Step into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life

by Patrice Vecchione

Overview

Step outside your door and reconnect with nature. From the author of Writing and the Spiritual Life comes a guide that will replenish your connection to the earth and inspire you to develop and strengthen your imagination.

The natural world has inspired artists, seekers, and thinkers for millennia, but in recent times, as the pace of life has sped up, its demands have moved us indoors. Yet nature’s capacity to lead us to important truths, to invigorate and restore our imagination and equilibrium, is infinite.

Step into Nature makes nature personal again by stimulating awareness and increasing our understanding of the environment. But being in nature doesn’t mean flying off to remote, faraway places. Nature is as close as opening your front door—and opening your heart to the sky above, the miniature gardens that push their way up between the sidewalk cracks in our cities, and the small stream just down the road.

Patrice Vecchione demonstrates how nature can support and enhance your creative output, invigorate your curiosity, and restore your sense of connection to and love of the earth. Included throughout the book is “The Cabinet of Curiosities,” exercises and suggestions for practical and unexpected ways to stimulate your imagination, deepen your relationship with nature, and experience the harmony between creativity and the natural world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781582705002
Publisher:	Atria Books/Beyond Words
Publication date:	03/31/2015
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	655,042
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.38(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Patrice Vecchione is the author of Writing and the Spiritual Life, as well as two books of poetry. She is also the editor of many highly acclaimed anthologies for children, young adults, and adults. Vecchione has taught creative writing and collage workshops at universities, libraries, in community and spiritual centers, including Esalen Institute, and privately for over thirty years. She also teaches workshops outdoors through parks departments and recreation centers. She lives in Monterey, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction: You Come Too xiii

1 The Allure of the Earth: An Ancient Awareness 1

2 A Journey: Nature, Spirit, and Imagination 19

3 What We Carry; All Essentials Neatly in Place, or Not 37

4 The Aliveness of Place: A Sense of Belonging 53

5 To Wander and Wonder: Rove, Meander, Stray 69

6 This Way, Peggy: Losing and Finding Our Way 83

7 A Racing Heart: Fear and the Unknown 93

8 From Feathers to Stars: Finding Your Forms 107

9 Owl-Eye Wings and Shade-Making Cactus: Following Nature's Lead 121

10 Knowing the World and Ourselves: Our Five-Plus Senses 135

11 A Strange Frenzy in My Head: Inspiration and Intuition 153

12 Digging in the Dirt: It's Elemental, After All 169

13 Animal Presence: Swooping Owl and Bounding Fox 183

14 Along Lower Ridge Trail: The Sustenance of Solitude and Silence 201

Conclusion: How the Light Gets In-The Nature of Metamorphosis 221

Acknowledgments 233

Notes 237

Backbone Books: Suggested Reading 251

Editorial Reviews

02/09/2015
In exploring the nature of artistic creativity, Vecchione (Writing and the Spiritual Life) sees connections everywhere. A central conceit of this book is her energetic efforts to relate her walks in a park to the works of everyone from Georgia O’Keeffe to George Gershwin, demonstrating her knowledge of the artistic world, but also moving so swiftly from one idea to the next that few ideas seem fully developed. Vecchione, a creative writing and art teacher, may wish for readers to make their own connections, and to this end she sprinkles expansive writing exercises throughout the text. Clearly a poet first and a naturalist second, she frequently quotes E.E. Cummings, Walt Whitman, and other writers. When writing about encounters with the natural world, however, her inquiry feels more superficial. For instance, when she collects and dissects a seedpod, she marvels at the many layers within, but never ponders the plant’s identity. Readers anticipating the intimacy with nature suggested by the book’s title will find only fleeting instances of it. Even as Vecchione strays from her path, however, she leads the way to a wealth of ideas that will inspire artists working in all media. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Patrice Vecchione has given us a true workbook fro the senses, full of beautiful methods and exercises for getting ever closer to our surrounding world."

David Rothenberg

"Patrice's sense of joy and spirit of inquiry inspire me to live in nature more and to honor the creativity often buried beneath the 'business' of life. Her writing is seamless as she navigates the depth of provocative insights about both nature and art-making. Step Into Nature instantly becomes an old friend, urging us oh so gently to wake up to the wonder around and within us."

Tandy Beal

"A practical guide to how to access the inspiration available everywhere and in everything: Step into Nature is a necessary and extraordinary book. Vecchionne clearly explains what it means for a creative spirit to be in touch with the natural world, what it takes to make that contact—she reminds us you probably won't even have to leave your block—and what to do once you have. With useful examples, detailed packing lists, and stimulating prompts, this book will open you to the many creative influences that are right outside your door."

Camille T. Dungy

"Step Into Nature shows that in nature your imagination will embrace you with a feeling of happiness. Patrice Vecchione reminds us of the importance of caring for the places we love and how every step you take in the natural world will make you want to return again."

Erick Higuera

"Step Into Nature is a gift for all of us who spend too much time inside four walls! Patrice Vecchione's enthusiasm is infectious and her stories, reflections, and art-making suggestions are inspiring. Quoting everyone from Darwin to Dickens, from Kafka to Lorca to Liszt, she has chose memorable and moving passages that are a treasure chest in themselves."

Ellen Bass

"In words carried as lightly in hand as a new-found robin's egg, Patrice Vecchione invites readers into a warm and ranging conversation—one that's held with the natural world and its many plants and creatures, with her own thoughts and life, with an array of the world's great writers, scientists, and artists, and, finally, within their own hearts and minds. Step Into Nature illumines the intimate connection between inner an outer, contemplative and wild, and shows the reasons these connections matter: not only for our survival but because they exhilarate our nights and days on this gorgeous, multiple, fragile and every-changing planet."

Jane Hirshfield

"If you take Patrice's hand she will take you on a walk with mountain lions and aspens, over ice and though fire, among your fears, empathies, and imaginings. Then she'll deposit you back in your comfortable chair with a kiss on your head. And only later will you find that your pockets are quite full of turquoise and in your hair, feathers."

Wallace J. Nichols

"In an era of cascading ecological crises, what could be more important than reconnecting people to the wonder and beauty of nature? Patrice Vecchione’s elegant paean to the wild world, Step Into Nature, accomplishes its vital mission with a poet’s eye and ear. We may be the planet’s dominant species, but Vecchione gently shows us that nature’s wisdom is predominant; that mindful attention to wild beings and birdsong, to ancient oaks and starry skies, can embolden our spirits, animate our imaginations, and bring us all back in tune with the living world around us. Step Into Nature is an enchanted map linking inner and outer worlds, guiding us through the marvels of nature to discover our own innermost artistic visions."

Tai Moses

"Wise and full-hearted advice on blurring the boundaries between inner and outer nature. Patrice Vecchione guide us into deeper, freer levels of imagination and creativity."

David George Haskell

"Patrice Vecchione masterly weaves a tapestry between the natural world around us and within us in this collection of simple and accessible stories filled with wisdom that holds a full field guide for anyone who is interested in the muse, art, or creative process and how nature can feed our internal fire."

Jon Young

"The subject matter is more important than any other, so it is my pleasure to recommend Step Into Nature."

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

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