an invitation to love and respect nature in the company of our pets – Alan x el Mundo

I have always thought that books are great travel companions. And for me, literature is, every day more, a path that I want to discover along with the world around me.

Reading and traveling, it seems to me a poem.

I had long wanted to be able to share with you some of the books that have accompanied and inspired me during these years of travel with my dear Paco.

Above all, because traveling with Paco has led me to encounter natural spaces, moments under the open sky, walks in nature that I had to abandon because they are infinite.

My approach to the mountains was with my first pet, and now with Paco I try to live a life next to (or always close to) nature.

For this reason, it is very important for me to share these paths so that those of us who get to be close to nature do so in a respectful way, with much love and gratitude.

I will leave these books here for you to take when you feel like having them and wishing with all my soul, that you find a friend in nature and that you also decide to take care of her as such.

One of my big favorites is:

1. The untamed writing of Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver was one of the most influential voices in contemporary literature. a figure very prominent in Nature writing.

It is without a doubt one of my favorite books because of the invitation that Mary Oliver makes you to go out and connect with nature. “That we are not in the world to know, but to pay attention, that certain birds know more about life than we do, that we have to listen to flowers when they speak and that rivers are important because we find company in them.” Her poetry is a gift, something magical, a book that she also builds with the company of her dog and her walks without destination.

After a difficult childhood, Mary Oliver finds a refuge in nature.

One of my favorite parts of the book is this:

“Look at the forest, look at the birds, look at the river: not to describe and put our mood into words, but to also be the forest, the birds, the river. And conceive the poem as a story that begins and ends: not a story that is told, with characters that cross it, but a moment that is caught “

2. Nan Shepherd Living Mountain

This book is very special to me, because of the way in which the mountain is talked about and lived in it.

Nan, born in the north of Scotland, graduated from the University of Aberdeen and taught English literature, but was also a tireless mountaineer.

Nan calls “ascension of interiority” to a continuous transit between the landscapes of the world and the interior landscapes of the spirit. “Going out was actually going in.”

One of my favorite paragraphs is this:

“Here, then, one can live a life of the senses so pure, so virgin of all forms of understanding that are not theirs, that it could be said that the body thinks. Each one of the senses, raised to its most exquisite consciousness, is in itself a complete experience.

This is the innocence we have lost. To live one thing at a time, to truly live until the end”

3. Refugio de Terry Tempest Williams

It is a book that I deeply love for the company it has given me, after one of the most difficult moments of my life, the loss of my mother.

This book narrates a life in the company of the birds that live in the Great Salt Lake, as well as what is intertwined between the destiny of birds and that of humans. The passage of time, the arrival of death to his family and an environmental catastrophe.

One of my favorite parts is this:

“I go to the lake like someone consulting a compass, to find my bearings again in the midst of changes. The lake is different. I am different… but the seagulls are always here, normal and ordinary: black, white and grey.

I have refused to believe that my mother is going to die. And by denying her cancer, even her death, I deny her life. Denial prevents us from listening. I don’t hear what my mother says. I only hear what I want to hear”

I had a hard time choosing 3 books for this article, but the message that these books give is the message that I want you to have in your hands to enjoy but also take care of nature; home to millions of species, us included.

And of course, traveling with a pet is also this, questioning our human ways but also having the opportunity to connect with other species and grow our sensitivity to the world around us.

I invite you to read these books and create a world within you, where other landscapes invite you to feel and live the world that is so close to you.

from the sea,

K and Don Paco.

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