Terrapsychology: Reengaging the Soul of Place

Why do some places restore us while others deplete us? Why do certain figures out of folklore and myth haunt specific locales? Do borders around a nation parallel borders around the heart? Do wastelands and depleted landscapes delineate gaps in the collective imagination? Why have so many indigenous cultures insisted on the world's aliveness? And if the world is alive, how does it let us know? To explore such questions, Craig Chalquist calls for a new perspective of deep encounter, "terrapsychology," which shows us how to listen into recurring symbolic resonances between the "inner" person and the presence, voice, or "soul" of places and things which embody the animation of the world. In this perspective the health of the places where we live corresponds closely to the pockets of health inside and between us. Terrapsychology strives to counter the ancient war on nature one heartfelt dialog at a time.