Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:
- I'm currently reading…
- Up next I think I’ll read…
- I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
- I'm super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
- I'm really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
- I can’t wait to get a copy of…
- I wish I could read ___, but…
- I blogged about ____ this past week…
THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: What book have you wanted to read for a long time, but still haven’t?
- I'm currently reading…
I'm still reading Wild Stories: The Best of Men's Journal- 2003 and am presently reading an article called "Alone" by Philip Caputo (the story takes place around 1998) and is about when he went alone backpacking and camping in a vast preserved wilderness area called "The Gila" for Gila National Forest. He goes into camp after weeks of being alone on a ranch and then he is in this vast wilderness.
More reading on hiking this area: Mogollon Mountains Backpacking – Gila Wilderness, NM – May 2012
News stories he had previously read and clipped together because he had this vague notion they are connected keep floating and converging in his head.
After days of hiking alone in this vast beauty he suddenly gets why subconsciously he had thought there was a connecting thread to these random, some violent stories that all took place in Phoenix where the population was skyrocketing. He remembered a quote where a famous naturalist talked of the loss of nature to modernity and the cost and summed up that it was nature that was the natural environment of man and with modern life, the very essence of our natural habitat was so far from us, that culture was destabilizing to chaos.
As he left the wilderness he says: "It seems that the more we despoil the land and divorce ourselves from the rhythms, cycles, and beauty of the natural world, the less civilized we become." (p 91) and " I think we would all benefit if more of us spent more time watching geese instead of television; if more of us devoted time to absorbing the information wild creatures leave instead of filling our brains with the data-bubble on the Internet. Woods and rivers can teach us lessons about patience and humility, about the interconnectedness of all living things, about discerning what is important and lasting and what is trivial and transient. Thoreau said that in wilderness lies the salvation of mankind. John Muir, in one of his essay's on the California Sierras, wrote that each alpine wildflower was 'a mirror reflecting the Creator.' " (p. 92)
Gentian
THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: What book have you wanted to read for a long time, but still haven’t.
S-l-o-w-l-y I have been starting to read Outlander (Outlander #1) by Diana Gabaldon, which is like an old friend re-visited.
I was reminded when updating my Goodreads account that I started A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R.R. Martin a few years ago and stopped because it was so close to the TV series that it was redundant. Good reading, but just the same, just a replay of what I had watched. Now I stopped watching Game of Thrones even though I loved it at the "Red Wedding". Anyone who's seen it would probably know why- I just had had enough. But I still love it, so I figure this Fall I'll see if my husband likes the series and I'll start again. So, maybe starting the book where I left off and getting ahead would work. I hear there are things in the book that go way beyond the series, I just need the right time to read it. And patience. I remember when my daughter read the series years ago and the book would sail across the room every time she'd get to a part that (obviously) someone was dying that she objected to. It's a well traveled book.
- I blogged about ____ this past week…
I created (I thought) a really great blog for "Friday Finds" looking at some of my "To Read List" in Goodreads- Friday Finds Book-wise.
- (Also) I'm currently reading…
"Outlander" my true favorite on the side.
This is an interesting post (great pictures too), thanks for sharing. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks. In light of this past weekend it helped me. I took a walk, stared at a beautiful full rainbow while my husband and I stood under a small tree while it hailed. Then my daughter and I took pictures of a hillside covered by big orange poppies and purple iris. There is peace in nature.
ReplyDelete