Hands Like Roots: Notes on an Entangled Contemplative Life

by Therese DesCamp

Hands Like Notes on an Entangled, Contemplative Life draws its subject matter from roots deep in science, spirituality, and a love of life. This liminal work integrates seemingly disparate knowledge-hydrology, cognitive linguistics, climate instability, embodiment-with the inner experience of prayer and meditation, creating an accessible, poetic, heart-opening whole. Authentic, impassioned, intelligent and vulnerable, Hands Like Roots is a real love story about a human heart and the Heart of the Ineffable.

190 pages, Paperback

Published March 28, 2025

Reviews

[Pat Zimmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Hands Like Roots” is full of wisdom and insight. So many passages stopped me in awe. Marie Therese DesCamps has been compared to Richard Rohr or Annie Dillard. I’d also add Anne Lamott to the list. Like Lamott, DesCamps draws out the humor and poignancy of day-to-day events. Like Dillard, she revels in nature and embodiment. My favorites were “Holding the Post,” about how all things, no matter how unlovely, have their place and their contribution; and “Taller than a Dog,” in which she sees from above her dog's eye-level that dog-ly encounters are created from concentric circles. Or, as the Gospel of Thomas says, “Where the beginning is, there shall be the end.” Just read it! And laugh. And see.

[Liz Vickers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands Like Roots is a wonderful book to read slowly and ponder. I read it quickly and will read it again, slowly next time, before long. Therese writes with humour and the most incredible honesty. When you do your spiritual work as she does, and I do, you get to know and grow to be more honest with yourself and it can be very painful when you don't like who you see! Knowing that Therese has this same experience is so helpful.

The book is in four parts, each starting with a beautiful photograph and a line from a poem by St Francis. One of my favourite chapters is Little White Socks. It starts with - This was the scene about two weeks ago.....and takes us through meditating when the phone rings and she gets up, realizing her left foot has gone to sleep and says..........strange sensation, I think as I stand and fling my leg forward. Wow. I am totally without feeling from the hip down.
Two steps later, feeling is instantaneously restored as I fracture my foot.

Even when things get twisted around Therese is always able to laugh at herself - eventually.
The white socks belonged to Therese's mother, and...well, I won't spoil the story for you. She is a great one for surprise endings.

I have learned so much from reading Hands Like Roots. Especially in these times of unpredictability, it is wonderful to have this book at hand to remind us that we are all connected, to our Creator, to each other, to our world and to the consciousness that surrounds us everywhere and in everything.

[Evelyn Goodell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Therese DesCamp’s Red Thread is like sitting down for a visit with your best friend who is way open and honest, warm, loving, deep, real, and very fun. You cry and you laugh and you give thanks.

The writing is uplifting, expressing the deepest thoughts and feelings and hope while reminding us of the practices and lessons of the spiritual life of love. Therese’s deep and wide honesty is striking and rare, and therefore pain is acknowledged and felt, as she writes “And necessity taught me once again that what lies deepest within is not despair at all. It is grief, and when I am willing to feel grief, I will discover that it too is simply a surface layer, covering a bottomless ocean of love.” Therese’s honesty also provides much of the humour in Red Thread.

As I read, I found myself wanting to recommend Red Thread to my Evangelical friend, my Buddhist friend, my friend who doesn’t have a formal practice of any kind and would not describe herself as “spiritual”.

Reading this book makes one want to be more loving and to be more open and more connected, having fun along the way—what more could one ask for?

[James Ahasay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reverend Dr Therese DesCamp’s latest book ‘Hands Like Roots: Notes on an Entangled Contemplative Life’ is absolutely a resource for the times! Therese’s achingly beautiful openness to life itself, internally and externally, is like sitting with her and “Talking Story” in the best of story telling. Every chapter and every page is sharing insight that resonates in the very heart and soul of our human weaving and braiding.
We are in such need for contemplatives to guide us, encourage us, and come alongside us. This amazing life-journey shared from this contemplative is a gift for all of us, for the times.
As for this reviewer, I will purchase several copies for fellow journeyers, family, colleagues and other sojourners. This encouraging and insightful book will serve well all those who are seeking wisdom and connecting with the divine. This will become one of those rare and constant “go to” resources in my library.

Reverend Dr. JD Ahasay

[Barb Britton · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Hands like Roots” is a heart-opening collection of stories that Therese DesCamp calls ‘markers from points along my journey’. In the book, she explores everyday events in her life from the outside, the inside and through a contemplative lens of spiritual insights. We are taken into the soft underbelly of life with its questions, dilemmas, and absurdities. With gentle humour, a keen eye and courageous heart, Therese reflects on judgements and platitudes that arise in each situation. Whatever the issue, Therese always returns to the simplicity of beauty, wholeness and love. Her stories inspire readers to consider the dimensions of their own life by illuminating difficult truths and offering a new way of seeing.

[Ann Arrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful handbook for the thinking contemplative. A life lived with a wide-open and fierce commitment to truth. Winding through seasons of plenty or dearth, chaos or wholeness, grief or joy, all settling into a life lived deep, always returning to the wholeness of a bountiful heart. What a joy to peer in the window of Therese’s life and travel with her as she winds through all the difficulties of being human and rises again and again to stand in grace, coming to understand fully what it is to stand in love, and for love, and for the earth, and for all beings on the earth.

We are graced to have such a writer with us, such a guide so that we too may live down deep.

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of lyrical and meditative essays by Therese Descamp. With evocative and poetic imagery, Descamp ponders the spiritual and embodied realities of her life, thereby inviting readers into contemplation on their own lives. Her central concerns of compassion and the reality of a cosmic whole shine through all these essays, whether she is writing of medical procedures, dreams, power outages, or a new bag. I could sit with each chapter for a week and continue to glean more treasures. This is a great book for individual reading, or for group reflection and conversation.

[Lisa Netzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this time of change, this is the book my soul needed. Therese DesCamp's insight to living in a time of social, political, and environmental upheaval rings true whether you're Christian, Buddhist, seeking, or non-religous. Her storytelling gives you images and lessons that stick to your brain. Her insight and study shine through her words. And best of all, her humor and self-deprecation has you laughing with her all the way to the end. This book will help you open your mind and heart to the struggle and beauty of this life.

[Corinne Tessier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands Like Roots is a balm for the contemporary spiritual seeker. Therese Descamp's decades of practicing openness to what is underneath everyday occurrences, paint a path of perception that melds the mystical and scientific aspects of our existence and leads to deep meaning. With humour and humility, she shows us how to ask honest questions about what we are facing in our lives. I feel blessed by the ease of accessing her depth of knowledge and loving understanding.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely extraordinary collection of essays! Based on a prayer by St. Francis, it offers clarity and comfort to people is any faith or no faith who are living in troubled times.