"Hang out with your fear when you're feeling afraid. Follow its movement. Become intimate with it. Fear is an opportunity. Approach it like a tracker in the forest — watch where it goes, what it does, what it eats, where it eats, where it rests, where it turns, where it stops, where it hides. Embrace it. Stay with it," writes Paul Rezendes, who teaches the language of the forest to thousands of students through seminars and year-round outdoor workshops. The author believes that there is no better way to connect with nature than by learning how to read track and sign. It is also a means of coming to terms with fear, death, compassion, aggression, silence, the senses, and love.
Rezendes shares his experiences of tracking bobcats, coyote, and deer. He shows how the tracking of an animal is its signature, its way of being in the world. He encourages his students to do a stalking meditation where they practice stillness, hypersensitivity, and empathy.
These adventures in nature and animal teachings are amplified by the author's reminiscences about his years as a motorcycle gang leader and then as the founder of an ashram in Massachusetts. Rezendes opens our eyes afresh to the spiritual lessons of nature, animals, and the wild within.