Soul Wilderness

"Linda and I are fortunate to live near the western mountains of British Columbia, which contain some of the last wilderness areas in North America outside of the arctic. This is an area that supports grizzly bears and wolverines, where salmon run wild and the wolves and mountain goats roam through areas that have not changed since the arrival of Europeans to North America. This book is a look at those wilderness areas: their beauty, their essence, their soul." --John Baldwin In this modern world, where it is estimated that three quarters of the earth's ice-free land mass has been altered by humans, how many people have ever been somewhere they could truly experience pristine wilderness? Few mountain ranges in the world are as wild or beautiful as BC and Alaska's Coast Mountains. From remote fjords to soaring summits, North America's westernmost mountains offer innumerable challenges and sublime delights. And yet they remain relatively unexplored. Partners, co-authors and photographers John Baldwin and Linda Bily have ventured into the magical landscapes of the Coast Mountains. Travelling by foot and ski, their goal was simply to experience and document as much of these remote places as possible--to wander across the high meadows, ski from mountain tops and revel in the artful patterns of new-fallen snow. This stunning coffee-table book is sure to inspire readers to discover and connect with the intense beauty of this mountain wilderness.

This powerful book draws on the tradition of the prophet emerging from the wasteland to help waken the mystic within each of us, guide our modern spiritual journey into our own inner desert, and there to have a direct experience of God.

We live in times of quiet desperation. As our culture removes itself from the natural world, we have lost the truth of who we are. Could Wilderness be our only hope? Come along on a spiritual journey, away from a chaotic world of details, obligations, smartphones and noisy machines, to a place that is unspoiled, untamed, and free. Mostly solo, Stillman guides us into the heart of American Wilderness where we uncover timeless wisdom, ancient magic, and a Gateway to the Soul. Could our truth be hidden deep in the cracks and fissures of the Earth? You'll adore this love letter to Mother Earth because it captures the essence of what wilderness and solitude can offer to the human soul. It's hard to put down. Get it now.

Winner of the 2022 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award * Winner of the 2022 Science in Society Journalism Award (Books) * Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize “Thoughtful, insightful, and wise, Wild Souls is a landmark work.”--Ed Yong, author of An Immense World "Fascinating . . . hands-on philosophy, put to test in the real world . . . Marris believes that our idea of wildness--our obsession with purity--is misguided. No animal remains untouched by human hands . . . the science isn't the hard part. The real challenge is the ethics, the act of imagining our appropriate place in that world." --Outside Magazine From an acclaimed environmental writer, a groundbreaking and provocative new vision for our relationships with--and responsibilities toward--the planet's wild animals. Protecting wild animals and preserving the environment are two ideals so seemingly compatible as to be almost inseparable. But in fact, between animal welfare and conservation science there exists a space of underexamined and unresolved tension: wildness itself. When is it right to capture or feed wild animals for the good of their species? How do we balance the rights of introduced species with those already established within an ecosystem? Can hunting be ecological? Are any animals truly wild on a planet that humans have so thoroughly changed? No clear guidelines yet exist to help us resolve such questions. Transporting readers into the field with scientists tackling these profound challenges, Emma Marris tells the affecting and inspiring stories of animals around the globe--from Peruvian monkeys to Australian bilbies, rare Hawai'ian birds to majestic Oregon wolves. And she offers a companionable tour of the philosophical ideas that may steer our search for sustainability and justice in the non-human world. Revealing just how intertwined animal life and human life really are, Wild Souls will change the way we think about nature-and our place within it.

Soul initiation is an essential spiritual adventure that most of the world has forgotten — or not yet discovered. Here, visionary ecopsychologist Bill Plotkin maps this journey, one that has not been previously illuminated in the contemporary Western world and yet is vital for the future of our species and our planet. Based on the experiences of thousands of people, this book provides phase-by-phase guidance for the descent to soul — the dissolution of current identity; the encounter with the mythopoetic mysteries of soul; and the metamorphosis of the ego into a cocreator of life-enhancing culture. Plotkin illustrates each phase of this riveting and sometimes hazardous odyssey with fascinating stories from many people, including those he has guided. Throughout he weaves an in-depth exploration of Carl Jung's Red Book — and an innovative framework for understanding it.

Struggling in the wilderness is often the way that God leads us into spiritual growth, power, and intimacy with himself.

The ancient Israelite authors of the Hebrew Bible were not philosophers, so what they could not say about God in logical terms, they expressed through metaphor and imagery. To present God in His most impenetrable otherness, the image they chose was the desert. The desert was Ancient Israels southern frontier, an unknown region that was always elsewhere: from that elsewhere, God has come -- God came from the South (Hab 3:3); God, when you marched from the desert (Ps 68:8); from his southland mountain slopes (Deut 33:2). Robert Miller explores this imagery, shedding light on what the biblical authors meant by associating God with deserts to the south of Israel and Judah. Biblical authors knew of its climate, flora, and fauna, and understood this magnificent desert landscape as a fascinating place of literary paradox. This divine desert was far from lifeless, its plants and animals were tenacious, bizarre, fierce, even supernatural. The spiritual importance of the desert in a biblical context begins with the physical elements whose impact cognitive science can elucidate. Travellers and naturalists of the past two millennia have experienced this and other wildernesses, and their testimonies provide a window into Israel's experience of the desert. A prime focus is the existential experience encountered. Confronting the desert's enigmatic wildness, its melding of the known and unknown, leads naturally to spiritual experience. The books panoramic view of biblical spirituality of the desert is illustrated by the ways spiritual writers -- from Biblical Times to the Desert Fathers to German Mysticism -- have employed the images therefrom. Revelation and renewal are just two of many themes. Folklore of the Ancient Near East, and indeed elsewhere, that deals with the desert / wilderness archetype has been explored via Jungian psychology, Goethean Science, enunciative linguistics, and Hebrew philology. These philosophies contribute to this exploration of the Hebrew Bible's desert metaphor for God.

In 1952 two men from entirely different cultures met: one from a white background, the other a Zulu. This book tells of their work in the Mfolozi Game Reserve protecting animals and the environment, and of their growing mutual respect.'