Wisdom of Place: The Elemental Landscape - by Elizabeth Boults & Chip Sullivan (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book aims to help readers rediscover the sacredness of the everyday landscapes around them in order to shed light on the ecological imperatives of our time.

Drawn from the union of art, nature, and metaphysics, it presents some of the myths and legends of antiquity as they might be recognized by our modern society of earth-shapers. Through word and image the authors reference the ecological and environmental concepts found at the core of traditional environmental knowledge and provide a new context for environmental engagement that merges the spiritual and phenomenological with the scientific and empirical. Wisdom of place can be used by anyone--from creatives to spiritual seekers, landscape architects to coders--to call forth the voice of the genius loci--the spirit of place--and reveal the creative forces and hidden currents of nature.

Review Quotes

"Making a game of diving the future can be a fraught business, but in their new book, Wisdom of Place: A Guide to Recovering the Sacred Origins of Landscape (ORO Editions, 2023), Chilp Sullivan, FASLA, and Elizabeth Boults, ASLA, have created a charming new diversion. The book's symbolic conceit is the tarot deck, which they say attracted them for "its history as a storytelling practice based on archetypes of human consciousness," as well at the tarot's underlying narrative, that of the "journey to enlightenment," which they link to "our quest for a more sustainable future." --Landscape Architecture Magazine