Table of Contents

A Land Acknowledgment

Preface

Introduction

The Invitation to Dance with Mountains

Part One: Origin

Part Two: Journey

Part Three: Returning

Parting Words

Appendix

Acknowledgments

Notes

About the Author

Heidi Barr is a writer and wellness coach with over fifteen years of experience in health promotion. Her work is founded on a commitment to cultivating ways of being that are life-giving and sustainable for people, communities, and the planet. She is the author of two works of creative nonfiction: Woodland Manitou and What Comes Next; two poetry collections: Slouching toward Radiance and Cold Spring Hallelujah; and one cookbook: Prairie Grown: Stories and Recipes from a South Dakota Hillside. She is also the coauthor of 12 Tiny Things and is editor of "The Mindful Kitchen," a wellness column in The Wayfarer Magazine. She lives with her family in Minnesota, where they tend a large vegetable garden, explore nature, and do their best to live simply.

Reviews

"Collisions of Earth and Sky is an existential exploration of the human relationship with nature and what it really means to develop a sense of place." --Linda Åkeson McGurk, author of There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather and The Open-Air Life "If you have ever had your ears stolen by a wild longing, if you have ever sought a grander healing, let the caress of Heidi Barr's words and rhapsodies sway you toward the magic of the world wild and alive." --Bayo Akomolafe, PhD, author of These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home and host of the course and festival series We Will Dance with Mountains "Heidi Barr's Collisions of Earth and Sky is indeed that—a collision. A confluence of ideas and feelings, excavations of the past and hope for the future. As a good writer, a good healer, a good excavator, she digs it all up and offers us a pathway to healing in the future—one that doesn't neglect our place in the historical and ecological web of relationships." --Theodore Richards, founder of The Chicago Wisdom Project and author of The Great Re-Imagining: Spirituality in an Age of Apocalypse and Reimagining the Classroom "Heidi Barr's writing feels like a gentle but persistent invitation to slow my body, mind, and breath, to look up, to feel deeply, and to live fully present in what is. In Collisions of Earth and Sky I feel the truth of our interconnectedness deep in my bones and in the steadiness of my heartbeat." --Krista O'Reilly-Davi-Digui, holistic embodiment coach and joyful living educator "While reading this wellspring of wisdom, it was like sitting at my mother's kitchen table drinking in her dichos de mi madre. These 'impossibly beautiful' contemplative insights are what is needed to heal the universe." --Aimée Medina Carr, author of River of Love "Heidi Barr has done it again! Reading Collisions of Earth and Sky feels like taking a refreshing meander through the woods with a time-tested friend, swapping stories and remembering our true selves. This book is a gift in its gentle and profound path to a mindful pace and intentionality, allowing the wildness of life to unfold in and around us." --Ellie Roscher, author of The Embodied Path "Using her prairie poet's sentience and acuity, Heidi Barr offers us an invitation to deeper and more authentic self-knowing. Step into this journey!" --Lisa Colón DeLay, host of the Spark My Muse podcast and author of The Wild Land Within