In today’s world, it’s often too easy to forget about the world outside the window. People struggle daily with stressful jobs, trapped under fluorescent lighting, staring at glowing screens, or surrounded by concrete when they could be outdoors, acknowledging the gifts of natural world. In the face of its absence, we are finally beginning to understand that our connection with nature—plants, trees, animals, and the energy of the earth itself—is more than a luxury; it is a necessary and vital part of our existence. In Partnering with Nature, Catriona MacGregor weaves together historical, spiritual, and scientific examples to emphasize the importance of creating a vital relationship with our natural surroundings. Our separation from nature leads to several devastating effects, whether through stress, feeling a lack of purpose, or the heedless destruction of our environment. Through her exploration of the energies that link humans, animals, and the natural world, she shows how we can learn from nature as we develop our spirituality and ourselves. Through diverse approaches, Catriona offers the reader a solid understanding of why a connection with the Earth is vital to our existence, and how a revival of that connection opens doors to a myriad of benefits in our environment and in our health, our daily lives, and our happiness.

Organised as a dialogue between nature and design, this book explores design ideas, opportunities, visions and practices through relating and uncovering experience of the natural world. Presented as an edited collection of 25 wide-ranging short chapters, the book explores the possibility of new relations between design and nature, beyond human mastery and understandings of nature as resource and by calling into question the longstanding role for design as agent of capitalism. The book puts forward ways in which design can form partnerships with living species and examines designers’ capacities for direct experience, awe, integrated relationships and new ways of knowing. It covers: • New design ethics of care • Indigenous perspectives • Prototyping with nature • Methods for new design and nature relations • A history of design and nature • Animist beliefs • De-centering human-centered design • Understanding nature has power and agency Design and Nature: A Partnership is a rich resource for designers who wish to learn to engage with sustainability from the ground up.

Partnering with Nature is a simple book with a powerful message: our connections to the natural environment— and ultimately, to ourselves—are crucial in today’s fragmented world. As each successive generation moves farther away from nature, the growing disconnect is expressed through physical as well as mental stress, from depression and fatigue in adults to attention disorders and obesity in children. The way we relate to nature helps define our place within it, and by awakening this natural, yet dormant connection to the environment around us, we can move beyond solitary stewardship and into partnership. In Partnering with Nature, Catriona MacGregor weaves together scientific and historical wisdom, spiritual insights, and inspiring stories that illuminate the energies that link humans, animals, and the natural world. Through observation and conscious practice, we can open up to the power of nature to transform our lives, uplift our spirits, and even to direct our bodies to a healthier potential. For everyone who has a sense of something missing, who wishes to make a difference in their world, who yearns to reclaim their sense of wonder and awe, or who struggles with their health or emotional balance—nature speaks to all who will listen.

This practical guide for educational leaders explores how you can transform your school or district into a vibrant center of learning and socio-ecological responsibility with only three manageable actions: taking students outside, bringing nature inside, and cultivating a mindset of awareness, responsibility, and empathy. This book is rich in practical, attainable approaches and stories of real actions taken by leaders, teachers, parents, and community partners to design, lead, and manage a vibrant, flourishing, sustainable learning community. Authors Uline and Kensler take you on an inspirational journey through nine key leadership strategies for you to begin or expand your work towards whole school sustainability.

Align Your Creative Energy with Nature’s “Everything we know about creating,” writes Tina Welling, “we know intuitively from the natural world.” In Writing Wild, Welling details a three-step “Spirit Walk” process for inviting nature to enliven and inspire our creativity.

This volume, written in non-technical language, covers the subject of plant breeding and improvement -- in short, a compact and simple story of how Mr. Burbank went about his work of producing more useful plants, more desirable fruits and more beautiful flowers. Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1849, Burbank was brought up on a farm and received only an elementary education. At age 21 he purchased a 17-acre tract near Lunenberg, Massachusetts, and began a 55-year plant breeding career. During his lifetime Luther Burbank developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants, including 113 varieties of plums and prunes, 10 varieties of berries, 50 varieties of lilies and the Freestone peach. In 1871 he developed the Burbank potato, which was introduced in Ireland to help combat the blight epidemic. He sold the rights to the Burbank potato for $150, which he used to travel to Santa Rosa, California. In Santa Rosa, he established a nursery garden, greenhouse, and experimental farms that have become famous throughout the world. To the end of his life Luther Burbank was a naturalist and a lover of the wilderness.

Human health depends on the health of the planet. Earth’s natural systems—the air, the water, the biodiversity, the climate—are our life support systems. Yet climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of land and freshwater, pollution and other threats are degrading these systems. The emerging field of planetary health aims to understand how these changes threaten our health and how to protect ourselves and the rest of the biosphere. Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves provides a readable introduction to this new paradigm. With an interdisciplinary approach, the book addresses a wide range of health impacts felt in the Anthropocene, including food and nutrition, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, dislocation and conflict, and mental health. It also presents strategies to combat environmental changes and its ill-effects, such as controlling toxic exposures, investing in clean energy, improving urban design, and more. Chapters are authored by widely recognized experts. The result is a comprehensive and optimistic overview of a growing field that is being adopted by researchers and universities around the world. Students of public health will gain a solid grounding in the new challenges their profession must confront, while those in the environmental sciences, agriculture, the design professions, and other fields will become familiar with the human consequences of planetary changes. Understanding how our changing environment affects our health is increasingly critical to a variety of disciplines and professions. Planetary Health is the definitive guide to this vital field.