancient Ireland . . . Kirkey’s vision speaks directly to our present eco­log­ical chal­lenge. Rejecting those nature-​​denying forms of spir­i­tu­ality that have been used too easily to jus­tify our domes­ti­ca­tion of the planet, The Salmon in the Spring announces its thrilling spir­i­tual foun­da­tion: “Our wild nature is our soul.” —Brian Swimme, California Institute of Integral Studies More Info »

Part of the Courting the Wild Anthology Series. “Do you remember the first time you feel in love? Within these pages you will find love sto­ries, rap­turous love affairs with the land, shame­less seduc­tions, betrothals, vows exchanged, mar­riages of the soul, heartaches, part­ings, heal­ings, and renewals. The authors are the courters and the courted . . . Their land­scape para­mours embrace them and they grow forth from within.” More Info »

The Ballad of the Sea-​​Sweet Moon tells the story of a mythic encounter with the divine fem­i­nine and how it shakes and shapes the life of one man, set­ting his heart ablaze. In their poetic and tantric love-​​making, cities and struc­tures of con­scious­ness will fall, ulti­mately making room for a new way of being in the world. This col­lec­tion also includes a newly edited ver­sion of the chap­book September Seeing and sev­eral never before seen poems. More Info »