Ross Robertson - Rebooting Environmentalism for the Twenty-First Century

Ross Robertson, Associate Editor, joined What Is Enlightenment's editorial staff in 2003. With a BA in Creative Writing and Ecology from Emory University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University, he brings with him a studied dedication to the art of the written word. But perhaps more significantly, he adds the perspective of an observant and insightful Gen-Xer to the editorial team.

Explorations of the deeper cultural impact of popular spiritual forums—The Celestine Prophecy, the Grateful Dead and Beatles phenomena, the Burning Man festival—have been central to Robertson's features for EnlightenNext. In his observations of aspects of contemporary culture that merge entertainment arts, spiritual awakening, and popular utopianism, his work has begun to illuminate some of the intriguing channels and fissures spreading through American social and spiritual life. Arising from his own search for depth and meaning in an age of superficiality and indifference, and from his generation's ambivalent nostalgia for the idealism of previous decades, Robertson is keen to open up new avenues for social reflection.

Before joining EnlightenNext, Robertson worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in San Francisco, applying his study of conservation biology to various environmental projects. As part of his tenure there, he helped produce the proposals for the Giant Sequoia National Monument proclaimed by President Clinton in 2000, preserving 328,000 acres for these three-thousand-year-old trees and other wildlife.

Robertson has published two chapbooks of poetry, The Flatiron Journals and Paperweight and Other Poems, and is currently working on his first book of poems, Speakleaping. He is a five-year practitioner of Andrew Cohen's teachings of Evolutionary Enlightenment.