What's Nature Got to Do with Me?

	"Coyote" © Amanda Fenton/Native West Press and"Desert Walkers" © Terril Shorb/Native West Press. Cover design by Amanda Summers.
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Description

Edited by Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb & Terril L. Shorb

112 pages, with photos and art

$12.95  (Plus $5.65 P&H)
ISBN: 0-9653849-5-0
ISBN13: 978-0-9653849-5-7

Status: Currently available

      Some scholars and others have commented that the psychological relationship of many humans to nature has become “pathological,” and, particularly, “autistic.”  While the editors have observed some extremes that could be interpreted to suggest this, such as in our experience with the young man mentioned in the Introduction, it more likely seems that the natural world tends to be mentally marginalized when our lives become too busy and our technologies too distracting. However, even with the way that modern life demands our attention and commands our priorities, when it comes to our wild, other-than-human affiliates, well, they often seem to have an uncanny capacity to turn our heads, turn our hearts, and turn our minds.

      What’s Nature Got to Do with Me?: Staying Wildly Sane in a Mad World is a collection of authentic and creative nonfiction, photography, poetry, and art in which people from many walks of life share true accounts of how their close encounters with wild creatures brought a sense of hope and well-being back into their lives.  The encounters range from the dramatic to the endearing to the sad to the awe-inspiring.  These genuine connections with wild creatures stir something ancient and important in people that causes them to embrace attentiveness, to evoke empathy, and to elicit compassion in ways that inform and soothe and heal. 

      Our sincere gratitude is offered to our contributors to this collection who have shared moments from their own lives which are wonderful personal testaments to what nature has to do with them and their lives.  Through this book we share these experiences with you as our answer to the question that some people might ask and which is posed by the title of this book:  What’s Nature Got to Do with Me?

[Click here for Contributors/Complete Table of Contents (pdf)]

[Click here for Contributing Artists/Photographers (pdf)]