The Green Boat
Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture
“Mary Pipher takes on our planet’s greatest problems with the skills of a truly gifted therapist. She knows why we avoid and deny the truth and she knows how we can heal ourselves and our communities even as we try to heal the earth. This book is a deep and true gift.” Bill McKibben, author of Earth.
Every day we are hit by a tidal wave of information, including a great deal of traumatic information about the fate of Mother Earth. Yet our basic equipment—our bodies and brains—have not changed since the Neolithic Era. We simply are not built to respond well. The Green Boat posits a trauma to transcendence cycle that begins with awareness and leads first to resilient coping and then, in many people, to what I call a transcendent response.
As our web of life becomes tattered and torn, it is easy to become disconnected from our emotions, our bodies, each other, and the truth. The Green Boat suggests that we can only be sane and healthy by reconnecting with these things. Healing ourselves will require us to reweave the web of life around us.