Common Ground: Encounters with Nature at the Edges of Life

All too often, we think of nature as something distinct from ourselves, something to go and see, a place that's separate from the ordinary modern world in which we live and work. But if we take the time to look, we soon find that's not how nature works. Even in our parceled-out, paved-over urban environs, nature is all around us; it is in us. It is us.

That's what Rob Cowen discovered after moving to a new home in northern England. After ten years in London he was suddenly adrift, search...