Ric Bailey is a chronic nature lover. He's no scientist or ecologist, in fact, he doesn't even have a college degree.

He uses passion and conviction to achieve his land protection successes. He doesn't know the names of very many flowers, bugs, or birds, but relishes sharing time with them.

And, he's dedicated his life to protecting all life beyond humanity. But as a human himself, he recognizes that we bipedal Earth dwellers are inextricably bound to nature.

This memoir describes his many raw adventures as an activist, an out-spoken campaigner who is both loved and hated. He's been hanged in effigy and boycotted in the rural community he called home, threatened with death, and accused of being everything from a misanthrope to an anarchist.

Yet Ric has a blue collar work history, including falling timber and driving semi-trucks. He obliterates a lot of stereotypes.

Ric once chained himself to an active bulldozer to prevent the logging of an untouched forest. He's gone to extreme lengths to rescue the special places he and scores of others love.

As a self-taught writer, Ric presents this book with the same emotional zeal with which he's defended wilderness. It is entertaining, educational, and profoundly original.

-Brock Evans, Environmental Elder"Our minds are ecosystems, and wilderness can be a refuge for the most tortured of them: a living entity where we go to find our true selves, where freedom is unconditional and expressed in physical form. .

. wilderness is where the scalding eye of surveillance is shut, and where the turmoil of the brain is not judged.

It is where seemingly random color and form blend into perception's miracle, and our own moods reflect those of the world. It is where our existence is embraced without condition.

"-Ric Bailey. .