Wild Communion: Experiencing Peace in Nature (Signed!) [B1580]

1997 signed french-flap, deckled-edge PB in excellent condition (with a nice inscription to 'Sherrod & Matt'). "I have come to see communing with nature as more than a way to get a hit of bliss," writes Seattle psychotherapist Ruth Baetz. "Sometimes it gives me a deep serenity or a gentle feeling of connectedness. Sometimes it gives me lessons I desperately need, whether the lessons themselves comfort or pain me." A self-described city-slicker, when Baetz went alone to the Canadian Rockies she experienced a feeling of rapture that was off her internal Richter scale. Is there a way to feel the ecstasy Baetz felt in the Rockies-a way to create a deep relationship with nature-even when living in a city? In Wild Communion, Ruth Baetz answers with a resounding Yes! The reader will experience communing in the wilderness and in the city through Baetz's journal entries, and find practical strategies for making restorative connections with nature anywhere.

From Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This is a magical book. As in, the author knows how to find magic in nature and she kindly shares her expertise and insights with us so we, too, can experience a transcendent moment even if we are time limited and can't get to the wilderness. Baetz takes communing with nature to a profound level with her brilliant, elegantly expressed ideas. In the Introduction, she refers to the book as "both a how-to book and a spiritual adventure book." Each chapter contains easy communing techniques that the reader can apply immediately. Entries from her journals let you experience vicariously what each technique can do for you. The great importance of this book may be to show us the value of a daily ritual. One in which we get out of ourselves for a few moments in order to go deeper into ourselves and remember who we really are. It provides us a way to interrupt the everydayness of consumerism and materialism and all the distractions of everyday life that we have inherited by being born in this age and this place. Seeing nature with fresh eyes, as Baetz teaches us to do, relaxes the mind, body and soul, offering spiritual refreshment."; "This is one of my favorite books on nature meditation and it's one of the books I recommend to students who are wanting to do a meditation practice outdoors or in nature. It provides some good ideas, instruction, and, most importantly, lots of inspiration to get out there and do a more basic meditation practice that connects you to the environment."