Introduction to the Spring Issue ~ May 2000
by Spring Editor, Robert Worcester

This is the second issue of GATHERINGS and as the first issue was born in the quiet waiting of the new year and the new millenium, this issue comes into being during the green time of Spring when life is stirring and struggling to find niches in the web of life. It has been a warm and early Spring but that is no longer cause for joy but a sobering reminder of the impact our industries are having on the atmosphere.

This issue brings to light new growth in the development of ecopsychology. Ideas that were planted, germinate and now find expression. Many of them took root in discussions that have proceeded over the last few months through emails, conversations, and occasional meetings. Some have grown out of personal experience and efforts to act wisely in a world that has yet to recognize the delicate relationship between people and "other-than-human" nature. World trade meetings have been challenged in Seattle and Washington, ancient Oaks have been defended in Minnesota and on Vancouver Island, clearcutting rain forests on the Pacific Coast has been opposed with words and bodies. Actions have led to words and words have led to action.

Some of what you find here will be reflective or celebratory. Our response to nature can be curiousity, dread or ecstatic joy, sometimes all three and more. The writers, singers and artists here express relatedness to nature and the earth. This is among the deepest and most profound of human experiences. It is found in the earliest cave paintings, the best of our classic literature and is finding expression now in the astonishing hypotheses of the newest science. Like the web of life itself, what you will find here is diversity in community, juxtapositions and discontinuities together with harmonies and melodic line. Taste and see that the Earth is good.

A special thanks is owed to Uri Cogan, Amy Lenzo, Maureen Press, John Scull and Tana Worcester for valuable advice to this neophyte "E-zine" editor. Thanks also to the contributors to this issue and for the members of the Ecopsychology discussion group that provoked reflection on many of the topics covered here.