What do you think?
Rate this book
Field Guide to Now: Notes on Mindfulness and Life in the Present Tense
What if you could look for the present moment in a field guide, the way you might look up the name of a tree out your window?For as long as you can remember, the tree has just been a tree, but in looking it up, it becomes something more: a Sassafras maybe, or a Tulip Maple, and suddenly you can feel the way your attention towards it shifts. You recognize the way its pollen gathers fine and yellow in the weft of your bedroom screen in May, or the way its shade freckles the dying grass at the end of summer. In the act of naming it, in discovering its traits and marks, the tree becomes something more to you.What if you could do this for the moments that fill your life? That is what this book is about. The illustrated essays and prose explore the fabric of the present tense. With this book, talented blogger and artist Christina Rosalie combines narrative with original illustrations and field notes that spark inspiration. Within these pages she leads readers to rediscover how the small, mundane aspects of daily life can—through a shift in focus—become a springboard for the profound.
- GenresNonfictionSelf Help
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 4, 2012
14 people are currently reading
309 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
contemplating-its-sins
April 23, 2020DNF - I love the title, but this was another one I absolutely could not relate to.
August 8, 2013
I would recommend this book only to certain people. It wasn't badly written and I do think certain people could really relate to the narratives. I found this book to be sort of a woman's published diary with a few helpful exercises with which the reader could experiment. I could empathize with the author, but had a hard time relating to the whole parenting angst-thing. I think women with children or who are contemplating having children could easily relate to the narrative. It may be helpful for potential fathers or clueless men if they have a desire to understand a woman's thought processes more. It could also be helpful for those people who have trouble staying in the present (i.e.; people who are always planning ahead or obsessing about the past instead of experiencing what is actually happening).
October 30, 2012
I can definitely see where Ms. Rosalie was going with this book, but in my case, I’m not sure I was able to follow her candid, raw journey. When I won this book from the Goodreads First Reads Program I thought it was going to be one of those look-at-me-I’ve-figured-out-life-mostly-because-I’ve-never- had-any-real-problems-but-I’ll-share-my-patronizing-and-yawning-inducing-wisdom-with-you. This is not that kind of book. The author goes to places most people won’t even admit they’ve thought about, this is pure, unadulterated candour, so much so it makes you wince at times. My issue happened about half way through the book where I began to find that the honesty started feeling like whining and the bravery started feeling like, well, a lot of the angst is caused by your own inability to appreciate what you have, perhaps that was the whole point of the book but it really had a poor me feel at times. On a whole I liked it. It was definitely life in the moment and it made me think and I always appreciate that.
January 26, 2013
I think I expected something different than a poetic biography. The prompts are fun, I enjoyed watching her artwork and her tender spoken words but sometimes I couldn't connect the heaviness of her life with mindful living. Her creativity and writing style is inspiring, I really liked it.. but the book just didn't resonate with me on other levels.
January 12, 2022
The art and writing style in this book is such a beautiful and complete gift to read, the writing flows well and tells such a lovely story of simple everyday things in a way that allows a deeper awareness and appreciation of these things. It's almost like opening and reading someone's diary, Christina takes us on journeys of passion, struggles and everything in between in a beautiful and poetic way paired with her beautiful original art.
As other said, I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who is a creative writer or artist, especially someone who is constantly balancing hobbies, family and life.
From the book:
"A Note About the Illustrations:
I have always felt like words make a home for my ideas, and that my images create a road map for my heart. In a field guide, both are necessary.
I used postcards inherited from my father as the backgrounds for the illustrations in this book. They were generic touristy postcards from the 1960s, collected from his travels around Europe. I have always loved the way a postcard preserves a handful of moments in time in a particular place, and I began to imagine how I might use these to convey that essence of impermanence. I also love how they represent the creative process I wanted to explore in making this book: that of transforming the ordinary into something beautiful and unique."
As other said, I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who is a creative writer or artist, especially someone who is constantly balancing hobbies, family and life.
From the book:
"A Note About the Illustrations:
I have always felt like words make a home for my ideas, and that my images create a road map for my heart. In a field guide, both are necessary.
I used postcards inherited from my father as the backgrounds for the illustrations in this book. They were generic touristy postcards from the 1960s, collected from his travels around Europe. I have always loved the way a postcard preserves a handful of moments in time in a particular place, and I began to imagine how I might use these to convey that essence of impermanence. I also love how they represent the creative process I wanted to explore in making this book: that of transforming the ordinary into something beautiful and unique."
September 2, 2018
A sweet little book filled with creative inspiration. I needed a book with that kind of writing at this moment, and was not disappointed.
July 6, 2019
The author wrote rather eloquently, finding little bits of beauty in her life. I'm sure both working from home, with little children, has to be overwhelming at times!
October 10, 2022
Lovely artwork but the overall content was not what I expected.
March 23, 2013
It's kind of funny that a "field guide to now" first sent my memory drifting back to my earlier days of parenting, though for every "I remember" Christina Rosalie's beautifully written and presented book brought to mind, her journey also often struck me as very different from my own. Then I got to the chapter titled, Hurdle, and it all fell into place. The connection with another female writer, one who blossomed in her words and art in tandem with growing babies, and the element of now I was seeking from the book's title.
"Becoming a parent has forced me to listen again and again to my stirring heart in a way I never did before. It has propelled me toward my creative work with the kind of awesome advantage that female athletes have after having a baby."
This is the chapter where I stopped reminiscing and started declaring, exactly! Here is a woman who has felt it to, the creative wholeness that having children can bring to a life, the determination to become now rather than wait for a more convenient, less full time.
"The very fact that I am not always at the center of my own life is what spurs me to acknowledge the only Someday I'll ever have is right now, and to dig in."
Each of Rosalie's essays rolls through the heart and mind, some words lodging and making you want to grab hold and savor them a bit, others dancing merrily past. It's a book you want to breath in, by essay, by page, or sometimes by paragraph. And the mixed-media images she includes have a beauty all there own. I was especially drawn to her pictures of hands, a theme that comes up in my own limited exploration of visual arts.
A Field Guide is a comfort book, a perfect book for giving as a gift, and a book that should be passed on to new and experienced mothers, alike. It is as wonderful in bits and pieces as it is in one full reading, from cover to cover. I highly recommend it.
"Becoming a parent has forced me to listen again and again to my stirring heart in a way I never did before. It has propelled me toward my creative work with the kind of awesome advantage that female athletes have after having a baby."
This is the chapter where I stopped reminiscing and started declaring, exactly! Here is a woman who has felt it to, the creative wholeness that having children can bring to a life, the determination to become now rather than wait for a more convenient, less full time.
"The very fact that I am not always at the center of my own life is what spurs me to acknowledge the only Someday I'll ever have is right now, and to dig in."
Each of Rosalie's essays rolls through the heart and mind, some words lodging and making you want to grab hold and savor them a bit, others dancing merrily past. It's a book you want to breath in, by essay, by page, or sometimes by paragraph. And the mixed-media images she includes have a beauty all there own. I was especially drawn to her pictures of hands, a theme that comes up in my own limited exploration of visual arts.
A Field Guide is a comfort book, a perfect book for giving as a gift, and a book that should be passed on to new and experienced mothers, alike. It is as wonderful in bits and pieces as it is in one full reading, from cover to cover. I highly recommend it.
February 13, 2013
The Dirt, Despair, and Delight of Life:
This book is one of the most beautiful, inexplicable things I have ever loved. It's a poem written on a painting and wrapped in a book whose spine is made from bones and feathers, glued together with jam and laundry detergent. I try to define, to capture, to translate "what it is" and I just can't, in the same way you can't hold a live hummingbird still enough to count its feathers.
For months, I was almost finished with this book, only had three pages left. There it stayed on my bedside table, waiting. At first, I didn't understand why I resisted. I thought it was simple forgetting, being too busy, too tired. But I was wrong. I didn't want it to be over. And when finally I was able to open it again, to turn to those last three pages, to finish, as soon as I did I went back to all the pages whose edges I'd folded over, reread and underlined, made notes in the margins, and then, I immediately started reading it again.
Because, this: "It is both an invitation to you to create whatever opportunity your heart yearns for and proof that it is possible. To begin, to be in the mess, to be right here." This book is a memoir, and a poem, and a piece of art. It is one woman's story, but also the reader's story if one chooses to contemplate the provided prompts. It is the story of a mother and wife and artist, of a family and a marriage and a house/home, but also of a being of light wrapped in skin trying to make sense of the confusion of being human. Its descriptions of nature are beautiful and at times brutal. She sees the tenderness and brilliance in the mundane, she notices everything, and invites the reader to do the same.
November 9, 2012
I couldn't put it down. It's an open, honest, and inspiring look at how to live life intentionally. I love the way Christina takes the everyday and turns it into something evocative and weighty (this is also why I love Ted Kooser's poetry). She offers an important reminder that significance isn't found through doing what the world would consider big and successful things, but through living life intentionally and fully. I'm going back immediately to read it slowly. To savor each essay, examine each image (beautiful artwork she created specifically for the book), and take up the challenges that close each chapter (I'm particularly excited to take on bread making).
January 16, 2018
I read this back in 2014 and while I enjoyed the writing style, I really didn't get much from it personally. This time around, I really soaked up the author's writing style - so beautiful - and in so doing, found the joy in this book. Rosalie is real about the downsides of parenting, marriage, and just daily life, yet her descriptions of finding the joy in the small moments are unparalleled in anything else I've ever read. I came away this time really wanting to savor more of those little moments.
Update: Read for the third time. Each time I admire the writer's raw honesty that much more. Now passing it on to my sister!
Update: Read for the third time. Each time I admire the writer's raw honesty that much more. Now passing it on to my sister!
August 23, 2012
Christina Rosalie has an amazing way of capturing totally ordinary but totally beautiful moments in life with her words and with her art. Reading A Field Guide to Now is like reading a love letter to life and parenting and the world. I enjoyed the book very much and found myself more able to recognize those ordinary but spectacular moments in my own life when I was finished.
October 9, 2012
Oh, how I have loved Christina's blog and now? This book is an amazing gift. Essay after essay shines with lyrical beauty and mystery and nuances that make you read sentences over again. There is such talent in this woman. Thank you for the reminder, Christina, to be in the present. To look around and be here.
July 23, 2013
A gem of a book. Rosalie's visual art enriches her text, which is wonderfully intimate and lyrical at the same time. Questions end each brief section. A beautiful and engaging book for lingering and reflecting, and one that would be excellent for a small group engaging in a study of presence, creativity, or love.
September 29, 2012
Absolutely inspiring. Presents life in the now in a way that is the antithesis of new age BS. Dreamy, intimate, provocative and absolutly breathtaking in its complete devotion to the ideas it imparts.
November 28, 2012
Another great book or guide in how to live a life of intention. In the midst of the muddled waters of marriage, kids, & career...Rosalie finds clarity & beauty in the moment. I love her honesty & rawness.
February 13, 2014
You do not simply finish this book. This is a book you will return to for inspiration again and again through Rosalie's art, prompts and essays. I recommend this book for writers, mothers, dreamers, artists and all those who seek to be more mindful and present in their lives.
September 1, 2015
A beautiful, personal, and creativity-stirring collection of essays. If I'm feeling stuck in my art, a chapter of this is always enough to get me dreaming again! This book has a permanent place on my nightstand.
July 10, 2014
A lovely book of poetry, art and introspection on life choices and finding peace. Not always pretty, but well written and inspiring. Sentences to chew over. Life is in the details. Be Here Now.
December 10, 2013
Definitely thought provoking. I enjoyed it and feel it helps to focus on what is happening right now and the inner peace that comes from embracing that.
January 4, 2014
Beautifully written! I enjoyed the memoir part of the book more than the suggestions on ways to live. This author writes with passion and rich metaphors.
July 29, 2013
LOVED!!!
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews