'As though swayed out on the wildest wave alive,
And yet was still.'
—Theodore Roethke
In Into This Radiance Gary Hawk shares his complex relationship with an immense place—Flathead Lake, the largest US body of freshwater west of the Great Lakes. Hawk has paddled a sea kayak for over nineteen years, and he takes the reader along with him as he explores the lake's bays, islands, and the distances between them. In the process, he shares his reverence for this inland sea, his keen naturalist's eye for detail, and his observations, questions, and insights from various wisdom traditions.
Year after year, in many kinds of weather, he encounters, grows to understand, and attends to the lake as though it were a sentient being. But even as he turns his attention outward toward the lake and all who depend on it, he delves into an interior landscape. Here, he invites the reader to stay open to what at first seems strange or threatening.
The book's short, lyric essays and poetic passages offer encouragement to live wisely and thoughtfully in a fragile and changing world.
