An Armsfull of Birds: A Field Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780757325557)

A climate memoir that asks what it means to be loving both with ourselves and with our planet.

While it might be an overstatement to say the planet is beyond repair, there is real danger in ignoring the impact of humans on the climate and the challenges this has created. There is also real danger being consumed by despair or rage. Writer Cara Benson reminds us there is another option: love. Importantly, Benson asks, what does it mean to be loving? Can we take the same risk of loss when we commit to the non-human world as when we open our hearts to the people in our life?

While in addiction recovery in her forties, Benson met Jon and cultivated a relationship that began as "second chance lovers" and developed into one as lifetime partners. Unexpectedly, years later, she found herself in devastation as she came to terms with losing Jon to suicide.

As she retreated into her grief, she also retreated into the woods of upstate New York, exploring the forests not as the avid hiker she'd become in recovery, but as a meanderer who had lost her way. Here she found more grief in her observation of some of the effects of climate change: drought forcing wildlife out of the woods to forage for food and warmer winters that allowed deadly insects populations to thrive.

In confronting her loss, Benson came to realize that the lessons she learned from loving Jon in sickness, health, and death could be applied to her relationship with the non-human world. From squirreling away oak acorns to germinate in containers for a guerrilla reforestation of a nearby logged property to advocating with her neighbors for the protection of a regional wildlife corridor, Benson's daily life became a sort of field guide for how to live with a deep and abiding commitment to the future of the planet despite challenging odds.

Moving through the deeply personal and kindred terrain of love, recovery, and loss, An Armsfull of Birds tells the story of developing deeply held commitments to ourselves, to those we love, and ultimately to the ailing natural world.

Author: Cara Benson
ISBN-10: 0757325556
ISBN-13: 9780757325557
Publisher: Health Communications
Language: English
Published: 05/19/2026
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.63lbs