Seeing Nature: Deliberate Encounters with the Visible World

by Paul Krafel

Seeing Nature is a series of true stories or parables that offer tools for understanding relationships in the natural world. Many of the stories take the reader to wild landscapes, including canyons, tundra, and mountain ridges, while others contemplate the human-made water-diversion trenches and supermarket check-out lines. At one point, Krafel discovers a world in a one-inch-square patch of ordinary ground. Inspiring for parents and teachers seeking to encourage excitement about the positive role of people in nature, Krafel's work harkens to St. Exupery's The Little Prince, Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and Jean Giono's The Man Who Planted Trees. As Barbara Damrosch has This book] is a gift.... With curiosity, wit, and a spare and graceful style, Krafel notes why birds in flocks land as they do, how islands can move upstream in a river, how kelp forests, swaying gently, break the force of the sea's power, how tundra plants create whole ecosystems on bare rock from mere specks of life. Yet there are no long-winded sermons about the woods, or cute anthropomorphizations of animals. The book's economical, unsentimental style is part of its originality. Paul Krafel's years as a park ranger afforded him time to walk and think—his job was to observe the world around him. He is now a teacher, creating a curriculum for young people that is built on a startlingly simple The world around us is an extended conversation between "upward spirals"—nature in regenerative, procreative modes—and downward spirals toward entropy and disintegration. As nature refreshes and rebuilds, the downward spirals are overcome. Nature's process becomes the process of replenishing hope.

Genres: Ecology, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Science, Nature

193 pages, Paperback

First published December 19, 1999

Reviews

[Arthur C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first received a copy of this book as a gift in 1989 under its original title _Shifting: Nature's Way of Change_ (under the last name Krapfel). Since then, I have bought over 25 copies to pass that gift along (as well as over 50 of his Upward Spiral DVDs which brilliantly illustrates of some of the books core themes).

It is so much more than a book about "Seeing Nature." It is my favorite book for insights about the patterns of Nature and how they can apply to making social change. Krafel has a powerful gift for simultaneously perceiving minute details and grand overarching patterns. He also provides some real-life tools to heal landscapes and build upward spirals of increasing possibilities -- both in natural and human settings.

I believe the _Shifting_ edition of the book was originally self-published in a small run, and it turns out that title has many layers of meaning within the book. For me it is a gentle reminder of the power to leverage small shifts that produce big cumulative change. "Begin the work even though you can not see the path by which this work can lead to your goal.... Evolution is the process by which the impossible becomes possible by small accumulating shifts."

Krafel actually became a significant influence in my life. I had the chance to correspond with, and even meet with him. He also shifted my view of evolution from frame of reference of competition to powerful co-creation. This perspective enabled me to create a number world-changing organizations which are still doing powerful work today.

If you have the sense that Nature has some profound lessons to teach us about healthier ways we could do things, this book can help you unlock those secrets.

Obviously, I highly recommend this book. I'm a little sad that it has only had the chance to reach a small number of people. If the universe brought you here, don't miss the opportunity to get this book. Find one. Read it. I hope it blesses your life as much as it has blessed mine.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hugely powerful; tools for seeing and thinking about the universe in new ways, simply told, but profound. I read twice.

[Mark S H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides interesting insights. Though not something I’d usually read

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. "Begin the work even though you cannot see the path by which this work can lead to your goal."

[Will]

One of my bibles. Thanks dad. Need to re-read.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My book," Krafel writes, "is a series of stories about times when I 'woke up' and heard a story the world was telling me that increased my awareness of what I was actually doing within this universe." It's about how we are always making a difference whose consequences can be negative or positive. This is a book to re-read and act upon. It's a practical person's approach to the "fresh, present wakefulness" that is the purpose of dzogchen Buddhist practice.

[Austin Hall-davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I picked up this book, I had an "a-ha" moment. Every story contains a different way which life is represented. There is so much to absorb from each chapter, I would often set the book aside, take a walk, and immerse myself in my surroundings; and receive a moment of clarity.