Hope Beneath Our Feet

Subtitled 'restoring our place in the natural world', this anthology brings together 50 responses to the question: in a time of environmental crisis, how can we live right now? The book begins with the commencement address by Paul Hawken, which was printed in Network Review last year. There are poems by Wendell Berry at either end of the book, one of which is a response to despair for the world, when the poet goes into nature and comes ' into the peace of wild things/who do not tax on their lives with forethought/of grief. For a time he is able to rest in the grace of the world and be free. There are many passionate voices in this book, all of whom advocate participation as an antidote to despair, each in their own way. The situation is larger than any of us, and yet each of us can play a small part in making a necessary shift. In the busyness of our everyday activity, it might seem that we do not have time, but we are all responsible for understanding the bigger picture. One of the most passionate voices is Derrick Jensen, who writes that we need to stop this psychopathological culture that is killing the planet - the main thing is that our descendants will need a healthy land base in order to grow food. This is not a book to be read all at once, but rather to be dipped into on a regular basis as a storehouse of hope and inspirational ideas.