Evening Reading with Kurt Hoelting in the Hay Barn
Thursday, September 25th from 6:30 - 8pm.
FREE EVENT.
Books will be available for sale $20/book

Optional add on workshop here!

In Apprentice to the Wild, long-time wilderness guide and meditation teacher Kurt Hoelting charts the evolution of his path from his early encounters with wildness and risk on commercial fishing vessels in Alaska to his embrace of Zen practice as a gateway to the wild within. Inspired by the words and friendship of Gary Snyder, Hoelting founded Inside Passages, guiding mindfulness-based kayaking expeditions in Alaska focused on how the “practice of the wild” informs both our inner and outer landscapes. In later essays, he reveals the role of grief as teacher in his own life and discovers what it means to become an elder in turbulent times. With honesty and wisdom, Hoelting offers timely advice: “In a time of profound ecological challenges, reclaiming a felt connection with the wild forces that gave birth to our species has become an essential part of our emerging survival equipment.”

Kurt Hoelting grew up by the shores of Puget Sound, working summers as a commercial fisherman and wilderness guide in Alaska for fifty years. A graduate of the University of Washington and Harvard Divinity School, he is an ordained minister and Zen student, who has blended his love of wilderness exploration with an equal passion for exploring the “wild within.” A mindfulness teacher in a variety of contexts, he served as Head Guide with Inside Passages, leading mindfulness-based sea kayaking expeditions in the Tongass region of Southeast Alaska. He makes his home on Whidbey Island.

Praise for Apprentice to the Wild
“No matter how domesticated our lives may feel…we remain children of the wild.” With these words, Kurt Hoelting invites us into the wilderness around and within us. Drawing on personal experience and a range of wisdom traditions, he points us toward the wild joy into which we were born—and toward the good medicine wilderness provides for the risks, losses and griefs that come with life. I’m deeply grateful for this beautifully written handbook for a life lived fully and well.”
Parker J. Palmer, author of On the Brink of Everything, A Hidden Wholeness, and Let Your Life Speak