Of the 75+ articles I wrote during my time with Outside/Trail Runner, here are my favorites.
Top 5 Books in 2019 (via The Mandorla 200)
Since starting The Mandorla 200—micro-distillations of 200 necessary books on ecology, justice, and place-belonging for our times. 200 words or less—in February 2018, I’ve completed nearly 25% of the 200 book goal.
In 2018, I read and wrote about 25 books. This year, 23.
Here are the five most-memorable reads from the 2019. Every book I select for the Mandorla 200 is highly considered, so it’s always difficult to put this list together. These, however, were the five that stuck with me the most, their micro-distillations republished here…
Top 5 Best Books in 2018 (via The Mandorla 200)
On February 16, 2018, I started a personal reading/writing Instagram project called the Mandorla 200.
The mission statement was simple: Micro-distillations of 200 necessary books on ecology, justice, and place-belonging for our times. 200 words or less.
The Mandorla 200 emerged from a need to keep up with reading all the wonderful books I had accumulated over the years. I also understood that, as a writer, reading is as much a part of the practice of writing as writing itself.
So I made 3 goals:
Goal #1: Read 200 books of high cultural and ecological importance (goal: read more; read better).
Goal #2: Write a 200-word or less "distillation” for each book’s deepest message (goal: more concision).
Goal #3: Express gratitude for the author, the publisher, and the person whose recommendation made me read the book (goal: more gratitude).
So far I’ve featured 25 books, doing my best to balance genre, gender, ethnicity, modern/classic, etc.
I am 13% completed with the project at the end of 2018, and it’s been a wildly satisfying and generative project for me. Thank you for following along.
Reading is, in practice, such a solitary thing, so the feedback, community, and conversation sparked has been perhaps the most beautiful part of the process.
Below are my five favorite reads so far. I’ve reposted the 200-word micro-distillations here, but you can follow along on Instagram, too. Thank you.
Lodged Out Retreat
Excited to be a guest speaker and trail curator for the Lodged Out Unplugged Retreat in Leavenworth, WA October 26-29, 2018. A weekend of running, chatting creativity and conservation with other like-minded folks. Run by Olympian marathoner and photographer Sarah Attar.
All the Hers
At some point our human expression somehow leaned into an atrophied gender asymmetry where the outer, unguided masculine began to make all the rules, and have now, for thousands of years, subjugated and dehumanized other groups thereof, only to harden their own hegemony.
Today we’ve inherited such white male dominance, a hallmark signature of global market capitalism, too, penetrating penises of fossil extraction, gun shafts erect, fleshy fingers pointing, shouting and shooting and shooing and spouting over the calm, over the collected, verbal and sexual and ecological assaults at every corner firing shots across the world without consent, barreling through town to clench what’s left of our psycho-adolescent control of the sandbox while previously unsung voices continue to shine through with ever-more truth, ever-more vitality, ever-more authenticity, and, therefore, ever-more authority.
It’s all a threat to the Secret, the lie we’re told as young boys, of hyper-masculine dominance, of power acquired through the Take: steal the football, steal the base, capture the flag, go for the jugular, go for the gold, that never-take-no-for-an-answer approach to making deals, making friends, getting paid and getting laid.
This calculus of oppression—colonial, racial, sexual, environmental—are all to be glazed over, set firm to law and textbook, truth eclipsed by a machismo perpetuated through failed generations of broken men just following protocol: to be a man, to nut up, that, to be a feminist is to somehow threaten one’s manhood, to get down and give me twenty, to some militant allegiance to secrecy all the way down to its hollow core, a core stewing in lies, lies that keep us on top, so to speak.
No more. I am a man. I am also a feminist. And I believe her. All the hers.
Podcast Interview: A New Angle
Check out this great interview by dear friend, ultrarunner legend, and UM Professor Justin Angle. We discuss the creative process, public lands, and how to keep balanced in the hustle. Take a listen.
In Photos: Freeflow Institute
June 23-28, 2018 - Co-facilitated a 6-day wilderness writing and conservation trip with the Freeflow Institute down the Main Salmon River. 15 clients, featuring Pulitzer-Prize finalist William deBuys. Amazing trip, the first of many. Some photos...
Tanzania 2017
Here are some images from a full month in Tanzania this past June. Click on the images for more.
Todos Santos Writer's Workshop
Excited to announce that I'll be on for another year in Baja, Mexico, as Associate Director for the 2018 Todos Santos Writer's Workshop! Take a look.
International Resilience Summit
This October, I was invited to sit on a panel to discuss resilience and climate change. Really honored and excited. Check it out!
Peru 2017
Here are some of the highlighted images from a month fastpacking and exploring in Peru. Damn.