Not Till We Are Lost: Thoreau, Education, and Climate Crisis by William Homestead. 364 pages. 2025. 

William Homestead takes readers inside the classroom, where lost students mingle with students who think they are "found." Most are following the dictates of market-model education--interwoven with the cult of consumerism, techno-addictions, and the understandable need to get a job--rather than exploring their inner lives and responding to our collective lostness in an age of climate crisis. For Homestead, the "lucrative standard" must be balanced with turning within and listening to deeper wells, expressed in differing traditions as the Greek daemon, the "still, small voice" of Christian mysticism, Jung's process of individuation, and especially Emersonian self-reliance. Striving to figure out how to guide lost students (and help those who believe they are "found"), Homestead ruminates on the unfolding of his inner life, including his own struggles with formal schooling and the game of grading. He also turns to the writings of imperfect yet inspiring Henry David Thoreau, who turned within and discovered the blessings of being lost. NOT TILL WE ARE LOST posits that climate crisis is ultimately a spiritual crisis calling us to reset the compass. Humanity is called by inner intelligence in sympathy with ecosystem intelligence and, still further, the soul of the world. As Thoreau modeled, such deep listening, and then acting on what we learn, is the deeper measure of being educated. Lest we lead lives of quiet desperation, we desperately need an educational system that mirrors this reality, embracing the infinite extent of our relations.

A Year of Birds: Writings on Birds from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau
Edited by: Geoff Wisner Illustrated by: Barry Van Dusen Foreword by: Peter Alden. 192 pages (full color). 2024.

A work of art as well as a work of literature, A YEAR OF BIRDS will be welcomed by nature lovers, art lovers, and birders. With 150 watercolors and field sketches by renowned bird artist Barry Van Dusen and a foreword by celebrated naturalist Peter Alden, the author of numerous Audubon Field Guides, Henry David Thoreau's writings on birds are showcased in a way never seen before. Unlike previous collections, the observations in A YEAR OF BIRDS are arranged by the day of the year, emphasizing the relationship of birds with their environment and the spiritual significance of the seasons. On any given day, curious readers might step into their yards and compare the birds they observe with those that Thoreau saw and heard. With a focus on the town of Concord, Massachusetts, where Thoreau spent most of his life, A YEAR OF BIRDS includes the best of Thoreau's unparalleled descriptions of birds, from the red-tailed hawk to the Blackburnian warbler. Also included are descriptions of bird hunting, birds in museums, and birds as metaphor. Special sections are devoted to the now-vanished passenger pigeon and to Thoreau's mysterious "night warbler."