Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild

Product Information

As it deepens our understanding of matrescence, it raises vital questions about motherhood and femininity; interdependence and individual identity; as well as about our relationships with each other and the living world. The American West is defined as that which lay west of the 100th parallel, an appropriate definition since that land receives less rainfall than the land to its east and requires a very different land management ethos.

Even referring to pigs as 'pork' or cows as 'beef' emphasizes our alienation and disconnection from the land and other living creatures” (133-134). Exposure to the soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae leads to significantly reduced stress and inflammation, while smelling fresh rain and seeing fractals in nature activate portions of the brain involved in relaxation.We’ve become so disconnected from nature that we now think of the earth’s flora and fauna as either an unnecessary frill or something to be dominated and exploited.

Just as Silent Spring led to real societal change (in the form of a ban on the pesticide DDT), let us hope Jones’s work inspires steps in the right direction. The latter came as a surprise – she found it almost by accident when she moved into a new apartment and became emotionally attached to a pear tree outside her bedroom window. These blinks provide insights into the science of our connection with nature and how we can reimagine our relationship with the earth as equal and mutually beneficial.Also, I was very touched by the last chapters of the book where she described the extinction of species due to loss of habitat. Losing Eden offers a masterful narrative that explores broad-ranging themes and the historical connections, tensions, and contradictions that have defined the vibrant and diverse peoples and environments of the American West, as well as their relationship to one another. Further, “…If green space is equigenic, if a connection with nature can reduce social inequality and the health gap between the rip and the poor……a connection with the natural world….

Consider this: in the United Kingdom, three out of four children aged five through 12 now spend less time outdoors than prison inmates, who are required by the United Nations to get at least one hour of exercise outside every day. A passionate and thorough exploration of the growing scientific evidence showing why humans require other species to stay well.So many of us have heard of climate change (in recent years especially,) but why is it so easily ignored by so many? I found so many fascinating tidbits throughout, like how interaction with soil or walking through a forest actually raises the immune system.