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The Wild Within by Paul Rezendes
The story of Paul Rezendes's spiritual journey began when he was leader of a motorcycle gang (i.e., a Devil's Disciple). His dangerous life of narcotics and guns eventually caught up with him and he and his wife found themselves in trouble with the law. His legal hassles gave him the perfect excuse to back out of the gang; thus he reneged on his lifelong commitment. (Apparently, motorcycle gangs are a lot like the Mafia; he muses, "You better have a damn good reason to leave.") From then on Rezendes began a furtive spiritual quest that led him into the woods, following the paw and hoof prints of wild animals. Like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Rezendes teaches the art of animal tracking and stalking, all the while making the link to the clean, observant Zen mind. "Stalking meditation demands that we pay full attention to every footfall, every breath, every sound we make, each nuance of landscape, wind, humidity," he writes. "Stalking gives us the opportunity to move away from the tiny perspective of thought and self into all-encompassing awareness." Rezendes, a renowned teacher of seminars and workshops, uses personal tracking stories to emphasize the importance of focused observation. But more importantly, his storytelling challenges readers to be spiritually accountable in the wild as well as everyday life.--Gail Hudson
Hardcover
First published December 28, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 22, 2009
What’s the old saying? “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Well, in this case, you can’t judge an author by his past. Formerly an outlaw, the leader of two motorcycle gangs, author Paul Rezendes had led a life of violence, both threatened and real. A life governed by machismo. But a suspended prison sentence forced him to seek a calmer, gentler, more centered life. He became an avid outdoorsman and animal tracker, finding answers to his own personal questions in the wilderness. He found peace, developing his philosophical side, finding the Zen of nature.
Arrested for possession of a goodly amount of marijuana (three shopping bags full) and an illegal weapon, Rezendes found himself in court. “I’ll never forget standing before the judge for sentencing, my wife standing at my side. ‘I sentence you to five to ten years in Walpole State Prison’ the judge said…"After my sentence was announced, I was stunned. It seemed to me an eternity before I heard the judge say, ‘Sentence suspended,’ the author recalls.
“I spent the next several years in a fervent spiritual search. I hadn’t yet realized that the territory of self had simply transferred itself from being an alpha biker to a spiritual savant. I reentered the woods and began to synthesize the lessons of nature and spirituality that would direct the rest of my life. Finally, walking in the woods, I had a moment of insight that exploded the notion of self that I had been carrying and cultivating all those years.”
After he shed the sense of “self” he had nurtured for years; Rezendes’ book “The Wild Within” relates the peace he found in the woods, living purely in the moment.
Excellent lessons for us all.
Arrested for possession of a goodly amount of marijuana (three shopping bags full) and an illegal weapon, Rezendes found himself in court. “I’ll never forget standing before the judge for sentencing, my wife standing at my side. ‘I sentence you to five to ten years in Walpole State Prison’ the judge said…"After my sentence was announced, I was stunned. It seemed to me an eternity before I heard the judge say, ‘Sentence suspended,’ the author recalls.
“I spent the next several years in a fervent spiritual search. I hadn’t yet realized that the territory of self had simply transferred itself from being an alpha biker to a spiritual savant. I reentered the woods and began to synthesize the lessons of nature and spirituality that would direct the rest of my life. Finally, walking in the woods, I had a moment of insight that exploded the notion of self that I had been carrying and cultivating all those years.”
After he shed the sense of “self” he had nurtured for years; Rezendes’ book “The Wild Within” relates the peace he found in the woods, living purely in the moment.
Excellent lessons for us all.
February 27, 2025
A nice read about lessons learned while spending time in nature through the perspective of a professional animal tracker who was formerly a motorcycle gang leader. I would love to take one of his workshops. Seems like such a cool guy.
July 6, 2015
Quite a trip while making much of the author's biography not-scarey for most readers. Loved the descriptions of tracking wildlife and animals. Was more skeptical of his spiritual insights although I found them food for though. Glad he had found a connection to nature and spirit after his early traumatic life experiences.
November 7, 2019
Makes you want to go into nature - which is great. His personal background is very interesting, and the merging of tracking and mindfulness has some nice and practical tips for the reader. The ideas are good; the writing itself is pretty mediocre.
May 29, 2008
my friend lori-d gave me this book when i was down and out, it totally did the trick. i have read it five times so far
September 23, 2022
I enjoy his all encompassing acceptance of different thoughts, religions and ideas. The spiritual message of nature is something that rings very true to me
October 4, 2025
However beautiful the premise and how soulful the man, this book falls flat with its one-liners of wisdom and fails to convey the depth of his experiences.
I had high hopes and am dismayed to rate this as low as I do. I had expected more poetry and nature-connection instead of expounding philosophical ideas.
His ideas are infused with notions of Eastern philosphy, as well as about Jungian concepts like the Unconscious, the Ego and the Shadow, but, seemingly without being aware of the fact, making his teachings feel 'impenetrable', like a wooden block in front of your eyes that acquiants you with the form, but precludes the living experience of being whacked over the head with it, or its gentle, loving strokes of polished wood.
Another sore point was that he never mentioned Tom Brown Jr., even though it was indicated by his references to stalking and mocassins that he knows the most famousest of trackers, and possibly is even trained by him or his lineage at the Tracker School. Sore, because it seems weak to not give credit where credit is due.
It is not possible to experience what Rezendes has experienced in nature, in regards to insights and revelations, mostly due to prose that tells instead of shows. This is what other reviewers mean when they felt 'excluded', or that it went 'over their heads'. The prose is inconducive to the sort of mystical experiences he attempts to convey (unfortunately!).
I do love the man, even though I was shocked at reading about some of his history pertaining to abuse of a 'groupie' of his motorgang, as much as as the drug abuse, violence and rape. Indeed, I was shocked that the man even had such a history, and, although it made me more impressed with his transformational turn-around in the woods, I was loathe to discover that many of his philosophical lessons were in fact externalised statements pertaining to his own Shadow. This made it frustrating, exhausting and exasperating.
I came for reflections on nature and wilderness, but the text didn't allow for a deep connection with his experiences and teachings (however profound they evidently have been for him!).
His prose is a combination of summarizing some adventures in the woods, stating biological facts, telling you that it was 'amazing', and connecting the chapter's insights with his violent past; reflecting on how (and simply that) he has discovered what's underneath his machismo - all without actually taking you along.
I am saddened, because I feel his heart and I wish this would touch my soul, but alas! I fear reading Tolkien has made me ever so sensitive to language and story-telling, and reading Wild Within was like watching the gorrilas behind glass in a zoo.
The gold is there, but the door is shut.
I had high hopes and am dismayed to rate this as low as I do. I had expected more poetry and nature-connection instead of expounding philosophical ideas.
His ideas are infused with notions of Eastern philosphy, as well as about Jungian concepts like the Unconscious, the Ego and the Shadow, but, seemingly without being aware of the fact, making his teachings feel 'impenetrable', like a wooden block in front of your eyes that acquiants you with the form, but precludes the living experience of being whacked over the head with it, or its gentle, loving strokes of polished wood.
Another sore point was that he never mentioned Tom Brown Jr., even though it was indicated by his references to stalking and mocassins that he knows the most famousest of trackers, and possibly is even trained by him or his lineage at the Tracker School. Sore, because it seems weak to not give credit where credit is due.
It is not possible to experience what Rezendes has experienced in nature, in regards to insights and revelations, mostly due to prose that tells instead of shows. This is what other reviewers mean when they felt 'excluded', or that it went 'over their heads'. The prose is inconducive to the sort of mystical experiences he attempts to convey (unfortunately!).
I do love the man, even though I was shocked at reading about some of his history pertaining to abuse of a 'groupie' of his motorgang, as much as as the drug abuse, violence and rape. Indeed, I was shocked that the man even had such a history, and, although it made me more impressed with his transformational turn-around in the woods, I was loathe to discover that many of his philosophical lessons were in fact externalised statements pertaining to his own Shadow. This made it frustrating, exhausting and exasperating.
I came for reflections on nature and wilderness, but the text didn't allow for a deep connection with his experiences and teachings (however profound they evidently have been for him!).
His prose is a combination of summarizing some adventures in the woods, stating biological facts, telling you that it was 'amazing', and connecting the chapter's insights with his violent past; reflecting on how (and simply that) he has discovered what's underneath his machismo - all without actually taking you along.
I am saddened, because I feel his heart and I wish this would touch my soul, but alas! I fear reading Tolkien has made me ever so sensitive to language and story-telling, and reading Wild Within was like watching the gorrilas behind glass in a zoo.
The gold is there, but the door is shut.
October 8, 2021
"Master tracker Paul Rezendes has followed bobcat through impenetrable swamps, wrestled a black bear in the Adirondack wilderness, and howled with coyotes at the edge of a moonlit field. In The Wild Within, he weaves vivid accounts of lessons learned in the wild with the story of his extraordinary life progression from gang member to Zen woodsman.
"The former leader of two outlaw motorcycle gangs, Rezendes was motivated by a suspended prison sentence to seek a truer path in life. He found answers in the wilderness, where he learned about compassion and love from an extremely curious 750-pound bull moose, and discovered the inseparability of life an death through a wrenching encounter between a hungry coyote and a deer. These stories and many more transport readers from the rugged slopes of Maine's Mount Katahdin to Cape Cod's sun-drenched blueberry tangles to the brink of a fox's secret forest lair.
"If Jon Krakauer is said to write of 'the dark side of the wilderness experience,' Rezendes writes of the philosophical side. Bringing the lessons of nature into everyday experience, he takes us into the wilderness and shows us how to move soundlessly through the forest, to watch where we put our feet, to gauge the direction of the wind, to enter a state of awareness. The Wild Within is one of those rare books with the power to change the way we see ourselves, and make the natural world come alive."
~~front and back flaps
I had a difficult time with some of the philosophical portions of this book, and I'm not sure why. They talked of a state beyond enlightenment, and I felt excluded, left behind. The stories of his time in the woods were wonderful, as were most of his reminiscences about his earlier life.
"The former leader of two outlaw motorcycle gangs, Rezendes was motivated by a suspended prison sentence to seek a truer path in life. He found answers in the wilderness, where he learned about compassion and love from an extremely curious 750-pound bull moose, and discovered the inseparability of life an death through a wrenching encounter between a hungry coyote and a deer. These stories and many more transport readers from the rugged slopes of Maine's Mount Katahdin to Cape Cod's sun-drenched blueberry tangles to the brink of a fox's secret forest lair.
"If Jon Krakauer is said to write of 'the dark side of the wilderness experience,' Rezendes writes of the philosophical side. Bringing the lessons of nature into everyday experience, he takes us into the wilderness and shows us how to move soundlessly through the forest, to watch where we put our feet, to gauge the direction of the wind, to enter a state of awareness. The Wild Within is one of those rare books with the power to change the way we see ourselves, and make the natural world come alive."
~~front and back flaps
I had a difficult time with some of the philosophical portions of this book, and I'm not sure why. They talked of a state beyond enlightenment, and I felt excluded, left behind. The stories of his time in the woods were wonderful, as were most of his reminiscences about his earlier life.
November 27, 2018
I read this while I took a social media fast and it made it all the better. Paul takes you on his tracking expeditions while reflecting on principles of life that really just made me feel at ease and grateful. It'll make you want to keep an eye out for tracks next time you're on a hike, and remember that even if you don't see any wildlife they are adept at always knowing where you are.
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November 16, 2024A profoundly wonderful book. As exciting as it is insightful. I deeply enjoyed another Paul Rezendes' book, Tracking and the Art of Seeing, and this book is as good, but in different ways. Rezendes' life is fascinating, his tracking stories are mesmerizing, and his insight into life is a treasure.
August 1, 2022
My favorite book. Really opens your mind on the similarities between us and animals.
September 11, 2023
Phenomenal
August 18, 2025
Enjoyed the different animal tracking stories, astounding someone can be so good at tracking animal paths. His philosophy I found to be a little over my head and not something I agreed with.
February 22, 2008
Dillon, Montana
December 12, 2008
Story of a man's spiritual journey and healing through nature and animal tracking.
January 2, 2009
I love the concept. The writting itself is nothing to get excited about but the teachings... much to chew on.
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October 26, 2014The Wild Within 05312007 Adventures in Nature and Animal Teachings by Paul Rezendes
The story of Paul Rezendes's spiritual journey began when he was leader of a motorcycle gang
The story of Paul Rezendes's spiritual journey began when he was leader of a motorcycle gang
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews