The heart of my new book Astonished By Beauty: A Field Guide to the Practice of Paying Attention consists of two main sections. The first, “A Geography of Astonishment”—from which this excerpt is drawn—is a series of brief stories of encounters with specific landscapes—portraits of interwoven inner and outer perceptions of places-as-teachers, ranging from the Alaskan Arctic southward through the Pacific Northwest, the Desert Southwest, and ultimately to the Amazon. All places that have, on a fundamental level, become me. These stories, while hopefully engaging in their own right, offer examples of the types of perspectives and insights that can be gained from the practice of natural history.

The second section, “Elements of the Practice,” considers both the practicalities and the spirit of how and why we practice natural history. It is, in essence, a field guide to connection: how to look, see, and let yourself feel about landscapes and their inhabitants.

— Tom Fleischner

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