Trekking through the Yellowstone “Museum of Wonders”
Wonder-Land Illustrated by Harry J. Norton, published in 1873, was one of the first tourbooks recounting the Yellowstone experience for a general audience.
Holy Dirt: Review of The Healing Power of the Santuario de Chimayó
Review of “The Healing Power of the Santuario de Chimayó: America’s Miraculous Church” by Brett Hendrickson.
Making heroes of church pioneers in the wild west
For early twentieth-century historians, the story of church in the wild west involved a racially informed moral tale of transforming savage disorder to settled order.
Mesa Wisdom of the Hopi People
Though a product of colonial violence, Frank Waters’ Book of the Hopi offers an alternate vision and a critique of our ultimately self-destructive assumptions, values, and modes of living.
On the road with scholar Andrei Codrescu
Review of the 1993 documentary film “Road Scholar” featuring Romanian American poet Andrei Codrescu in a sometimes hilarious, sometimes alarming commentary on the American dream.
Listening for the wisdom
Listening is more than being still and letting the other person talk. Skillful listeners are actively involved in the conversation. They build trust and hear the deeper messages.
The Narrow Road to Bashō: a short review of travel sketches
A short review of The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by renowned seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō.
In the between of who we are: contemplating the bardo
The moment of “between,” that instant of bardo in dreaming, in meditating, and in the pause between every breath, quivers with ambiguity. In the bardo between people awaits a double potential.
Finding Don McLean all along the roads we’ve traveled all our days
A review of Don McLean’s nearly forgotten self-titled album that explores alienation, separateness, the agony of memory, the deeply painful dimension of nostalgia.
Tracing Land and Race Across America: book review of Trace
Review of Trace: Memory, History, Race, & the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy, which weaves history, geology, and personal memoir in profound tales that peel back layers of a place called America.
Permanent Vacation: The Impermanence of Life in the National Parks
Review of Permanent Vacation: Twenty Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks, edited by Kim Wyatt (Bona Fide Books, 2011), an assortment of short recollections by writers who lived and worked in national parks. Sometimes adventurous, even frightening, often poetic, this collection offers intimate views rarely experienced by the millions who enjoy American national parks each year. ♨
Spirituality in national parks: a review of Kerry Mitchell
Spirituality and the State by Kerry Mitchell examines state power through a lens of “spirituality” in America’s national parks. This book shows how affection for parklands relies on a love of nature which is also a love of oneself and of one’s nation. Though intellectually engaging, Mitchell grounds his analysis in stories of people enjoying national parks. ♨