Wild Spirit Press was founded by Ashley, who in the ’70s created Island Press, which has since become the world’s leading environmental press. Island initially published Headwaters, Perfection Perception, and The Trail North in paperback. First-edition paperbacks of these books, plus, Jaguar Girl are available on Amazon.com. Wild Spirit Press now offers all these books in our store as ebooks, in addition to Sex & Money on the Spirit Trail, and Libertad.
His ebook Attaining FLOW is available on Amazon.com. The remaining five books Ashley authored or co-authored are available as a bundle in our Store for $19.99 (a great savings).
Headwaters, with a foreword by the legendary Edward Abbey, tracks the evolutionary musings of four “hippie” brothers in the mid-‘70s (Russell and Ashley among them) who journey into the wilderness near their northern California ranch for adventures in various weathers and geographies, while dealing with personal identities that look a little different coming out.
Perfection Perception, authored by Ashley and Doog (another compadre from Headwaters), recounts their journey through the Northern Patagonia climes in search of meaning, words, adventure, fun, and some small portion of self-knowledge. They opine that all is “perfect” if we can but see, and they strive to convince the reader that all befallments have meaning and import in life, and that fun and love are operative. Death is addressed and … totally eschewed, but honored nonetheless.
The Trail North, written by Hawk Greenway, recounts his journey on horseback from the “commune”—then a school as well, so this was his Senior Project—along the Sierra Nevada and into the Cascades when he was a lad of just 16. Read it and share it with your own teenagers.
In 1997 Ashley imagined his beautiful daughter into a work of (mostly) fiction called Jaguar Girl—the sweet story of a vivacious Nature gal, living on vast lands in the Argentine Patagonia. When she learns that a multinational corporation is setting up to exploit her beloved wildlands, she travels to San Francisco to turn the owner’s head from destruction toward preservation. It is a love story with Mother Earth—a fun and enlightening read for all ages.
Sex & Money on the Spirit Trail was penned by Ashley and his old-soul son on a backpacking trip. It provides another perspective on these two powerful subjects that sometimes seem to dangle us all like so many puppets.
Attaining FLOW is subtitled a transforming exploration of personal philosophy, spirituality & ecology. Attaining FLOW offers readers a way to change their lives by applying energies that recognize that perfection reigns in all life events, that we are responsible for what we attract into our lives, and that—with positivity at the helm and negativity forbidden—the flow brings us just what we need for our personal evolution. Once you embrace, understand, and practice Flow, Life becomes greatly enjoyable with stress, worry, confusion left in the wake of a new, proud, and secure vessel. The “F” word—fun, comes into serious play.
And Ashley’s back in Libertad, a riotous self-effacing sharing of the time he did in an Argentine winter jail with no bedding, no glass in the windows, and no food for the first few days. Check it out: interactions with killers, child molesters, and jailers, and some deep thoughts about freedom and life meanings. We are talking preppie hippie meets Latin nightmares—shivering.