Vaughan-Lee Llewellyn (editor) - Spiritual ecology : the cry of the earth, a collection of essays

Humanity is in the process of evolving to a higher level of consciousness. Our time has come. Over our short and violent history, humanity has traveled a long way down the wrong path. We desperately need to find our way back home before we are forever lost. To make this shift, all who are alive today must learn to live in harmony with the Earth. This book carries urgently needed messages for everyone on the planet. I know this because I have witnessed how damaging human impact is on natural ecosystem function and how little time we have left to change this. It is our choice and it is our responsibility to act with courage and wisdom. Spiritual Ecology is helping to lead the transition by amplifying the Earths voice that we so badly need to hear.

JOHN D. LIU, director Environmental Education Media Project, senior research fellow IUCN, and visiting fellow Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences at Vrije University, Amsterdam

This book takes us beyondthough not aroundthe grief and despair that the ecological crisis evokes. Herein lies an authentic possibility of healing through a transformation in our own ways of knowing, relating, and being.

CHARLES EISENSTEIN, author Sacred Economics and The Ascent of Humanity

This book is a call to action. It requires us to put down everyday concerns that preoccupy our minds and listen with our hearts to the testaments of how desperately the earth needs us. At every moment, our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being are nurtured by the earth and yet, we are indifferent to this fact as we go about our way pursuing material success. This book is a timely reminder that we must find balance in our lives and give to others as much as we receive from the earth. We must develop compassion for all the living beings that suffer even as we benefit and we must generate courage to make a change in our own behavior. I thank the authors in the book for reinforcing my commitment to protect the earth as much as is in my power.

HIS HOLINESS THE 17TH KARMAPA, OGYEN TRINLEY DORJE

In many voices, Spiritual Ecology speaks a profound and essential truth, inspiring us all to listen to the cry, deepen our personal reflection, and expand the circle of conversation about our connection with Earth and with each other. Our human future depends on recognizing and embracing Earth as a sacred living being, our birth mother, the source of our nurture, and beyond price.

DAVID KORTEN, author The Great Turning and Agenda for a New Economy, and co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee has assembled a gem of a book reflecting the bright inner light from a pantheon of our most luminary visionaries working to heal the Earth, and with it, ourselves. Spiritual Ecology elegantly repairs the most fundamental systems error in our relationship with the Earth: the celebration of the sacredness and oneness of all life. For millennia, prophets, mystics and poets have spoken about the oneness of all life. Today biology is confirming that belief with the most basic genetic fact of life: As human beings, we are literally kin with the entire diversity of life, from the microbes to the mammals. This book is a must-read and will elevate your spirit, expand your vision, and nourish your heart.

KENNY AUSUBEL, co-founder of Bioneers and author Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature

Like life herself, she thrums with the sounds of natureand this book left me thrumming too. Our natural state is as one when we accord with natures own laws and when we align our being with nature; that is where we find peace. This book is a step in that journey for us all to find peace.

POLLY HIGGINS, advocate for Earth Law, award-winning author Eradicating Ecocide and Earth is our Business, ecologist and voice for the Earth

What ails us is deeper than whats easily measurable by economics or science. Spiritual Ecology is a collection of profound writings by some of the wisest among us about the depths of the crisis and the wellsprings of redemption.

DAVID W. ORR, Oberlin College, author Earth in Mind, and founder The Oberlin Project

The collection of essays of renowned spokespeople have a sort of magical property that is a basic call to consciousness of our relationship to our Mother Earth. The messages reflect almost a supernatural quality through the shared knowledge, wisdom and ancient teachings about the importance of the sacred including our place as human beings of which we are only a small part in the cycle of life.

MONA POLACCA, M.S.W., International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and co-secretariat Indigenous World Forum on Water & Peace

This wonderful anthology of concise but profound essays by scholars and practitioners who are among the foremost pioneers in spiritual ecology ranges widely from African to Zen spiritual traditions as it addresses the ultimate cause of environmental problems from the local to the global levels. That cause is human alienation from nature as nothing but soulless matter for objectification, commodification, and consumption. The ultimate solution is no less than a spiritual re-discovery, re-feeling, and re-connecting with nature as sacred. This skillfully crafted book will prove compelling in its penetrating knowledge and wisdom for university instructors and students from the natural sciences to the humanities, religious and secular professionals, and the general public.

DR. LESLIE E. SPONSEL, author Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution, www.spiritualecology.info

The environmental crisis is inseparable from the spiritual crisis that exists within the soul of most modern and now post-modern men and women and is in fact an objectivization of this primarily inward crisis. The present volume consists of precious collection of essays by some of the most notable authorities in the field about the essentially spiritual character of the environmental crisis. May the cry of the earth which they describe so vividly in this book be heard far and wide by those who still have ears to hear the truth.

SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR, University Professor of Islamic Studies George Washington University, author Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man

This magnificent collection of essays by many of the most respected and prominent voices in the global ecological movement is a rich source of energy, hope and delight in a time when so many of us are overwhelmed by the problems of the planet. They remind us anew of the responsibilities we share, the ideals we must live by, and the ancient and timeless wisdom of the spiritual traditions of all cultures everywhere. This is a book to treasure, to meditate on and to live by.

TOM CHEETHAM, author All the World an Icon

The path that we have chosen of greed, destruction, ignorance, and disconnection from ourselves, one another and the earth has thrown us into a battle for our lives and for our future. The call for action that is expressed in this book gives us the guidance, the inspiration, and motivation that it will take to change the fundamental beliefs of our entire society to create a new world of oneness and peace. One of the most inspirational books of our time, not only a book, but a tool to reconnect with ourselves and the earth! Read it and live it! The survival of mine and future generations depends on it!