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
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.
“My attention never flagged and when I reached the end I simply went back and started again.” – Antony Osler, author of Stoep Zen
“Powerful and moving. I will be returning often to its pages.” – Arianna Huffington
