Mary Panttaja

As we were about to leave, I casted about for something to read—not just anything (I have a large stack of business and technical books on the desktop)—but something comforting and inspiring to read. In the library, I was scanning my nature essay section and pulled out “Desert Solitaire, A Season in the Wilderness” by Edward Abbey. Of course, since we are heading to the red rock country, it was especially pertinent.

I mused a bit on those books that I would always own, those writers that always speak to me very personally. Many of the most important books in my life are of the experience of the person/soul/sensibility coming into contact with the natural world. That experience of nature and the planet is, for me, a key touchstone in my process of keeping in touch with who I really am. It helps me move passed my egoic worries and concerns and feel what really is.

So my mind started to make a list of who these people were. One day I’ll will do it more completely, but here is a start:

• Gary Snyder
• Edward Abbey
• Aldo Leopold
• Wendell Berry
• Gretel Erhlich
• Barry Lopez
• Robert Thurman
• Peter Mathiessen
• Farley Mowat

I know there are more—but today it’s E Abbey and the red rock desert. And that is quite enough.