Winter and early spring are the seasons when many gardeners, orchardists and farmers -- fancying themselves surgeons -- approach their trees, shrubs and roses with knives, pruning shears and saws in hand, seemingly unaware that these plants are, as the Buddhists would say, sentient beings.

Most pruning is less a...

Anyone who participates in a protest like the various Occupy movements is being changed forever. The sense of empowerment is overwhelming.

My own experience with this phenomenon happened in 1968, when I graduated from UCLA with a Masters degree in Journalism. I applied for a job reading the news at...

" ... love the land you're on."

Remember that old song -- "If you're not with the one you love, love the one you're with"? The words keep running through my mind as I listen to many of our friends who dream of someday owning traditional farms and farmland.

A shy, 21-year-old college student nervously combs back her long, blonde hair with her fingers. "I'm afraid to have kids, you know," she says. "All through school I've seen those charts -- especially the overpopulation and resource depletion charts -- and I don't know if I want to bring a...

For anyone who still doubts the amazing healing effects of nature connection, here's the proof:

Rigorous new research by the University of Illinois reveals:

• Access to nature and green environments yields better cognitive functioning, more self-discipline and impulse control, and greater mental health overall.

• Less access to nature...

So much is happening simultaneously in today's globalized world that it's hard to make sense of it all.

Everyone on our planet is now being affected by the economic, political, social, psychological and environmental consequences of the profound imbalance between resources and need. At stake is...

Author Michael Pollan, who for decades has been analyzing our country's dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship with food, has now decided that at its root the American Food Crisis is actually the American Cooking Crisis. In the era of frantic schedules, industrial farming and processed "food," fewer and fewer folks are...

So how do you feel when someone talks to you like that? Highly motivated to run right out and vote for them?

There's some serious psychological malpractice going on in the White House.

The President is trying to motivate his Democratic base by wagging a parental finger at them...

A new book, "Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World" poses a timely and provocative question: "In a time of environmental crisis, how can we live right now?"

Editor Martin Keogh has pulled together the wisdom of many people to answer this question. I...

Vitamin Nature, that is.

In his powerful book "Last Child in the Woods," Richard Louv points out that our kids are suffering from what he calls "Nature Deficit Disorder." I've come to believe that virtually everyone in our culture suffers from NDD -- and the only cure is Vitamin N.

Have you ever wondered why many of us hire people to exercise for us as gardeners, house cleaners, fence builders, window washers and carpenters while we pay other folks big bucks for the privilege of pounding up and down on their indoor machines to give our unused muscles a workout?

I dream and hope that some day truly green travel will be possible. Travel is a wonderful thing, but not when it trashes the earth.

I used to work for ocean explorer Captain Jacques Cousteau and even back in the 1970s he knew that we had to invent new ways...

The growing field of emergency psychotherapy is doing an increasingly important job of helping people cope with trauma. As environmental conditions around the world worsen, we need to combine this work with eyes-open awareness of the nature of the escalating traumas we are experiencing, plus an understanding of "the Waking...

If you need yet another good reason to convince yourself or your kids to go outside and get your hands in the dirt, here it is: new research reveals that a bacterium in the soil not only lowers depression and anxiety but also can make you smarter!

Science...

Doctors often tell us that to avoid getting sick we need to eat more fruit and veggies.

But the first study to examine the effects of pesticide exposure in the population at large -- testing kids across the United States -- has revealed that children exposed to...

Many of us still think that our bodies -- the wild nature "in here" -- are somehow separate from the rest of nature "out there."

Which of course isn't true.

The Big Lie that is at the root of the life-threatening dysfunction in the current human-nature relationship is the...

Modern life is now so overwhelmingly complex that we find ourselves running faster and faster -- like hamsters on a wheel -- just trying to keep up with the ever-increasing pace.

One antidote to that hectic misery is the Simplicity Circle.

Inspired by Duane Elgin's book "Voluntary Simplicity" and by...

Our society measures wealth by how many dollars you have in the bank, but many other cultures around the world count prosperity by how many good relationships you enjoy in your life.

If you're interested in counting up your people-wealth, here's one way to do it: ask yourself How many...

In today's New York Times (Jan 18) I was interviewed on the rise in couple and family conflict over green issues. The piece is "Therapists Report Increase in Green Disputes" by Leslie Kaufman.

We're all barraged daily by endless alarming news reports on how the way we live, eat, shop,...

Ecopsychologist Dr. Craig Chalquist has come up with a nifty and empowering "to do" list for those of us who are feeling discouraged about our individual and collective economic, political and environmental situations. He calls his process "Unplugging from the Empire: 30 Immediate-Impact Action Items."

Chalquist offers "suggestions for withdrawing...