Meditations of John Muir:  Nature’s Temple -soon to be out in a Tenth Anniversary Printing!

First published in 2001 by Wilderness Press, this little book kicked off the six-book series and continues to sell quite well in National Parks, National Monuments and Seashores and throughout the book distribution system (AbeBooks; Amazon; Barnes and Noble; Sierra Club; Scotland; Australia; United Kingdom; Germany; etc).  It has always been an honor to be a part of a project that helps distribute the man and his message to new generations across the globe (and I’m always looking for new markets!).

When I first self-published the book (as “Nature Temple:  Wisdom from John Muir”) with a small grant from a local family foundation I wasn’t sure any “real” publisher would ever want to print it.  Then, when Mike Jones of Wilderness Press (then in Berkeley, CA) responded to the copy I sent him, he suggested the “Meditations” title and we were on our way down the trail with Muir. . .and Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, Fuller and Burroughs.  The flagship book will be available soon in a Tenth Anniversary printing.

Now all the books (with the addition of my last three) are available in paper and electronically.  Enjoy the journey of exploration with mind and body alongside these incredible adventurers in the beauty of Nature!

The latest books on Kindle:

Life After Faith

Meditations of Margaret Fuller

Meditations of John Burroughs

My Address is a River

Jesus and John Muir

Other Highland Books for Your Screen:

Meditations of John Muir

Meditations of Henry David Thoreau (also on Nook)

Meditations of Ralph Waldo Emerson

{Meditations of Walt Whitman is currently available only in paperback and large print}

You can order them through Your Favorite Booksource (links are to Amazon).

Life After Faith was, in some ways, my hardest book project to date, mainly because of the intimately personal nature of the narrative.  I usually refer to Life After Faith as my “spiritual autobiography” but it is also my first attempt at a pragmatic presentation of a primarily positive, constructive, meaningful and compassionate pathway out of religious faith.  I try to keep it somewhat light, but the seriousness of the issue of faith and the journey beyond faith centers the book on more than my story–it opens up possibilities for creative exploration in “natural spirituality” with companions such as John Burroughs, Thomas Paine and many others. 

My Address is a River took a number of years to shape into something I think many will find both delightful and troubling.  I have collected seventy stories from my “chaplain years” (1980-2005) working with people on the edges of our consciousness and our communities–socially, physically and mentally struggling folks, prisoners and home-seekers (homeless).  The stories “tell it like it is” or at least as I saw it.  This is an R-Rated romp (“R” for respectful) drawing wisdom from voices rarely if ever heard.

Jesus and John Muir is my hesitant saunter into the world of fiction.  This novella may be short but it brings together two wild characters who never met but need to meet somehow, somewhere in our brains.  I had great fun writing this and I suspect many will want more character development and more storytelling (!) but I’m simply offering a fanciful tale that I hope stirs the “followers” of faith and the “followers” of the environmental movement to reconsider the common ground of this wilderness planet.

I invite you to read and to comment.  I appreciate all my faithful readers.

Chris Highland

Here, in this screen forest, you can walk a little deeper into the Meditations with Nature series of books by Chris Highland and his growing corpus of work.  As a companion to Nature Temple, this web wilderness offers a wider view of all six collections of natural wisdom, his new Life After Faith and My Address is a River books along with photographs compiled by Chris.  Here is a free and open opportunity for readers to be in conversation about the great thoughts in the classroom of the natural world.

*All books are available from your favorite independent booksource.

Meditations of John Muir:   Nature’s Temple

Meditations of Henry David Thoreau:   A Light in the Woods

Meditations of Ralph Waldo Emerson:  Into the Green Future

Meditations of Walt Whitman:  Earth, My Likeness

Meditations of Margaret Fuller:  The Inner Stream

Meditations of John Burroughs:  Nature is Home

Life After Faith

My Address is a River

Jesus and John Muir (novella)

All books and photographs copyright 2010  Chris Highland