Leaving home -- The threshold : temple gate and mountain trailhead -- Breath and body -- Letting go -- Ritualizing a walk -- Mountains and other destinations -- Vistas and visions -- Beauty and blazes on the trial -- Return -- True home, true pilgrimage

Discover how hiking can be a kind of spiritual pilgrimage calming our minds , enhancing our sense of wonder , and deepening our connection to nature . Evoking the writings of Gary Snyder, Bill Bryson, and Cheryl Strayed, Zen on the Trail explores the broad question of how to be outside in a meditative way. By directing our attention to how we hike as opposed to where were headed,Ives invites us to shift from ego-driven doing to spirit-filled being ,and to explore the vast interconnection of ourselves and the natural world. Through this approach, we can wake up in the woods on natures own terms. In erudite and elegant prose, Ives takes us on a journey we will not soon forget. This book features a new prose poem by Gary Snyder