"We are surrounded by a world that talks, but we don't listen. We are part of a community engaged in a vast conversation, but we deny our role in it."In the face of climate change, species loss, and vast environmental destruction, the ability to stand in the flow of the great conversation of all creatures and the earth can feel utterly lost to the human race. But Belden C. Lane suggests that it can and must be recovered, not only for the sake of endangered species and the well-being of at-risk communities, but for the survival of the world itself.The Great Conversation is Lane's multi-faceted treatise on a spiritually centered environmentalism. At the core is a belief in the power of the natural world to act as teacher. In a series of personal anecdotes, Lane pairs his own experiences in the wild with the writings of saints and sages from a wide range of religious traditions. A night in a Missourian cave brings to mind the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola; the canyons of southern Utah elicit a response from the Chinese philosopher Laozi; 500,000 migrating sandhill cranes rest in Nebraska and evoke the Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. With each chapter, the humility of spiritual masters through the ages melds with the author's encounters with natural teachers to offer guidance for entering once more into a conversation with the world.

AcknowledgmentsPrefaceIntroduction: Wilderness and Soul WorkPart I: Beginning to ListenChapter 1: Restoring the Great ConversationChapter 2: Falling in Love with a TreePart II: Nature Teachers and the Spiritual LifeAIR: The ChildChapter 3. Birds: Sandhill Cranes, the Platte River, and Farid ud-Din AttarChapter 4. Wind: Buford Mountain and The Way of a PilgrimChapter 5: Trees: A Cottonwood Tree in a City Park and Hildegard of BingenFIRE: The AdolescentChapter 6. Wildfire: North Laramie River Trail and Catherine of SienaChapter 7. Stars: Cahokia Mounds and Origen of AlexandriaChapter 8. Deserts: The Western Australian Bush and Gregory of NyssaWATER: The AdultChapter 9. Rivers: Colorado's Lost Creek Wilderness and Teresa of AvilaChapter 10. Canyons: Grand Staircase-Escalante Wilderness and LaoziChapter 11. Islands: Monhegan Island and Nikos KazantzakisEARTH: The ElderChapter 12. Mountains: Hemmed-In-Hollow and the Baal Shem TovChapter 13. Caves: Lewis Cave and Ignatius of LoyolaChapter 14. Wolves: Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Francis of AssisiConclusion: Taking the Great Conversation SeriouslyAfterwordNotesIndex