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Outdoors

Most Read This Week Tagged "Outdoors"

A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon

Junglekeeper: What It Takes to Change the World

Up on Cove Mountain: Adventure, Tragedy, and a Quest for Meaning on the Appalachian Trail

Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman

Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature

More most read this week tagged "outdoors"...

Lists

Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery

Hiking Books

144 books — 40 voters

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Trees, Woods, Forests

865 books — 211 voters

Hadrian's Wall Path by Jane V. Blanchard

Best Hadrian's Wall Path Books

4 books — 3 voters

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

Urban Environmental Educator Collective Library

139 books — 40 voters

Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart by Carrot Quinn

Outdoor Women's Alliance® - Adventure Book Club

163 books — 63 voters

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Best Traveling Vicariously

2,247 books — 2,087 voters

Related Genres

Nature
Environment
Wilderness
Naturë

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Quotes Tagged “Outdoors”

“ To me the outdoors is what you must pass through in order to get from your apartment into a taxicab. ”
― Fran Lebowitz

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“ The Native Americans, whose wisdom Thoreau admired, regarded the Earth itself as a sacred source of energy. To stretch out on it brought repose, to sit on the ground ensured greater wisdom in councils, to walk in contact with its gravity gave strength and endurance. The Earth was an inexhaustible well of strength: because it was the original Mother, the feeder, but also because it enclosed in its bosom all the dead ancestors. It was the element in which transmission took place. Thus, instead of The Native Americans, whose wisdom Thoreau admired, regarded the Earth itself as a sacred source of energy. To stretch out on it brought repose, to sit on the ground ensured greater wisdom in councils, to walk in contact with its gravity gave strength and endurance. The Earth was an inexhaustible well of strength: because it was the original Mother, the feeder, but also because it enclosed in its bosom all the dead ancestors. It was the element in which transmission took place. Thus, instead of stretching their hands skyward to implore the mercy of celestial divinities, American Indians preferred to walk barefoot on the Earth: The Lakota was a true Naturist – a lover of Nature. He loved the earth and all things of the earth, the attachment growing with age. The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth. Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds that flew in the air came to rest on the earth and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing. That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life-giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him. Walking, by virtue of having the earth’s support, feeling its gravity, resting on it with every step, is very like a continuous breathing in of energy. But the earth’s force is not transmitted only in the manner of a radiation climbing through the legs. It is also through the coincidence of circulations: walking is movement, the heart beats more strongly, with a more ample beat, the blood circulates faster and more powerfully than when the body is at rest. And the earth’s rhythms draw that along, they echo and respond to each other. A last source of energy, after the heart and the Earth, is landscapes. They summon the walker and make him at home: the hills, the colours, the trees all confirm it. The charm of a twisting path among hills, the beauty of vine fields in autumn, like purple and gold scarves, the silvery glitter of olive leaves against a defining summer sky, the immensity of perfectly sliced glaciers … all these things support, transport and nourish us. ...more ”
― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

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