One of the leaders of the contemporary earth spirituality movement, Patricia Monaghan has spent more than 20 years researching and writing about alternative spiritual visions of the earth. Raised in Alaska, where much of her family still lives, she considers herself blessed to have learned the ecology of the taiga, the sub-arctic forest, in her youth. She was a writer and reporter on science and energy-related issues before turning her attention to the impact of myth on our daily lives. The worldwide vision of the earth as feminine - as a goddess, called Gaia by the Greeks - led her to recognize the connection between ecological damage and the oppression of the feminine. Much of her work since that time has explored the role of feminine power in our world, in an inclusive and multicultural way. Her book, Wild Girls, focuses on the revival of girl power.