Journeys of Simplicity: Traveling Light with Thomas Merton, Basho, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard & Others

by Philip Harnden

Overview

Where do our journeys take us?
What do we leave behind?
What do we carry with us?
How do we find our way?

You are invited to consider a more graceful way of traveling through life. With arresting clarity, Journeys of Simplicity offers vignettes of forty travelers and the few, ordinary things they carried with them—from place to place, from day to day, from birth to death.

Edward Abbey • Nellie Bly • Raymond Carver
Dorothy Day • Marcel Duchamp • Dolores Garcia
/Emma “Grandma” Gatewood • Mohandas Gandhi
Peter Matthiessen • William Least Heat Moon
John Muir • Robert Pirsig • Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
Henry David Thoreau • Father Zossima • and others

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594733628
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	01/06/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Philip Harnden was the publisher of The Other Side, a magazine of spirituality and social action, for a dozen years. A Quaker, he has written on subjects as diverse as the land rights of Native Americans and the spiritual life of Fritz Eichenberg. A former correspondent for Religion News Service, Harnden has also been a commentator on North Country Public Radio. He lives in northern New York State, not far from the Canadian border.

Table of Contents

On Traveling Light
Thomas Merton
John Muir
Henry Beston
Marcel Duchamp
Annie Dillard
Matsuo Basho
Edward Abbey
Father Zossima
Dolores Garcia
Henry David Thoreau
The Other Henry Thoreau
Will Baker
A Celtic Woman
Father Terence
Werner Herzog
Raymond Carver
Sue
Ephraim M'Ikiara
Japheth M. Ryder
Emma "Grandma" Gatewood
Ishmael
Fermina Daza
Peter Matthiessen
John Jack
Eric Hoffer
Bilbo Baggins
Bill Wasovwich
The Hermit of Tailaoshan
Jesus of Nazareth
George Washington Sears
William Least Heat Moon
Arctic Tern
Frank O’Malley
Kamo no Chomei
David and Goliath
Dorothy Day
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
Robert Pirsig
Peace Pilgrim
Nellie Bly
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Sources

Editorial Reviews

Here's what John Muir brought on his 1,000-mile trek from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico: a comb, a brush, a towel, soap, a change of underclothing, five books, a plant press and a map. "Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness," he wrote. In Philip Harnden's quirky, reflective book Journeys of Simplicity: Traveling Light with Thomas Merton, Basho, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard & Others, Harnden gives us the lists of objects that famous pilgrims took with them on their travels. Bilbo Baggins wouldn't have strayed from the Shire without his pipe and tobacco (though we learn that he forgot other necessities such as money, a hat and a walking stick). Most entertaining is the substantial list of items Henry David Thoreau brought with him on a 12-day canoe trip in Maine; ironically enough, the man who told others to "simplify, simplify" toted along 166 pounds of stuff. Harnden notes that the book's title is something of a double entendre: it helps us to imagine light, unencumbered journeying, but it also points to the divine Light that illuminates our trail. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

"'How much should I carry with me?' is the quintessential question for any journey, especially the journey of life. Herein you’ll find sage, sly, wonderfully subversive advice."
—Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature

From the Publisher