This Vast Book Of Nature

This Vast Book of Nature is a careful, engaging, accessible, and wide-ranging account of the ways in which the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire---and, by implication, other wild places---have been written into being by different visitors, residents, and developers from the post-Revolutionary era to the days of high tourism at the beginning of the twentieth century. Drawing on tourist brochures, travel accounts, pictorial representations, fiction and poetry, local histories, journals, and newspapers, Pavel Cenkl gauges how Americans have arranged space for political and economic purposes and identified it as having value beyond the economic. Starting with an exploration of Jeremy Belknap’s 1784 expedition to Mount Washington, which Cenkl links to the origins of tourism in the White Mountains, to the transformation of touristic and residential relationships to landscape, This Vast Book of Nature explores the ways competing visions of the landscape have transformed the White Mountains culturally and physically, through settlement, development, and---most recently---preservation, a process that continues today.

We live inside a nautilus of prayer--if only we open our senses and perceive what is infused all around. Throughout millennia and across the monotheistic religions, the natural was often revered as a sacred text. By the Middle Ages, this text was given a name, "The Book of Nature," the first, best entry point for encounter with the divine. The very act of "reading" the world, of focusing our attention on each twinkling star and unfurling blossom, humbles us and draws us into sacred encounter. As we grapple to make sense of today's tumultuous world, one where nature is at once a damaged and damaging source of disaster, as well as a place of refuge and retreat, we are called again to examine how generously it awaits our attention and devotion, standing ready to be read by all. Weaving together the astonishments of science; the profound wisdom and literary gems of thinkers, poets, and observers who have come before us; and her own spiritual practice and gentle observation, Barbara Mahany reintroduces us to The Book of Nature, an experiential framework of the divine. God's first revelation came to us through an ongoing creation, one that--through stillness and attentiveness to the rumblings of the heavens, the seasonal eruptions of earth, the invisible pull of migration, of tide, and of celestial shiftings--draws us into sacred encounter. We needn't look farther for the divine.

Jesuits and the Book of Nature: Science and Education in Modern Portugal offers an account of the Jesuits’ contributions to science and education after the restoration of the Society of Jesus in Portugal in 1858.

"A must-purchase picture book biography of a figure sure to inspire awe and admiration among readers."—School Library Journal (starred review) Extraordinary illustrations and lyrical text present pioneering African American scientist Ernest Everett Just. Ernest Everett Just was not like other scientists of his time. He saw the whole, where others saw only parts. He noticed details others failed to see. He persisted in his research despite the discrimination and limitations imposed on him as an African American. His keen observations of sea creatures revealed new insights about egg cells and the origins of life. Through stunning illustrations and lyrical prose, this picture book presents the life and accomplishments of this long overlooked scientific pioneer.

The ability to see intimate beauty in what appears initially as infinite is not a science or an art. Author Larry Cheek calls it a skill.Cheek says photographer David Muench, discovers art in the meaning of nature. Most people with a camera take photographs; David discovers photographs. He exhibits an astounding gift for seeing patterns and relationships in the landscape that escape most of us.For this book, David has walked patiently and thoughtfully around a score of the Southwest's most inspiring landscapes, from the low desert of California's Joshua Tree National Monument to the 9,157-foot peak of Arizona's Santa Catalina Mountains.Geographically, the work for Vast & Intimate separates into three sections: deserts; sky islands, or forested mountains rising from the desert; and the high Colorado Plateau. Vast & Intimate presents each place, then focuses on intimate details that illustrate natures richness and complexity.