Sacred Kinship: Hearing the Call of the Earth

"Humanity faces a crossroads," Overeynder writes. "It is urgently necessary that we understand how to use the powers given to us on behalf of life." ... The author draws on a variety of spiritual and religious traditions in order to champion the concept of Earth as a conscious, feeling, living being. "Just as everything has intelligence and everything and every being has a purpose to fulfill," she asserts, "Earth as a whole organism has its reason for being." Through writing about extensive hikes taken with her partner in the landscapes around Austin, Texas, and the accompanying brief meditations these inspire, she hopes to give her readers a renewed sense of the healing power of nature. She writes all this with a simple, heartfelt passion, and her pan-spiritualist approach very pleasingly excludes no faith traditions. Above all, her optimism infuses the book: "As we activate the sacred trust of living in reciprocity with Earth, we will see that we are making a shared future possible." ... A sincere, ardent, and uncomplicated plea for fellowship with one another and the planet. ─Kirkus Reviews

We live in extraordinary times. Earth is in crisis. She is dying of our abuse and neglect, and our separation from the web of life. We desperately need to heal ourselves and repair our relationship with nature. What we are experiencing is much more than an ecological crisis. It is a spiritual crisis.

Sacred Kinship is a song of praise, a celebration of Earth's astonishing beauty. Within its pages an intimate conversation unfolds with the myriad forms of life that compose the web of kinship. It is a love poem, a sacred meditation on Earth's body, and a deep reflection on what it means to be human, especially in times of great ecological and social breakdown. And most of all, it is a pilgrimage of return, falling back in love with our one and only emerald Earth.

There is a love language we must remember as we step outside to hear again the voices of the wild things-mockingbird, gray fox, coyote and great-horned owl. The voice of cedar-elm leaves rustling in the breeze and rain falling on a bamboo grove. We must listen again to the voice of the mountains and rivers, the woodlands, wetlands and prairies. We must step outside and hear the symphony of the spheres-the moon, the stars and the planets. For the healing of self and world, we must return to nature and become fluent again in this ancient language of love which holds the seeds of unity that make a future possible. The planet is a place of revelation. A place of hidden gems ready to reveal themselves to those who come with humility, a seeker's mind, and a lover's heart.