Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"Captivating, mesmerising, and manages to capture so beautifully our true relationship with the natural world." Ben Goldsmith
James Thornton is a lawyer whose client is the Earth. He visits his client. It speaks to him. In Nature, My Teacher he passes on some of those teachings.
Presented in twelve books, each a sequence of intimate essays, James investigates the nature of human consciousness. What is memory? How do you summon compassion? How do we care for ourselves? Answers reveal themselves all around us.
As a Zen priest, James knows that people are part of the natural world. It impacts us with its beauty, and we quake when it is hurt. This book ripples with that beauty, and also gazes steadily at climate anxiety. James is clear-sighted. We are right to be troubled by ecological collapse, but there are ways to save ourselves and save the world.
This is a fierce and tender study of how to be alive in a world that is under threat.
Synopsis
"Powerful and moving. Make this book your friend." - Arianna Huffington
James Thornton is a lawyer whose client is the Earth. He visits his client. It speaks to him. In Nature, My Teacher he passes on some of those teachings.
Presented in twelve books, each a sequence of intimate essays, James investigates the nature of human consciousness. What is memory? How do you summon compassion? How do we care for ourselves? Answers reveal themselves all around us.
As a Zen priest, James knows that people are part of the natural world. It impacts us with its beauty, and we quake when it is hurt. This book ripples with that beauty, and also gazes steadily at climate anxiety. James is clear-sighted. We are right to be troubled by ecological collapse, but there are ways to save ourselves and save the world.
This is a fierce and tender study of how to be alive in a world that is under threat.
"A profound guide to discovering the great wisdom in the natural world, this book by James Thornton is a treasure for all." - Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center
Synopsis
"Powerful and moving. Make this book your friend. It gives wise and
insightful counsel, and is bursting with love for the natural world. I will be
returning often to its pages." - Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO,
Thrive GlobalPresented in twelve books, each a sequence of intimate essays, James investigates the nature of human consciousness. What is memory? How do you summon compassion? How do we care for ourselves? Answers reveal themselves all around us.
As a Zen priest, James knows that people are part of the natural world. It impacts us with its beauty, and we quake when it is hurt. This book ripples with that beauty, and also gazes steadily at climate anxiety. James is clear-sighted. We are right to be troubled by ecological collapse, but there are ways to save ourselves and save the world.
"A profound guide to discovering the great wisdom in the natural world, this book by James Thornton is a treasure for all." - Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center
Complete with twelve poems and twelves photographs, so readers can take time at the end of each "book" to gather the aterial in their hearts and minds.
Synopsis
"Make
this book your friend," says Arianna Huffington. James Thornton's
Nature, My
Teacher, is a powerful guide to being human in a time of eco-crisis.
In Nature, My
Teacher poet, lawyer and founder of top global environmental group ClientEarth,
James Thornton offers a meditation on being alive while the planet fights to
survive. He explores topics such as memory, climate anxiety, and human
consciousness through a series of short essays, arranged into twelve "books",
each closing with a poem and a photo to leave readers in a reflective space.
As
a Zen priest from Los Angeles, James contemplates what he has learnt from
observing and listening to nature, and shows that when the planet is hurting,
we too feel its pain.
The way
this book is opening hearts and minds is remarkable. Arianna Huffington found
it "powerful and moving", Zen abbot and author Joan Halifax sums: "A profound guide to discovering the great
wisdom in the natural world, this book...is a treasure for all".