No matter what subject he is treating, James Hillman, the father of archetypal psychology, always breaks fresh ground. Here he looks at the contemporary phenomenon of men and women abandoning the city in order to find beauty and nourishment for the soul in nature. Hillman examines a variety of ideas about wilderness and then goes on to discuss the five Greeks gods who concerned themselves with activities outside the city walls.
In one of the most vitriolic sections, he critiques those who have made art into a special preserve for the rich. Instead of "beauty sequestered and objectified in precious things, times, and places," Hillman argues that the city made by human hands can be embraced as beautiful on its own terms. He challenges us to see skyscrapers, airports, market halls, and hotels as structures that can nourish our souls. The layout of the city should imitate the process of nature rather than the things of nature. For instance, instead of planting trees in a row along a sidewalk, why not make the sidewalk meander organically as if it were itself a growing plant?
On this imaginative and intellectually stimulating audio presentation, Hillman pulls down the walls separating city and nature and opens our senses to the ways in which beauty can be found in the structures and processes of urban life.