An Interview with Spiritual Author Mary Harwell Sayler
An Interview with Spiritual Author Mary Harwell Sayler
An active poet, freelance poetry editor, and highly ecumenical Christian writer in all genres, Mary Harwell Sayler has 25 books to her credit ranging from novels for young people, a children’s picture book, inspirational romances, a 7-book series of devotionals and two life-health encyclopedias, one of which the American Library Association (ALA) honored as a nonfiction academic favorite for the year. In addition to her traditionally published books, Mary has had over 1,500 nonfiction articles, devotionals, Bible stories, or children’s stories and over 300 poems in journals, anthologies and e-zines. Her latest work is a collection of poetry, entitled Living in the Nature Poem, set to come out through the eco-publisher Hiraeth Press on June 15th. In my capacity as Co-Lead Editor for Hiraeth, I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Mary and discuss the inspiration for her upcoming work.
In preparing for my interview with Sayler — a well-known Christian writer, I found myself circling back to reflect on where my spiritual path began, which is something I have not done in some time. Raised a Catholic, the early days of my spiritual journey were spent walking the pages of the Old and New Testament — both of which are familiar topics in Sayler writings. Unfulfilled by the narrow road I was set upon by those around me, I stepped out into the wider world of spirituality. Emerging into adolescence with a strong spiritual curiosity, I started to veer away from the traditional gospels and moved into the apocryphal verse, the pinnacle of this was reached when I delved headfirst into the 1000-page text that is Nag Hammadi library, which has in recent years become the object of much speculation given that it includes the Gospel of Thomas {the only Gospel in Christianity known to have survived potentially written from the first person perspective of Yeshua [Jesus.] As the years passed, I eventually went beyond Catholicism as a whole and started the long pilgrimage into my own personal spirituality, stopping for years at a time within the villages of other world religions including: Tibetan Buddhism, Judaism, Druidry and Shamanism.
Just as I carved out my own literary identity and spiritual philosophy so, too, has Sayler. Through each one of her articles and with each book put forth into the mosaic of her work, she has shaped a unique literary voice that carries across the boundaries of form, style and subject. Firm in her beliefs but by no means narrowed by them, Mary’s spiritual insights draw readers from all walks of faith.
L.M.: Welcome Mary. Thank you for speaking with me today. Let us begin at the beginning shall we: Where did your spiritual path begin? (more...)
Laborious | A Selection from Living in Nature Poem by Mary Harwell Sayler
Enjoy another selection from Mary Harwell Sayler’s forthcoming collection Living in Nature Poem being released June 15th. Check back next Tuesday to read an interview between Mary and Hiraeth Press Editor and author L.M. Browning.
Acclimating Ourselves to Nature | Mary Harwell Sayler
Acclimating Ourselves to Nature
Despite the deep love and respect poets often have for nature, we must sometimes weather storms, deal with blight, and decide whether to take an injured cockroach to the vet or squish it! Living in rural Florida, Mary Sayler did the latter in this humorous poem from her forthcoming book, Living in the Nature Poem, to be published in mid-June.
Bugged
I was trying to do that big bug a favor, killing him
like that, but he wouldn’t stay killed – like one
of those grade C thrillers on TV where someone
murdered keeps getting up and has to be shot
full of holes again and again, like the whole plot.
When I first found the cockroach lying there,
he was already dead – belly up, feet curled in (more...)
A Poet Actually Living in the Nature Poem | Mary Harwell Sayler Reflects on Her Upcoming Book
A Poet Actually Living in the Nature Poem
Author Mary Harwell Sayler Reflects on Her Upcoming Book
As long as I can remember, I’ve been living in poetry – from hymn lyrics to a Child’s Garden of Verse to the anthologies, poetry how-to’s, and books of poems that now fill many bookshelves at home with the works of ancient poets, international poets, nature poets, and most of the contemporary Pulitzer-prized poets too. I like to read! I like to connect with poets and poetry. And I like to experiment with almost every form.
Often poems come to me with a musical phrase or an unexpected thought or sight, and I write down those opening words, expecting more to follow but having no idea what that will be. This spontaneous method does not lend itself well to writing a book of poems intentionally, but to exploring interests, playing with words, and noticing nature – as in, really noticing it.
For most of my life, I’ve lived in small towns or rural areas, but the strongest poetry-producing environment came when we moved to our present 100+-year-old home in “the boonies” of North Florida, reached by an unpaved road where the only honking traffic comes from sandhill cranes. Surrounded by a small thicket of woods, a small pasture, and a small lake, we see almost every (more...)
Earth Day Sale | Save 20% in the Hiraeth Press Bookstore
Celebrate Earth Day & National Trails Week
Just type in coupon code: ECO12 at checkout to receive your savings.
The History of Earth Day: The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The passage of the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other groundbreaking environmental laws soon followed. Growing out of the first Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN) works with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.
Enjoy National Trails Week: National Park Week started on April 21st! This week you can enjoy FREE admission to every park in the U.S.! If you are looking for a book to bring with you on your travels consider our recent released: Border Crossings, which follows Ian Marshall’s account of hiking the International Appalachian Trail. It’s a great book to read by the fire. Happy trails!
We give 1% of our annual profits to a eco-charity: In honor of Border Crossings our 2012 eco-charity choice is the International Appalachian Trail! Visit the IAT at: http://www.iat-sia.com/
First Look at Living in the Nature Poem by Mary Harwell Sayler
On June 15th we will release Living in the Nature Poem by Mary Harwell Sayler. This collection connects us to ourselves, each other, and the earth. As an important part of our own environments, we’re also part of the complexities of nature, including human nature and those odd thoughts and moments that bring humor, wonder, perplexity, and prayer.
As a preview of this forthcoming release, we will be releasing a few poems from the collection over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy!
Sleeping with the Universe
Beyond the action of creation
lies a great repose. You can
see this in a wildflower – the
closing of petals in tight lashes
against a lidded night – or in the
breaths between a burst of bird–
song: this lull unknown to highly
cultivated peoples, places, plants.
You can see it today in the falling
away, overnight, of leaves from
the live oak, exposing an amazing
maze of boles, terminal buds, and
holes for nesting in the dark. You
can see this in the gardenia – its
leaves cold-snapped into crackling
paper curled to protect the tender
growth – or in the dust flecks
resting on the pocked marble-top
table or in the hush of the porch
rocker or in the sag of a telephone
wire or in the pulsating of a star.
All attest to this universal need
known to artists, children, poets,
who, poised in mystery, must
watch and wait and wonder.
Ecos: The Transformative Love of Place | An Essay by Frank Owen from Courting the Wild
ECOS: THE TRANSFORMATIVE LOVE OF PLACE
by Frank Owen | Excerpt from Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land
Edited by Jamie K. Reaser and Susan Chernak McElroy
An ancient rock shelf in western Ireland.
A bubbling blue stone well in the Catskills.
A misty Shinto shrine in northern Colorado.
The cacophony of crickets in a cyprus swamp along the Natchez Trace in Mississippi.
A gurgling spring rising straight out of Scottish earth. An ice-cold forest pool in the Ozark foothills of Missouri.
These are some of the places that stir emotion within me. In contemplating the love of place, the spirit of place, and charged with the task of giving some form and shape to my love affair with the land, I quickly realized that there is no singular place that bears the weight of my affections, my attractions, my longing. In effect, when it comes to loving the land I am something of an “eco-harlot;” I am as promiscuous as they come.
Put another way, similar to the many women I have known and courted in my life, I have fallen in love many times with many places. Each of these places, with their distinct aromas, their vibrant light, their graceful curves, the “voice” of their waters, and their unyielding capacity to intoxicate me, has led me to a simple, yet profound, conclusion. Not unlike women — who are each goddesses in their own unique way — each place, every place, has the potential of leading us into an experience of expanded senses, deepening our awareness, and awakening within us an unbridled admiration for a location.
I’ve been blessed to have many relationships with sacred sites, beautiful places, landscapes of natural wonderment. There was, however, a first — a time and a place when and where I experienced the nascent stirrings of love for the land…what we might call (more...)
A Review of Border Crossings as Featured in the Sunday edition of the Maine Sunday Telegraph
BOOK REVIEW: Joys of a hike by two and the art of haiku
By THOMAS URQUHART | Read it on the Maine Sunday Telegraph »
In 1998, Ian Marshall had finished hiking, section by section, the venerable Appalachian Trail. A professor of English and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona, he also was becoming interested in haiku, those little quintessentially Japanese snippets of acute observation.
Then he heard about the International Appalachian Trail, the brainchild of former Maine Audubon director and state conservation commissioner Dick Anderson. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the IAT board, and also a former Audubon director.) The upshot became a ruminative walk from Mount Katahdin to Cap Gaspe in Quebec, at that time the IAT’s eastern terminus.
The hike was completed two weeks at a time over six consecutive years, and has resulted in “Border Crossings: Walking the Haiku Path on the International Appalachian Trail.” (more...)
Praise for Border Crossings
Praise for Border Crossings
“The International Appalachian Trail runs north from Mount Katahdin seven hundred miles to the end of the Gaspe Peninsula. Inspired by Basho, Ian Marshall hiked it for six summers, probing the poetics of haiku while exploring a vast and beautiful wilderness little known in the US. Marshall is an engaging trail companion and a superb story teller, with a self deprecating wit and sharp intellect that spice up his observations and ideas. Like Basho, he finds the miraculous in the common and elevates the humble walk into a spiritual practice, sprinkling his narrative with lovely original haiku that seem to have condensed in the moment, like droplets of dew. Backpackers will appreciate his pungent descriptions of life on the trail, and eco-critics will savor his abundant insights on poetry, nature, and culture. This lively book serves up a classic blend of high adventure, literary pilgrimage, and self discovery. It tastes as tart and fresh as wild raspberries.” —John Tallmadge, past-president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment and author of The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City (more...)
At the Heart of Ecstasy by Jamie K. Reaser | An Essay from Courting the Wild
AT THE HEART OF ECSTASY
Jamie K. Reaser
An Excerpt from Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land
Trailside shore of babbling brook.
Sunflecked glade of forested nook.
Young girl searches with innocent eyes,
Singing melody to the tune of Nature’s sighs.
Gaining knowledge, sharing glee,
Earth’s cradled daughter me.
Today a woman walking tall.
Forever a wisp of Nature’s call.
- (1990)
I’ve only had one truly intimate relationship in my life. It was with a brook, and I was seven.
My family had moved from Roanoke, Virginia, to Basking Ridge, New Jersey. My role in the process was that of protestor. I had absolutely no desire to experience the “change that would be good for me” and I wasn’t about to be separated from my best friends — a cadre of golden-eyed toads that lived, by virtue of their own missteps, in the window well beside the front door. I moped and threw exceptional temper tantrums. Finally, with less than an hour to go before Bessie, our large white Buick station wagon, was to head north, my wilted parents put a cardboard box in my hand. I carefully extracted a few toads from the landscaping trap, yanked wads of grass from the lawn and climbed into the backseat with my all-too-compliant younger sisters.
Temperatures are colder in New Jersey than Virginia. That was the first lesson I learned upon arrival at our new home. It was fall, and back in Virginia the toads would have at least another month before they needed to be released from the window well for hibernation. Yet, the temperature that late afternoon in New Jersey was scolding; one way or another I was going to have to learn to let go of my attachment to the toads. (more...)
We donate 1% of our yearly profits to an Eco-Charity. The 2012 charity is the International Appalachian Trail.