The Way of Natural HistoryThomas Lowe Fleischner In this eclectic anthology, more than 20 scientists, nature writers, poets, and Zen practitioners, attest to how paying attention to nature can be a healing antidote to the hectic and harrying pace of our lives. Throughout this provocative and uplifting book, writers describe their various experiences in nature and portray how careful, and mindful, attention to the larger world around us brings rewarding and surprising discoveries. They give us the literary, personal, and spiritual stories that point a way toward calm and quiet for which many people today hunger. Contributors to The Way of Natural History highlight their individual ways of paying attention to nature and discuss how their experiences have enlivened and enhanced their worlds. The anthology is a rich array of writings that provide models for interacting with the natural world, and together, create a call for the importance of natural history as a discipline. |
Contents
The Supple Deer | 1 |
The Mindfulness of Natural History | 3 |
Crazy about Nature | 16 |
Noctambulism | 29 |
Perceiving a World of Relations | 42 |
Sauntering toward Bethlehem | 53 |
The Grounding of a Marine Biologist | 65 |
Lessons from 763 | 81 |
Music and the Natural World | 120 |
Becoming a Neighbor | 126 |
Long Silent Affair | 137 |
Bear Sign On Joyous Attention | 144 |
Yard Birds | 151 |
Maintenance | 155 |
A Natral Histerrical Feller in an Unwondering Age | 160 |
Attending to the Beautiful Mess of the World | 174 |
Notes toward a Natural History of Dams | 91 |
Talking to Wild Things | 101 |
Eyes of the World | 103 |
The Gardener Gets Arrested | 113 |
Witness to the Rain | 187 |
Mind in the Forest | 196 |
Contributors | 213 |
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Common terms and phrases
alder Aldo Leopold alison HawTHorne deming Angry River animals aphids aspen Award bark bear beauty become biodiversity biologist birds butterflies culture dams deep desert Douglas-fir drops ecological ecologist ecosystems edge environmental experience eyes feel fern field fish forest frogs garden ground habitat human hydropower imagine insects Jane HirsHfield keystone species kids lakes land landscape learned lichen live look Lookout Creek maple meadow means mesa mind moss mountains move natural history natural world naturalist neighbors night northern spotted owl one’s patterns pay attention pine plants practice predators rain relationship ridge river roberT micHael Pyle robin wall kimmerer rocks scientists sense Sierra smell snow Sonoran Desert species spotted owl story stream There’s things tiny tion trail trees trophic cascades truck turn valley walk watching wild wind wolf wolves wonder writing Yunnan