- Publisher: DeVorss Publishing
- Editor: Gary Peattie
- Published: June 20, 2004
The Mindful Hiker: On the Trail to Find the Path
Human beings need a place in nature where they are so comfortable emotionally, physically, and spiritually they can retreat to it, at times, and recover from the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Otherwise, we are always a bit lost, a bit like vagabonds wandering without direction in the wilderness. It’s a soul home, of sorts, a place of refuge, a place of rejuvenation. This book describes such a refuge that I found in the early 1980s, and still experience today. The book describes a love affair, really, with nature, and more specifically, with Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California. And it can lead you, too, to both your soul home in the natural world…and within yourself.
An explanatory note about a comment on Amazon: The Amazon rating for this book was decreased appreciably by a comment that I feel was unfair. It was a one-star rating that should have been five stars since its first sentence is “This is a fantastic book!” The comment then continues with a criticism of me for following up The Mindful Hiker with a book about golf. The reader doesn’t like the sport of golf at all and blasted away. I have tried to appeal to Amazon customer service to correct the rating for TMH, but have been unsuccessful in getting any satisfaction whatsoever. So I hope what you concentrate on is the first sentence of this reader’s comment.
Here’s the comment as it appears in Amazon: “This is a fantastic book! Why spoil it by writing another about mindfulness and GOLFING!? If you are going to apologize to a deer to taking its life, what about the ecosystem you helped demolish by hitting a stupid ball with a stupid stick!? Go HIKING, fa chrissakes. Don’t you know about the terrible wasteland that is a golf course? How it’s balls end up in streams, it’s sand dunes get demolished, chemicals poison watershed, carbon trapping trees used only here and there for capitalistic ‘shady’ deals between fat white guys?! (With tangerine hair). it is superficial mindfulness in a man made environment…these places could be restored habitat—- a healthier use of mindfulness. Don’t get back to me about the cute sand trap fox or the wiley gator in your “pond.” Show me photos of what it used to be like for all creatures…and then go hiking there.”
As for The Mindful Golfer, if you’re interested in the game, I encourage you to check out that book as well.
Thank you, and happy, mindful hiking and/or golfing.