What we call "Nature" is in fact disappearing very rapidly. We live in a time of unprecedented dis-connection, when the mainstream of society seems to have forgotten that we depend on the integrity of the living systems around us for our own existence. We've been brainwashed to believe that we're somehow separate from the rest of life, that Nature is our enemy, our slave, or merely a pile of inert resources waiting for us to use them up. We've let short-term material goals blind us to the consequences of our collective actions -- and these are severe. Every day we read about worsening ecological crises from pollution to global warming, overpopulation to rates of extinction greater than at any other time in history. Each day, we lose enormous tracts of forest, mountains of topsoil, and volumes of fresh water — the very elements that support not just humanity, but all of life.