Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Shepherd – like Neil Gunn and like the Scottish explorer–essayist W.H. Murray – was strongly influenced by her reading in Buddhism and the Tao.
Nan Shepherd • The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland
four decades, until Aberdeen University Press finally and quietly published it in 1977. That same year, Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia, Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts and John McPhee’s Coming into the Country appeared; a year later came Peter Matthiessen’s Zennish mountain epic, The Snow Leopard. To my mind, The Living Mountain stands equal t
... See moreNan Shepherd • The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland
The Gardener”
Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace? I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much
. Then I step out into the garden, where the garde
... See more
First there was nothing. Then there was everything.
Then, in a park above a western city after dark, the air is raining messages.
A woman sits on the ground, leaning against a pine. Its bark presses hard against her back, hard as life. Its needles scent the air and a force hums in the heart of the wood. Her ears tune down to the lowest frequencies. T
... See more