Whether as an adolescent studying at a seminary or as a journalist living just outside Philadelphia's city limits, Gene has always lived and worked close to the woods, and his curiosity and keen sense of observation have taught him valuable lessons about a wide variety of trees: their distinct characteristics and the multiple benefits and uses they have. In addition to imparting many fascinating practical details of woods wisdom, A Sanctuary of Trees is infused with a philosophy and descriptive lyricism that is born from the author's passionate and lifelong relationship with nature:There is a point at which the tree shudders before it begins its descent. Then slowly it tips, picks up speed, often with a kind of wailing death cry from rending wood fibers, and hits the ground with a whump that literally shakes the earth underfoot. The air, in the aftermath, seems to shimmy and shiver, as if saturated with static electricity.

Discover the profound inspiration of the wild places. Author Cliff Seruntine and his family have lived their lives in the wilderness—homesteading, hunting, gathering, and treading lightly on the land while honoring its spirits. Let Cliff's graceful pen lead you to a deeper understanding of nature's magic as he shows you practical bushcraft skills and shares true stories of the sacred and enchanted to be found in the untamed natural world. In these pages you will read tales of bear and deer, of towering maples and mysterious brooks, of the spirit forces to be found outdoors. The best way to come to know nature is to become part of its adventure, so Cliff teaches traditional skills like wild food foraging and tracking as well as spiritual skills such as the ancient spirit journey. Blending the perspectives of a true naturalist with the depths of the shaman, Cliff Seruntine is a seasoned guide for your journey into The Wildwood Way.

Offers practical advice on outdoor clothing, packs, sleeping bags, shelters, fire making, use of the ax, outdoor sanitation, camp cookery, edible plants, canoeing and trailcraft.

Here, published for the first time in the United States, is the last book by Roger Deakin, famed British nature writer and icon of the environmentalist movement. In Deakin's glorious meditation on wood, the "fifth element" -- as it exists in nature, in our culture, and in our souls -- the reader accompanies Deakin through the woods of Britain, Europe, Kazakhstan, and Australia in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with trees. Deakin lives in forest shacks, goes "coppicing" in Suffolk, swims beneath the walnut trees of the Haut-Languedoc, and hunts bushplums with Aboriginal women in the outback. Along the way, he ferrets out the mysteries of woods, detailing the life stories of the timber beams composing his Elizabethan house and searching for the origin of the apple. As the world's forests are whittled away, Deakin's sparkling prose evokes woodlands anarchic with life, rendering each tree as an individual, living being. At once a traveler's tale and a splendid work of natural history, Wildwood reveals, amid the world's marvelous diversity, that which is universal in human experience.