Sacred Nature: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings [Paperback]

Adrian Cooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998

This new title explores how 150 modern travelers reconcile their spiritual faiths with the challenges of interpreting wild, natural environments: tropical habitats, deserts, frozen landscapes, seas and oceans. It is an exploration of how these travelers from North America, Europe and Asia find their faiths variously compatible with a detailed knowledge and understanding of the natural world. For eleven years, between 1985-1996, these travelers worked with Adrian Cooper talking, listening, sharing and learning from each other. They discussed their personal discoveries of sacred treasures in this planet's wild, natural areas. They drew inspiration from stories and journeys which were marked by awe and wonder as well as intense physical hardship, loneliness, despair, bereavement, profound contemplation, renewal, healing and enlightenment. Some of these journeys have contained the most important turning points in these travelers' lives. After the introductory chapter which discusses the need for huma

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Capall Bann Pub (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861630387
• ISBN-13: 978-1861630384
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,997,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book combines science and mysticism brilliantly, October 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sacred Nature: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings (Paperback)

I bought this book because I'm fascinated by the inspiration that wild places can offer sensitive pilgrims. And this book, I must say, offers precisely that, and so much more. I admire the difficult questions that Cooper tackles, and I also admire how he refuses to leave us with any easy answers. I also like the mastery with which we are taken into the details of ecological science as well as the depths of mystical experience, but always so beautifully and clearly. And that alone is more than enough reason to praise this book so highly! Great scholarship, explained clearly.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly original. Superbly written, October 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sacred Nature: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings (Paperback)

Give this book a chance to grow on you. Be patient with it! You may find it in the mind, body, spirit section of your book shop, and you may think "maybe not for me". But don't be put off. It shouldn't be in any one section, really. This book tells biographical stories of pilgrimage, so that's one section for it. But then again, it talks about wilderness ecology, so why isn't in science too? But then again, we're also treated in Adrian Cooper's masterpiece to ancient history, psychological insight, political activism, economic commentary and so much more. Often, it's the links and boundaries between these themes that fascinated me, and where Adrian Cooper proves himself to be such a master of his many subjects.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My personal book of the 90s, June 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sacred Nature: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Meanings (Paperback)

I recommend Adrian Cooper's book to all students and lovers of the sacredness which this planet inspires.

But this is a ground breaking book. There is more than a single author's voice here. Adrian Cooper uses the interviews he's done over the last 15 years with other travellers and scholars who have all been changed by their experiences in mountains, deserts, tropical forests, frozen landscapes and ocean journeying.

But there are more voices here than these modern and post-modern souls. There are the other writers, extracts of whose work are peppered throughout these pages, all of whom have given the interviewed travellers an added dimension to their pilgrimage experiences.

Making sense of all this dialogue between ecology and spirituality, past and present is a task Adrian Cooper has addressed with brilliant clarity and scholarship. He has a real gift for explaining the most complex of subjects and problems clearly and engagingly without losing sight of the wonder and awe of these same themes.

But there is more to this book than the words themselves. It should be read by every man, woman and child simply for the challenges it presents. Sacred Nature should start a global shock wave. Let me explain. Religious leaders, TV producers, newspaper and magazine editors and school and college teachers all neglect the importance of appreciating the holism of the subjects Cooper examines. Why, for example, do church ministers rarely preach on the themes of sacred earth? Why are they not at the heart (or front) of conservation movements? Why too do TV producers fail to grasp the potential for NEW PROGRAMMES which look at this fascinating but valuable connection between natural history and faith. Discovery Channel, please take note. There is a vast, rich, fascinating wealth of ideas for endless programmes from sacred mountains to sacred deserts and sacred rivers etc etc etc. I pray these people will read Adrian Cooper's book. He has identified a major need for change in the media and therefore in our lives. We will become re-educated at a time we need it most. Presented correctly, these new programmes and newspaper and magazine articles will help us to un-learn redundant ways of thinking and believing about this planet, and open our eyes and other senses to what there is here, and what we can do to celebrate it and conserve it.

A SUPERB BOOK.

Sincerely yours,

Sophie Fergusson