Grounded

From the author of The Oak Papers, a beautiful meditation on how to foster a profound and healing spiritual communion with the natural world

For thousands of years, our ancestors held a close connection with the landscapes they lived in. They imbued them with meaning: stone monuments, sacred groves, places of pilgrimage. In our modern world we have to a large extent lost that enchantment and intimate knowledge of place.

James Canton takes us on a journey through England seeking to see through more ancient eyes, to understand what landscape meant to those who came before us. We visit stone circles, the West Kennet Long Barrow, a crusader round church and sites of religious visions. We meet the Dagenham Idol and the intricately carved Lion Man figure. We find artefacts buried in farmers' fields. There is history and meaning encoded into the lands and places we live in, if only we take the time to look.

Our natural world has never been under more threat. If we relocate our sense of wonder, veneration and awe in the landscapes around us, we might just be better at saving them.

‘Intensely alive to the landscape: its pasts, people and creatures’ —Robert Macfarlane

‘Canton's writing has an exquisite, somewhat dreamlike quality.’ Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees