My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization

What is the relationship between addiction and the ecological crisis? How can we use the lessons of individual recovery to address our collective need to heal society and the Earth? Chellis Glendinning goes beyond the personal to the very heart of Western civilization to answer these questions, and she shows how we can use trauma recovery and deep ecology, along with the wisdom of native cultures, to reclaim our innate wholeness.

"You and I are not people who live in communion with the earth," Chellis Glendinning begins. "We exist instead dislocated from our roots by the psychological, philosophical, and technological constructions of our civilization, and this alienation leads to our suffering: massive suffering for each and every one of us, and mass suffering throughout our society."

Whether you believe the full ramifications of Glendinning's connections between addictive behavior and the ecological crisis depends entirely on whether you accept the premise that one can be "addicted" to civilization. But her call for a return to a nature-based culture, one in which people live "as if [we] were responsible for building the culture that the rocks and trees and birds of this place expected of human beings," is a compelling proposal, elaborated from the heart.