New topic! At the annual meeting of Texas Master Naturalists, I always look forward to the booth for Texas A&M Press. They always have beautiful nature books that I can choose among. Entwined: Dispatches from the Intersection of Species, by Bridget A. Lyons, was one of my choices this past year.
The book is a collection of essays about Lyons’s close interactions with nature all over the world. She shares stories of a career working in wildernesses on land and sea, all over the world. She really has gotten around and is a great athlete, so she has been places most of us will never get to go. I feel like I can surf after reading her descriptions of her favorite pastime.
The essays are very intriguing. Lyons writes very well and shares her personal insights into whales, octopuses, trees, owls, and polar birds. Her overarching theme is that we are all connected and that our human actions have effects we may not imagine.
Yep, some of her writing is sobering, but other parts are gloriously uplifting and put you in the middle of landscapes and settings that are complex and fragile. And whoa, do you learn a lot.
Oh, Lyons is not only a writer and editor, she’s also an accomplished artist. Part of the delight of Entwined is encountering the linoleum block print illustrations she created to accompany the stories.
I read this book slowly, so I could savor, take in the knowledge, and internalize the lessons Lyons shares. I’d recommend any thoughtful and open-minded nature lover to find this book and read it. There are some ideas that we might find a little “out there” but they have me food for thought.
Now, go out and see what the nature around you has to tell you!
The Hermits' Rest 