Toward Environmental Wholeness proposes a new understanding of environmental wholeness that is needed to address the ethical challenges posed by environmental and climate crises. Relying on the studies of numerous historians, Patrick H. Byrne traces the complex developments in environmental and climate change sciences and how they have posed complex ethical challenges. Drawing upon the thought of Bernard Lonergan, he shows how seemingly contradictory contributions from diverse ethical traditions can be brought together into a framework for responding to what the developing sciences are telling us about our current situation and evaluating our realistic options. Byrne reveals how the limitations of a utilitarian approach to environmental ethics had to be expanded into more holistic approaches and the difficulties those approaches encountered—especially the Romantic notions of a pristine, unchanging nature to be preserved and humans as alien. Environmental and climate change sciences have revealed the complex, dynamic natural and human systems that now call for a more dynamic vision of the whole as the basis for environmental ethics. The book also examines how the initiatives of Pope Francis' Laudato si' and the United Nations' Strategic Development Goals are responding to these challenges.

Stephen Greggo presents a resource for trained leaders of ministry care groups in a variety of church-related contexts. Its purpose is to assist group leaders in facilitating the development of healing, transforming relationships in the group setting.

As we embark into the 21st century, we need to address new challenges ranging from population growth, climate change, and depletion of natural resources to providing better health care, food security and peace to humankind, while at the same time protecting natural ecosystems that provide the services which allow life to flourish on Earth. To meet those challenges, profound changes are required in the way that societies conduct their everyday affairs, ways that will lead to better preservation, protection and sustainable management of natural resources with long lasting impacts. The aim of CleanWAS 2016 is to provide productive opportunities for academics and practitioners from interdisciplinary fields of Environmental Sciences to meet, share and bring expertise and ideas in related disciplines. The CleanWAS conference was first organized in the year 2012. It is an annual event organised by the International Water, Air and Soil Conservation society (INWASCON) and is supported by various Malaysian (UKM, UMS, UIAM) and Chinese universities (CUG, NKU, SYSU).

The idea behind The Unity of Nature is a strong theoretical theme in a number of scientific and environmental fields from ecosystems ecology, through quantum physics to environmental philosophy and ecopolitics giving rise to an inspiring, optimistic, socially-responsive and environment-friendly worldview. The fields of science and environmentalism have inherited this theme of natural unity through an intellectual lineage that encompasses many non-scientific and non-environmental fields such as sociology, theology and political philosophy. Many of these fields have used natural unity in a way which is in stark opposition to the metaphysical and political desires of those who promulgate the unity of nature for progressive social change.This book discusses how this has transpired and examines the social and intellectual processes that have been at work. These include the social construction of the Organicism versus Mechanicism debate in ecology, the intellectual links between neo-classical economic principles and the ‘New Sciences’, the techno-scientific background of Gaia theory, and the social conservatism of ecological functionalism.

In 1970, as a young marine biologist, Clarence Hickey won a position on the staff of the New York State Ocean Sciences Laboratory, Montauk, NY. For the next five years he was involved in landmark studies of Long Island's then-thriving fisheries. He developed deep bonds with the Baymen and ocean fishers who called the East End of Long Island home, and worked closely with them as he and the Ocean Sciences Lab studied the habits and prospects of more than one hundred species of fish and shellfish that call Long Island home — or visit our waters on a regular basis. This is his loving, anguished memoir of those years, replete with vivid portraits of the traditional fishers and scientists he worked with, their habits and discoveries, and their history-suffused community. Like their brethren to the north and south on the East Coast, Long Island's "Bonacker" fishing community represents a long and colorful tradition celebrated most famously in Peter Mattheissen's classic Men's Lives. Hickey's memoir is an elegiac complement to that book. Perhaps more important, Hickey calls for our deep attention to the destruction — in less than a generation — of a crucial natural resource. The contrast between Clarence's years on the East End and today is stark and disturbing. Over the last forty years he has revisited his beloved East End regularly, and watched with alarm as our ecosystem — and it's community — has declined. On the East End is Clarence Hickey's clarion call for us to preserve and revive the natural community he fell in love with when he was young. A publication of the Long Island Nature Organization.

Offering a unique perspective on the Enneagram, Essential Wholeness describes the how human beings grow and evolve from biological, psychological, cultural, mythological and spiritual perspectives. It reveals the underlying patterns that inform these diverse disciplines and provides therapists, coaches and self-helpers an effective guide for therapeutic change and spiritual awakening. Advance Praise for Essential Wholeness Both profound and practical, this book integrates cutting edge neuroscience, esoteric wisdom, a heartfelt appreciation of the natural world, and powerfully effective psychological methods. It's genuinely brilliant. Rick Hanson, Ph.D., author of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom Eric Lyleson has written a beautiful and helpful book on living life as a journey of awakening. I highly recommend it! Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D. author of The Courage to Love Essential Wholeness provides a blueprint for understanding and working with the complexity of human nature and behavior. It is an inspiring and valuable resource for therapists and anyone interested in the dynamics of personal transformation. Peter Chown, Psychologist. Consultant, NSW Centre for Advancement of Adolescent Health; Specialist Consultant, Adolescent Health, World Health Organization Eric somehow manages to distil a lifetime of experience, spiritual practice, and psychological learning into a very accessible, comprehensive model of human psychology and behavior. Not since Ken Wilber have I read such a concise and useful synthesis of psychology, spirituality, and ecology. I find it incredibly useful in my work as a therapist and as a guide on my own spiritual journey. Richard Chambers, PhD, Clinical Psychologist Co- author of Mindful Learning

Life Takes Place argues that, even in our mobile, hypermodern world, human life is impossible without place. Seamon asks the question: why does life take place? He draws on examples of specific places and place experiences to understand place more broadly. Advocating for a holistic way of understanding that he calls "synergistic relationality," Seamon defines places as spatial fields that gather, activate, sustain, identify, and interconnect things, human beings, experiences, meanings, and events. Throughout his phenomenological explication, Seamon recognizes that places are multivalent in their constitution and sophisticated in their dynamics. Drawing on British philosopher J. G. Bennett’s method of progressive approximation, he considers place and place experience in terms of their holistic, dialectical, and processual dimensions. Recognizing that places always change over time, Seamon examines their processual dimension by identifying six generative processes that he labels interaction, identity, release, realization, intensification, and creation. Drawing on practical examples from architecture, planning, and urban design, he argues that an understanding of these six place processes might contribute to a more rigorous place making that produces robust places and propels vibrant environmental experiences. This book is a significant contribution to the growing research literature in "place and place making studies."

Whether social, cultural, or individual, the act of imagination always derives from a pre-existing context. For example, we can conjure an alien's scream from previously heard wildlife recordings or mentally rehearse a piece of music while waiting for a train. This process is no less true for the role of imagination in sonic events and artifacts. Many existing works on sonic imagination tend to discuss musical imagination through terms like compositional creativity or performance technique. In this two-volume Handbook, contributors shift the focus of imagination away from the visual by addressing the topic of sonic imagination and expanding the field beyond musical compositional creativity and performance technique into other aural arenas where the imagination holds similar power. Topics covered include auditory imagery and the neurology of sonic imagination; aural hallucination and illusion; use of metaphor in the recording studio; the projection of acoustic imagination in architectural design; and the design of sound artifacts for cinema and computer games.

Environmental Justice as Social Work Practice places the natural environment as central to practice. Utilizing the Phases of Practice and micro to macro levels of practice, the book integrates neatly into a college semester course. Chapters cover important components of social work such as theory, ethics, conceptual foundations as well as distinct chapters on micro, mezzo, and macro practice. Each chapter expands the discipline's commitment to and applied efforts in the environmental movement while recognizing the unique contributions social work has to offer to ameliorate environmental inequities. Chapters include real-world stories from environmental social work practitioners, case studies, and boxed sections highlighting organizations and people who bridge the human and natural justice divide. Each chapter concludes with learning activities and critical thinking questions providing learning activities that map easily to a course syllabus. A matrix identifying the placement of educational competencies from the Council on Social Work Education is included. The textbook provides a framework for social work educators to bravely and competently teach environmental social work as a stand-alone college course or to incorporate into a traditional practice course.

This volume, Mother Earth, Mother Africa: World Religions and Environmental Imagination, explores the interface of religio-cultural traditions and ecological conservation practices in different African contexts. The authors also reflect on the entwinement between the violation of women’s rights and the degradation of the Earth which is usually described using feminine terms, hence the designation, “Mother Earth.” The three major religious traditions in Africa – Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religions (ATR) – are the lenses through which the authors discuss the interconnections between religion, culture and ecological traditions. Peering through African eco-feminist, gender justice and gender inclusive lenses, the authors foreground the importance of tapping into Africa’s rich religio-cultural resources as vital tools that can be utilised to address the ravaging ecological crisis.