The angry grizzly and the cuddly teddy: few animals possess such a range of personas as the bear. Here, Robert Bieder surveys the wealth of imagery, myths, and stories that surrounds the bear. Beginning with the dawn bear, the small dog-sized ancestor of all bears who hails from 25 million years ago, Bieder embarks on a fascinating exploration of the evolutionary history of the bear family, from extinct species such as the cave bear and giant short-faced bear to the mere eight species that survive today. Bear draws on cultural material from around the world to examine the various legends and myths surrounding the bear, including ceremonies and taboos that govern the hunting, killing, and eating of bears. The book also looks at the role of bears in modern culture as the subjects of stories, songs, and films; as exhibited objects in circuses and zoos; and, perhaps most famously, as toys. Bieder also considers the precarious future of the bear as it is threatened by loss of habitat, poaching, global warming, and disease and discusses the impact of human behavior on bears and their environments. Accompanied by numerous vibrant photographs and illustrations, and written in an engaging fashion, Bear is an appealing and informative volume for anyone who has curled up with Winnie-the-Pooh or marveled at this powerful king of the forest.

FIELD & STREAM, America’s largest outdoor sports magazine, celebrates the outdoor experience with great stories, compelling photography, and sound advice while honoring the traditions hunters and fishermen have passed down for generations.

FIELD & STREAM, America’s largest outdoor sports magazine, celebrates the outdoor experience with great stories, compelling photography, and sound advice while honoring the traditions hunters and fishermen have passed down for generations.

In what may be his boldest and most controversial book, Paul Shepard presents an account of human behavior and ecology in light of our past. In it, he contends that agriculture is responsible for our ecological decline and looks to the hunting and gathering lifestyle as a model more closely in tune with our essential nature. Shepard advocates affirming the profound and beautiful nature of the hunter and gatherer, redefining agriculture and combining technology with hunting and gathering to recover a livable environment and peaceful society.

Ecotone: Wayfaring on the Margins, a personal history of place, is written from the perspective of a teacher, naturalist, and feminist and uses the metaphor of the biological ecotone as the boundary where inner and outer landscapes of the woman/nature continuum meet. In this book, Krall proposes a counter-narrative to the usual reading of marginality. In autobiographical narrative that rings with experience, she describes margins as rich as dynamic abodes, places of crossing over and transition as well as spaces of separation and alienation. In reinterpreting journeys and encounters, she maps the shared terrain of the personal, social, and natural fields of our lives. She draws upon Native American sensibilities about place, relationship, and the sacred, in order to deepen our understanding of human/nature bonds, to more fully develop respect and responsibility to others, and to heal the rifts that sometimes set humans at odds with other humans and non-human creatures and threaten life on earth.

Meetings with remarkable activists since the 1960s American social change movements dominated the 1960s and 1970s, an era brought about and influenced not by a handful of celebrity activists but by people who cared. These history makers together transformed the political and spiritual landscape of America and laid the foundation for many of the social movements that exist today. Through a series of 43 vignettes—tight biographical sketches of the characters and intimate memories of her personal encounters with them—the author creates a collective portrait of the rebels, artists, radicals, and thinkers who through word and action raised many of the issues of justice, the environment, feminism, and colonialism that we are now familiar with. From Berkeley to Bolivia, from New York to New Mexico, a complex, multi-layered radical history unfolds through the stories and lives of the characters. From Marty Schiffenhauer, who fought through the first rent-control law in the United States, to Ponderosa Pine, who started the All-Species Parade and never wore shoes, to Dan and Patricia Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers and became life-long anti-war and antinuclear activists, the portraits bring out some of the vibrant, irreverent energy, the unswerving commitment, and the passion for life of these generations of activists. In our present moment, as many people find themselves in the streets protesting for the first time in their lives, In the Company of Rebels makes the connection to this relatively recent rebellious era. As the author comments on her own twenty-year old self, sitting at the counter of Cody’s Books in Berkeley in the early 1970s, thrilled about the times but oblivious of the work that came before: “I didn’t know anything about this courageous and colorful past. But now I know.”

Vivid and provocative images of the Great Goddess throughout the centuries and from around the world--an outstanding gift for the art collector, history enthusiast, or anyone interested in women's spirituality. Three 8-page color inserts, 196 photos, 65 drawings.

An experiential guide to the wisdom preserved in Europe’s far north • Includes shamanic journeys to connect with deities and your ancestral shamans • Provides step-by-step instructions to prepare for and conduct a seiðr ceremony • Draws on archaeological evidence and surviving written records from Iceland • Reveals the long tradition of female shamans in northern European shamanism Shamanism is humanity’s oldest spiritual tradition. In much of the Western world, the indigenous pre-Christian spiritual practices have been lost. Yet at the northern fringes of Europe, Christianity did not displace the original shamanic practices until the end of the Viking age. Remnants of Norse shamanic spirituality have survived in myths, folk traditions, and written records from Iceland, providing many clues about the ancient European shaman’s world, especially when examined in conjunction with other shamanic cultures in northern Eurasia, such as the Sami and the tribes of Siberia. Reconstructing the shamanic practices of the hunter-gatherers of Scandinavia, Evelyn Rysdyk explores the evolution of Norse shamanism from its earliest female roots to the pre-Christian Viking Age. She explains how to enter Yggdrasil, the World Tree, to travel to other realms and provides shamanic journeys to connect with the ancestral shamans of your family tree, including the Norse goddess Freyja, the very first shaman. She offers exercises to connect with the ancient goddesses of fate, the Norns, and introduces the overnight wilderness quest of útiseta for reconnecting with the powers of nature. She explains the key concepts of Ørlög and Wyrd--the two most powerful forces that shape human lives--and provides exercises for letting go of harmful behavior patterns and transforming simple knowledge into profound wisdom by connecting with Óðinn. Thoroughly examining the shamanic rituals of seiðr, the oracular magic of the Nordic cultures, the author provides step-by-step instructions to prepare for and conduct a seiðr ceremony, including creating your own seiðr staff and hood, and explores the ancestral use of shamanic songs or varðlokur to accompany the ceremony. Woven throughout these exercises, Rysdyk provides archaeological evidence from Neolithic sites supporting the long tradition of venerating wise women, grandmothers, and mothers in ancient cultures and the important role of female shamans at the heart of northern European shamanism. Providing an accessible guide for anyone trying to fulfill their shamanic callings, these powerful rituals can provide personal healing and a clear path for finding our way into a harmonious relationship with the natural world.

INSIDE ISSUE #90 November/December 2011: ET PRESENCE: Indians & Aliens GREATER DIMENSIONS: Return Engagements The Paraffin Mold Experiments The Brownings and the Medium Did Ancient Shamans Know Secrets of the Wave? When Three Is a Charm Dating the Oldest Cut Marks on Bone NEW AGE ADVENTURE: The Perilous Plight of Rockall Island Mysteries in the Fields