The Practice of the Wild: With a New Preface by the Author

A deeply thought and deeply felt exploration of how to live on this beautiful planet. As relevant now as the day it was written.

A thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of the variety of wild experiences and its significance.I've been trained in so-called Western Philosophy and, for good and bad, look for ways to conceive my experiences. While not an especially analytic text, it's full of examples and descriptions that provoked me to reconsider how I conceive the wild and nature, whether in a classroom or a city neighborhood. Much appreciated.It also challenged me to accept the limits of such conceptual analysis. It's a book by someone who knows that writing about the wilderness is not a substitute for being immersed in the wilderness. As a longtime backpacker, I had experienced this humility before, but it's a gift to find an author who doesn't distract me from it. It's reminds me to seek the wild.

A series of essays by the great poet Gary Snyder about nature at large and the role that man and the greater civilization have played in changing it. But it's not just a lamentation of over-industrialization, deforestation, and pollution, he gets into the old way of thinking about the land. The way people who depended on it thought about it and treated it, and the massive gulf that has opened between us, the normal modern people, and the land upon which (despite being out of sight and mind) we all still entirely depend. A really eye-opening experience to read.

Snyder calls these essays a "meditation on what is is to be human." He emphasizes what is too often overlooked, our biological, animal and natural selves, that connect us to the rest of the world. For him, we are still, in our innermost selves, wild, in the good sense. And the "etiquette of freedom" and "the etiquette of the wild" he describes, if we follow them, will lead to our own inner freedom, our own deep connection to things as they really are. With a poet's rather than a preacher's touch, he invites the reader to a way of life connected to our ancestors and to the natural world around us. A book of deep wisdom, it may not transform the world in our lifetimes, but it can transform anyone who reads it with an open heart and mind. I for one plan to absorb the practice of the wild for the rest of my life.

I bought this for my Anthropology class. The book does really seem new until you open it and see highlighted sentences and phrases. Personally, I like keeping the book clean - without any written words or anything underlined, but I’ll try my best to understand the point of it. I cannot wait to read it! Overall, I’d still give it a five!

The Practice of the Wild has been for me a revelation. It is not just a book about environment but a collection of texts and thoughts, including useful historical references about Nature , that enlarge our comprehension of the way we deal with the world. It helps us to behave in life, in our relations with other people, with plants, with animals. But it is not a book of self-help. It is poetry and inspiration, knowledge and conscience.Snyder does not pretend to give us a formula, to impose a theory or a corpus of doctrine, he just shares his thoughts and experiences, and it is very well written.I marked many pages with post-it because it is a book worth to be read again.

A book I will read more than once, many more often. Gary Snyder has the gift of being able to bring the reader into, not only his mind but the minds of the people he visits in far-flung places of this quickly changing Earth. From this book I now fear that if we lose the Wild, both inside and outside of us, we'll lose a lot we might not be able to recreate.

This book is a gem and treasure of appreciation for the natural world.O f all the books I have read and there have been many this one is quite specialas it comes from the soul and the brain in a combination that is gripping and memorable.It has parts that can be read over and over to grasp onto as our wildernessis shredded. It is a life preserver in a stormy sea.

A good book. Very interesting read.

Wide-ranging contemplations on wild, wildness and wilderness by a poet and philosopher. I found the ideas about language and the mind, as parts of wild nature, particularly compelling.

Um ótimo livro com textos que transitam entre zen budismo, Dogen, meio ambiente e preservação, povos ancestrais. Bem interessante.

Some of Gary Snyder's clearest and most evocative prose, providing illuminating background context for his years of transformative verse. As well as clarifying his poetry, the essays herein consist of a valuable contribution to the field of ecopsychology. Highly recommended for its breadth, erudition and relevance to the challenges we, as settler people, collectively face in learning to appropriately inhabit Turtle Island.

I do like the topics, but not quite as engaging as I would have hoped, given the good reviews.