“Many years ago I was taught by stones, stones collected from south Texas and rocky Colorado, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the sun-blazed cathedrals of Zion National Park, Wyoming’s Big Horns and the plain-dressed woods of rural Indiana. A shaman’s stone from South Dakota. Leopold’s wilderness prophecies and a fall while climbing that taught me to sit still.”
That is how Kerry Temple sums up his lessons in “Back to Earth: A Backpacker’s Journey into Self and Soul.” The book is a lyrical meditation on knowledge gained from nature, the solace Temple has found in long hikes and backwoods journeys. As the book begins, he’s at a loss; his marriage his ended, and his path has become misdirected, diverted by the tiny, cumulative compromises of everyday life. In an effort to re-focus, Temple moves to an isolated cabin in South Bend, Indiana, one without radio or television or even a clock. There he contemplates, recollecting old journeys and talismans he has collected along the way, rocks that evoke scenery, beauty and lessons learned and forgotten.