Download or read book Wilderness Reflections written by Jeff Vordermark and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God is the ultimate teacher, and if you choose to allow Him, He will touch your life in eternal ways. It can even happen while you sit shivering in a tree stand, waiting for a deer that never shows. Author Jeff Vordermark has come to treasure those moments in the wilderness and how they have helped him journey closer to God as a result. Wilderness Reflections: A Pursuit of God’s Lessons in the Field is a collection of short stories that grew out of Vordermark’s search for meaning in the Bible and adventures in the outdoors. Men’s souls seem to be in conflict between the demands of their everyday lives and their recreational pursuits. Sunday church time can seem to be more about duty than community. The call of the wild can all too often reach into the pews and distract us from our heavenly goals, but the two need not be separated. The stories included in Wilderness Reflections: A Pursuit of God’s Lessons in the Field reflect Vordermark’s journey from Sunday-only church to having it any day of the week. It is in this church—the church of the woods—that one can find meaning and seek to clarify the muddle of everyday life.
Download or read book Exploring Lewis and Clark written by Thomas P. Slaughter and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative work challenges traditional accounts of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition across the continent and back again. Uncovering deeper meanings in the explorers’ journals and lives, Exploring Lewis and Clark exposes their self-perceptions and deceptions, and how they interacted with those who traveled with them, the people they discovered along the way, the animals they hunted, and the land they walked across. The book discovers new heroes and brings old ones into historical focus. Thomas P. Slaughter interrogates the explorers’ dreams, how they wrote and what they aimed to possess, their interactions with animals, Indians, and each other, their sense of themselves as leaders and men, and why they feared that they had failed their nation and President. Slaughter’s Lewis and Clark are more confused, frightened, courageous, and flawed than in previous accounts. They are more human, their expedition more dramatic, and thus their story is more revealing about our own relationships to history and myth.
Download or read book Embrace Your Inner Wild written by Mary Reynolds Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embrace Your Inner Wild: 52 Reflections for an Eco-Centric World is a brilliant, full-color book of photographs and reflections that invite you to seek out wildness wherever you find it – within or without. Don Moseman’s spectacular photographs feature the wildlife and terrain of Marin County, California: the fiercely intelligent eyes of the coyote, the spiraling hawk in the supine sky, a bobcat prowling through golden grasses. These photos are paired with reflections by Mary Reynolds Thompson to awaken the reader to wonder. And to oneness. Don spent twenty-five years in San Quentin maximum-security prison in Marin County, California. In 1989, got sober and went straight, encouraged by nature as a guide. Later, taking up photography, the patience he learned in prison paid off. Don knows how to wait for the wild to come to him. Since 1983, the natural world has been key to Mary’s successful recovery from alcoholism. A life coach and facilitator of poetry therapy, Mary has developed a unique program of ecological spirituality that connects clients to their true selves through nature. Embrace Your Inner Wild is a visual and verbal psalm to wildness, rooted in Don and Mary’s shared love of the earth, its inhabitants, and the wild soul that longs to be set free.
Download or read book Between Urban and Wild written by Andrea M. Jones and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her calm, carefully reasoned perspective on place, Andrea Jones focuses on the familiar details of country life balanced by the larger responsibilities that come with living outside an urban boundary. Neither an environmental manifesto nor a prodevelopment defense, Between Urban and Wild operates partly on a practical level, partly on a naturalist’s level. Jones reflects on life in two homes in the Colorado Rockies, first in Fourmile Canyon in the foothills west of Boulder, then near Cap Rock Ridge in central Colorado. Whether negotiating territory with a mountain lion, balancing her observations of the predatory nature of pygmy owls against her desire to protect a nest of nuthatches, working to reduce her property’s vulnerability to wildfire while staying alert to its inherent risks during fire season, or decoding the distinct personalities of her horses, she advances the tradition of nature writing by acknowledging the effects of sprawl on a beloved landscape. Although not intended as a manual for landowners, Between Urban and Wild nonetheless offers useful and engaging perspectives on the realities of settling and living in a partially wild environment. Throughout her ongoing journey of being home, Jones’s close observations of the land and its native inhabitants are paired with the suggestion that even small landholders can act to protect the health of their properties. Her brief meditations capture and honor the subtleties of the natural world while illuminating the importance of working to safeguard it. Probing the contradictions of a lifestyle that burdens the health of the land that she loves, Jones’s writing is permeated by her gentle, earnest conviction that living at the urban-wild interface requires us to set aside self-interest, consider compromise, and adjust our expectations and habits—to accommodate our surroundings rather than force them to accommodate us.
Download or read book The American Wilderness written by Thomas R. Vale and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpretations of wild nature and wilderness are particularly diverse in the American mind, given our history, our collective economic success, and our diverse social and cultural mix. Although the meanings we attribute to nature reflect our different views of the role humans should play in the natural world, there remains a divide between how we embrace protected landscapes and how we consider natural landscapes, or nature itself. Thomas Vale explores this phenomenon in The American Wilderness: Reflections on Nature Protection in the United States. In his examination of protected landscapes at all scales, from the wooded corners of a city park and the local reserve of wetland, to the vast wilderness of the Everglades and Okeefenokee, to Central Park and Yosemite, Vale argues that nature protection is an act of place-creation, an act that necessarily links humans to nature and depends on a diverse array of human interactions. A rare combination of celebration and criticism, Vale's argument is twofold: landscapes of protected nature in the United States represent a legitimate natural resource, and contrary to expressions in some recent literature, such landscapes bond people to nature. Providing extensive historical and modern data about the national park, national wilderness, and national wildlife refuge systems, Vale argues for the validity of landscape protection and the benefits of achieving both strict preserves and mixed-commodity places in a democratic society. His goal is to unite the often disparate threads of nature protection into a fabric that will enhance an appreciation for the extent and richness of nature protection sentiment and action in the United States.
Download or read book Bewilderments written by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the magnificent literary, scholarly, and psychological analysis of the text that is her trademark, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg tackles the enduring puzzlement of the book of Numbers. What should have been for the Israelites a brief journey from Mount Sinai to the Holy Land becomes a forty-year death march. Both before and after the devastating report of the Spies, the narrative centers on the people's desire to return to slavery in Egypt. At its heart are speeches of complaint and lament. But in the narrative of the book of Numbers that is found in mystical and Hasidic sources, the generation of the wilderness emerges as one of extraordinary spiritual experience, fed on miracles and nurtured directly by God: a generation of ecstatic faith, human partners in an unprecedented conversation with the Deity. Drawing on kabbalistic sources, the Hasidic commentators depict a people who transcend prudent considerations in order to follow God into the wilderness, where their spiritual yearning comes to full expression. Is there a way to integrate this narrative of dark murmurings, of obsessive fantasies of a return to Egypt, with the celebration of a love-intoxicated wilderness discourse? What effect does the cumulative trauma of slavery, the miracles of Exodus, and the revelation at Sinai have on a nation that is beginning to speak? In Bewilderments, one of our most admired biblical commentators suggests fascinating answers to these questions.
Download or read book Dick Proenneke Reflections on a Man in His Wilderness written by Alan Bennett and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-15 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1968, at the age of fifty-two, Richard (Dick) Proenneke constructed a log cabin on the edge of a remote wilderness lake in southwest Alaska and lived there alone for thirty years. This story became widely known in 1973 when author Sam Keith published the book One Man's Wilderness-an Alaskan Odyssey, based on Proenneke's journals and photography. Thousands have been inspired by Dick's lifestyle, craftsmanship, and wilderness skills, but few know much of the man himself. Park rangers and volunteers serving as interpretive guides at his cabin today are often asked by visitors: "What was Dick really like when he was living here?" That question can be answered by the bush pilots, fishing and hunting guides, local friends, and past and present National Park Service staff who knew and interacted with him over the thirty years that he lived at Twin Lakes. Reflections on a man in his wilderness is a lively collection of memories, experiences, and stories by those who knew Dick during the years he lived at Twin Lakes in what is now Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. It's a fitting tribute to Dick on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth.
Download or read book Wilderness and the American Mind written by Roderick Frazier Nash and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVRoderick Nash’s classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. The Los Angeles Times listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine included it in a survey of “books that changed our world,” and it has been called the “Book of Genesis for environmentalists.” For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness. Char Miller’s foreword provides a twenty-first-century perspective on how the environmental movement has changed, including the ways in which contemporary scholars are reimagining the dynamic relationship between the natural world and the built environment./div
Download or read book Mindfulness in Wild Swimming written by Tessa Wardley and published by Leaping Hare Press. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mindfulness in Wild Swimming explores how swimming in rivers, lakes and seas is the epitome of conscious living, guiding the reader through practical mindful exercises and technique tips, and reveals how wild swimming can be the ultimate physical meditation.
Download or read book Reflections from the North Country written by Sigurd F. Olson and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-04-25 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in the last years of his life, Reflections from the North Country is often considered Sigurd Olson's most intellectually significant work. In an account alive with anecdote and insight, Olson outlines the wilderness philosophy he developed while working as an outspoken advocate for the conservation of America's natural heritage.Based on speeches delivered at town meetings and government hearings, this book joins The Singing Wilderness and Listening Point as the core of Olson's work. Upon its initial publication in 1976, Reflections from the North Country, with Olson's unique combination of lyrical nature writing and activism, became an inspiration to the burgeoning environmental movement, selling over 46,000 copies in hardcover. In this wide-ranging work, Olson evokes the soaring grace of raven, osprey, and eagle, the call of the loon, and the song of the hermit thrush. He challenges the reader to loosen the grasp of technology and the rush of contemporary life and make room for a sense of wonder heightened by being in nature. From evolution to the meaning and power of solitude, Olson meditates on the human condition, offering eloquent testimony to the joys and truths he discovered in his beloved north-country wilderness.
Download or read book Quiet Reflections written by and published by Big Earth Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The photography of C. Thomas Wyche and the text of John S. Garton provide a window into this grand conservation area.
Download or read book Wilderness Reflections written by Tim Ernst and published by Cloudland.Net. This book was released on 1996 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Wild Man to Wise Man written by Richard Rohr and published by Franciscan Media. This book was released on 2024-02-05 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Richard Rohr’s work has been life-changing in my own experience. Over the last twenty years, no other teacher has had a more formative impact on my mind and heart than this unpretentious Franciscan brother. Being set free from the need to perform—to get it right—has been a particularly important gift for me.”—Belden C. Lane, from the foreword A newly revised edition of Richard Rohr's perennial bestseller, this book reflects and incorporates his years of experience with men's work as well as changes in society. With Richard Rohr as mentor and guide, men—and women who care about men—will want to study and discuss the ideas presented here. A new foreword from Belden C. Lane emphasizes the need for this work to continue.
Download or read book The Meaning of Wilderness written by Sigurd F. Olson and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the enduring popularity of The Singing Wilderness, Listening Point, Reflections from the North Country, and his other books, a major portion of Sigurd F. Olson's wilderness writing-much of it originating as speeches-has been relatively inaccessible, scattered in a number of magazines and obscure books over a period of more than fifty years, or never published at all. The Meaning of Wilderness gathers together the most important of Olson's articles and speeches, making them available in one place for the first time. The book also contains an introduction and chapter-by-chapter commentary by Olson's authorized biographer, David Backes, that help the reader discover the various facets of Olson's wilderness philosophy and their development over time.
Download or read book Walking in the Wilderness written by Beth A. Richardson and published by Upper Room Books. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People of faith are struggling these days as they watch unbelievable events unfold. The United States, once a refuge for immigrants, has closed its borders to many of the world's most vulnerable citizens. Fear of people different from us has created an atmosphere of hatred, incivility, and violence. We are living in a time of wilderness and exile. Yet the wilderness is a familiar place for those who follow Jesus. Like Jesus, we spend 40 days in the wilderness. During Lent God calls us to examine ourselves, repent, and make room in our lives for the Holy One. Walking in the Wilderness is meant to be a companion for readers' journey through Lent. It may be studied by individuals or groups. The book includes daily reflections for Ash Wednesday through Easter. Sunday of each week introduces a spiritual practice for the wilderness. The practices for the six Sundays of Lent are Being Present, Lament, Lectio Divina, Trust, Compassion, and Hospitality. Each reading contains a quotation from an Upper Room resource, a short scripture passage, an insightful reflection and prayer written by Richardson, and a single word for readers to carry with them throughout the day. "We come hungry to this season of Lent," Richardson writes, "hungry for words of life, for rituals of preparation, for disciplines to help us on our way." Walking in the Wilderness provides a spiritual feast for readers during the longest season of the Christian year.
Download or read book The Particulars of Rapture written by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Avivah Zornberg grew up in a world of rabbinic tradition and scholarship and received a Ph.D. in English literature from Cambridge University. The Particulars of Rapture, the sequel to her award-winning study of the Book of Genesis, takes its title from a line by the American poet Wallace Stevens about the interdependence of opposite things, such as male and female, and conscious and unconscious. To her reading of the familiar story of the Israelites and their flight from slavery in Egypt, Avivah Zornberg has brought a vast range of classical Jewish interpretations and Midrashic sources, literary allusions, and ideas from philosophy and psychology. Her quest in this book, as she writes in the introduction, is "to find those who will hear with me a particular idiom of redemption," who will hear "within the particulars of rapture . . . what cannot be expressed." Zornberg's previous book, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, won the National Jewish Book Award for nonfiction in 1995 and has become a classic among readers of all religions. The Particulars of Rapture will enhance Zornberg's reputation as one of today's most original and compelling interpreters of the biblical and rabbinic traditions.
Download or read book Word in the Wilderness written by Malcolm Guite and published by Canterbury Press. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For every day from Shrove Tuesday to Easter Day, the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite chooses a favourite poem from across the Christian spiritual and English literary traditions and offers incisive reflections on it. A scholar of poetry and a renowned poet himself, his knowledge is deep and wide and he offers readers a soul-food feast for Lent.
