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This collection is a poem written by Al Fritsch, entitled 'Winter Riders'. No other information is given.

Down to Earth Spirituality is a journey from heart to heart, from our heart as healers to the heart of the Earth. Through word, photo, and reflection, Down to Earth challenges us to change our way of life, to learn about here (our bioregion) and now (our crisis ridden times).

This book traces changing attitudes to tobacco largely through the experiences of the author. He grew up raising tobacco and, influenced by advertising, began smoking as a youth. He was conducting research in a chemical laboratory involving carcinogenic substances when the health effects of tobacco began to surface. While he was working with public interest organizations, environmental tobacco smoke began to be recognized as an indoor pollutant. Ethical issues forced him, like many others, to stop smoking, and he eventually became quite involved in pastoral work with sick smokers. The final chapter surveys the lessons that can be learned from one person's tobacco days.

This book offers uplifting and insightful reflections by Al Fritsch, illustrated by 140 photographs by Warren Brunner celebrating the people, places and natural wonders of Appalachia's seasons.

" With New Line Cinema's production of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the popularity of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien is unparalleled. TolkienÕs books continue to be bestsellers decades after their original publication. An epic in league with those of Spenser and Malory, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, begun during HitlerÕs rise to power, celebrates the insignificant individual as hero in the modern world. Jane ChanceÕs critical appraisal of TolkienÕs heroic masterwork is the first to explore its Òmythology of powerÓÐthat is, how power, politics, and language interact. Chance looks beyond the fantastic, self-contained world of Middle-earth to the twentieth-century parallels presented in the trilogy.

Healing Appalachia is a practical guide for environmentally conscious residents of Appalachia and beyond. It is also the first book to apply “appropriate technology,” or the most basic technology that can effectively achieve the desired result, to this specific region. Authors Al Fritsch and Paul Gallimore have performed over 200 environmental resource assessments in thirty-three states. They bring this knowledge to bear as they examine thirty low-cost, people-friendly, and environmentally benign appropriate technologies that can be put to work today in Appalachia. They discuss such issues as renewable energy and energy conservation, food preservation and gardening, forest management, land use, transportation, water conservation, proper waste disposal, and wildlife protection. They pay close attention to the practicality of each technique according to affordability, ease of use, and ecological soundness. Their subjects range from solar home heating to greenhouses, from aquaculture to compost toilets, from organic gardening to wildlife restoration and enhancement, and from solar cars to microhydropower facilities. Their discussions of each topic benefit from the knowledge gained from thirty years of practical experience at environmental demonstration centers and public interest and educational organizations. Each section of the book includes details on construction and maintenance, as well as resources for locating further information, making this an essential volume for everyone who cares about the future of Appalachia.

Kentucky pioneers would appreciate the title, "The Latchstring is Out." This expression refers to a leather string hanging out a log cabin doorhole, which welcomes strangers by allowing them to enter. When pulled in, the internal latch is locked and the door is closed to outsiders. How does one make the lessons of life a tool for helping others? This autobiography is not a boring day by day or a month by month accounting. Rather, it is a selected theme appropriate to the particular year of life, and related experiences from my (hopefully) accumulated wisdom to embellish that selected topic. The seasons of my life are arranged in early years, formal higher education and beginnings of work, major portion of public interest work, and reflections on these experiences in preparation for closure. Each of the 88 essays (until 2020) correspond to a year of my life; the title involves an issue highly associated with that particular year, which sets a particular tone, and attempts to show my growth in environmental consciousness.

This book traces changing attitudes to tobacco largely through the experiences of the author. He grew up raising tobacco and, influenced by advertising, began smoking as a youth. He was conducting research in a chemical laboratory involving carcinogenic substances when the health effects of tobacco began to surface. While he was working with public interest organizations, environmental tobacco smoke began to be recognized as an indoor pollutant. Ethical issues forced him, like many others, to stop smoking, and he eventually became quite involved in pastoral work with sick smokers. The final chapter surveys the lessons that can be learned from one person's tobacco days.

Water tells its own story, and we are immersed in it. Our Appalachian region is blessed with plentiful water in rivers, creeks, and springs, in showers, rainfall, snow, ice, mist, and clouds. We greet water individually when we drink, bathe, shower, float, swim, and do a variety of essential and other activities. Water invites sociability when we perform water sports together or offer work for others who tap ground water, store cistern water, channel streams, pipe it, and conserve it in our homes.Appalachian Water Reflections invites us to reflect on our many water experiences. Let's be mindful of the need to preserve and protect the fragile quality of our water for it is a gift without which we would surely die. Water embellishes our lives, defines and beautifies our landscape, conditions us to act, lifts our spirits, and reveals to us a merciful Creator and an upcoming messianic age. Through a combination of photo and text we reflect on our region's valuable lifeblood. We must drink or we die of thirst; we must respect the commons of which water is part and not become selfish and wasteful. We are to go and grow with the flow, maturing by not taking water for granted. Water points us to a sense of neighborliness, for we learn to share its quality and availability with all living beings. Truly, water has much to tell us, teach us, and guide us -- if we only take time to reflect. May these photos and texts help all of us on our life voyage.

Healing Earth: Nine Reasons for Revolution invites readers to become global activists in order to collaborate in addressing the impending climate change crisis. Starting with an individual discernment of one's place in this world, all are urged to undergo an internal revolution, a change of consciousness, a resolution to create a new socio-economic system that stands counter to our current consumer culture and its associated addictions. This cannot be done at an individual level alone, but rather through a radical sharing of our common resources. In many ways personal insights found in the book parallel the development of Pope Francis' Laudato Si' reflections on the environment: the global nature of the emerging crisis; the places where climate change adversely affects the poor; the need for collaboration by all people of good will; and the urgency to promote a renewable energy economy. Climate change deniers must be confronted and their influence exposed and challenged in order to preserve the viability of our planet. We can save our Earth, but it takes united effort.