As we witness the daily destruction of forests, a sadness afflicts the roots of the soul. This book by the psychologist and ecologist Michael Pearlman is the first to connect trees' symbolism with the personal meaning of their beauty-and their loss in hurricanes, forest fires, clear-cut timberlands, and wars. Perlman goes beyond the psychological interpretations of trees in myths and fairy tales. Rather, like Studs Terkel, he interviews and reports what actual people think and feel about the trees they know. Their words resonate alongside the trees of mythology, literature, poetry, and psychoanalysis: Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Mari Evans, Homer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, C.G. Jung, Aldo Leopold, Carson McCullers, Toni Morrison, Tim O'Brien, Rainer Maria Rilke, Harold Searles, J.R.R. Tolkien, Michel Tournier, and Walt Whitman

Through psychological interviews with a variety of individuals (including residents of South Florida after Hurricane Andrew), and a loving attention paid to trees encountered in literature and mythology, Perlman explores the shaping effects of trees on consciousness, culture, and ecological concern.

"I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive" (Isa 41:19). This book explores pathways to renewal through the powerful metaphor of reforesting the desert places. The soul can sometimes be an arid, thirsty, desiccated place, becoming as exhausted and denuded as land that has been ravaged and stripped of its trees. God's promise is to reforest the wilderness and renew our fruitfulness. This book is a guided retreat, simultaneously enabling attentiveness to the soul while resonating with urgent ecological concerns. The rich symbolism of different trees both in the Bible and in the Christian tradition, including hymnody and poetry, leads us into meditation, reflection, and action. As land that is reforested holds the promise of new beginnings, so this book heartens us with pointers towards spiritual rejuvenation.

“[An] acute and powerful vision . . . offers a renaissance of humane values.”—Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life Plato called it “daimon,” the Romans “genius,” the Christians “guardian angel”; today we use such terms as “heart,” “spirit,” and “soul.” While philosophers and psychologists from Plato to Jung have studied and debated the fundamental essence of our individuality, our modern culture refuses to accept that a unique soul guides each of us from birth, shaping the course of our lives. In this extraordinary bestseller, James Hillman presents a brilliant vision of our selves, and an exciting approach to the mystery at the center of every life that asks, “What is it, in my heart, that I must do, be, and have? And why?” Drawing on the biographies of figures such as Ella Fitzgerald and Mohandas K. Gandhi, Hillman argues that character is fate, that there is more to each individual than can be explained by genetics and environment. The result is a reasoned and powerful road map to understanding our true nature and discovering an eye-opening array of choices—from the way we raise our children to our career paths to our social and personal commitments to achieving excellence in our time. Praise for The Soul’s Code “Champions a glorious sort of rugged individualism that, with the help of an inner daimon (or guardian angel), can triumph against all odds.”—The Washington Post Book World “[A] brilliant, absorbing work . . . Hillman dares us to believe that we are each meant to be here, that we are needed by the world around us.”—Publishers Weekly

The Fantasy Principle makes a strong case for a new school of psychoanalysis - the school of 'imaginal psychology'. It radically affirms the centrality of imagination and emphasizes the transformative impact of images.

Forestry has been witness to some dramatic changes in recent years, with several Western countries now moving away from the traditional model of regarding forests merely as sources of wood. Rather these countries are increasingly recognizing their forests as multi-purpose resources with roles which go far beyond simple economics. In this innovative book, Sylvie Nail uses England as a case study to explore the relationships between forests, society and public perceptions, raising important questions about forest policy and management both now and in the future. Adopting a sociological approach to forest policy and management, the book discusses the current validity of the two principles underlying forestry since the Middle Ages: first, that forestry should only exist when no better use of the land can be made, and second, that forestry itself should be profitable. The author stresses how values and perceptions shape policies, and conversely how policies can modify perceptions, and also how policies can fail if they do not take perceptions into account. She concludes that many of the issues facing English forestry in the 21st century – from leisure, health and amenity provision, through education and rural as well as urban regeneration, to biodiversity conservation – go well beyond both national borders and the scope of forestry. Indeed forestry in the 21st century seems to be less about planting and managing trees than about being a vector and a mirror of social change. This novel synthesis provides a valuable resource for advanced students and researchers from all areas of natural resource studies, including those interested in social history, socio-economics, cultural geography and environmental psychology, as well as those studying landscape ecology, environmental history, policy analysis and natural resource management.

Mountaineers, Rock Climbers, and Science Educators Around the 1920s, rock climbing separated from mountaineering to become a separate sport. At that time European climbers developed new equipment and techniques, enabling them to ascend mountain faces and to climb rocks, which were considered unassailable up to that time. American climbers went further by expanding and improving on the equipment. They even developed a system of quantification where points were given for the degree of difficulty of an ascent. This system focused primarily on the pitch of the mountain, and it even calculated up to de- mals to give a high degree of quantification. Rock climbing became a technical system. Csikszentmihaly (1976) observed that the sole interest of rock climbers at that time was to climb the rock. Rock climbers were known to reach the top and not even glance around at the scenery. The focus was on reaching the top of the rock. In contrast, mountaineers saw the whole mountain as a single “unit of perc- tion. ” “The ascent (to them) is a gestalt including the aesthetic, historical, personal and physical sensations” (Csikszentmihaly, 1976, p. 486). This is an example of two contrasting approaches to the same kind of landscape and of two different groups of people. Interestingly, in the US, Europe, and Japan a large segment of the early rock climbers were young mathematicians and theoretical physicists, while the mountaineers were a more varied lot.

An exploration of the Green Belt conservation project between the former East and West Germanies and its relationship to emergent ecosystems, trauma, and memorialization. The first book-length scholarly treatment of Germany’s largest conservation project, the Green Belt, Mnemonic Ecologies by Sonja Pieck presents a new interdisciplinary approach: that effective restoration and conservation of wounded land must merge ecology with memory. Since the Cold War’s end in 1989, German conservationists have transformed the once-militarized border between East and West Germany into an extensive protected area. Yet as forests, meadows, and wetlands replace fences, minefields, and guard towers, ecological recovery must reckon with the pain of the borderlands’ brutal past. The lessons gained by conservationists here, Pieck argues, have profound practical and ethical implications far beyond Germany. Can conservation help heal both ecological and societal wounds? How might conservation honor difficult socioecological pasts? Deeply researched and evocatively written, this beautiful, interdisciplinary investigation into the legacy of war and nature’s resurgence blends environmental history, ethics, geography, and politics with ecology and memory studies. Amid our rampant biodiversity crisis, Mnemonic Ecologies shows why conservation must include humanized landscapes in its purview, thus helping to craft a new conservation ethos that is collaborative, empathetic, and more sensitive to the connections between humans and the places they inhabit.

This book takes on that challenge and proposes a reenvisioned ecopsychology.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH The second edition of Environmental Health: From Global to Local, a comprehensive introductory text, offers an overview of the methodology and paradigms of this burgeoning field, ranging from ecology to epidemiology, from toxicology to environmental psychology, and from genetics to ethics. Expert contributors discuss the major issues in contemporary environmental health: air, water, food safety, occupational health, radiation, chemical and physical hazards, vector control, and injuries. Also emphasizing a wide variety of issues of global interest, the thoroughly revised second edition contains updated information on such timely topics as toxicology, exposure assessment, climate change, population pressure, developing nations and urbanization, energy production, building and community design, solid and hazardous waste, and disaster preparedness. In addition, each chapter of Environmental Health includes learning objectives, key points, and discussion questions. Praise for the first edition of Environmental Health "A classic textbook for the dynamic, evolving field of environmental health, thoughtful, well written, well balanced and referenced. An excellent overview of a multifaceted approach to environmental health." AOEC Newsletter (Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics) "With its many examples, clear explanations, and emphasis on big picture themes and relevance, it is an astonishingly interesting read." Global Public Health "The book's chapters contain highly pertinent insights and information on environmental issues that go beyond the usual boundaries of classic environmental health." Environmental Health Perspectives Winner, AAP Award for Excellence in Professional and Scholarly Publishing