WILD SIGNS AND STAR PATHS

Tristan Gooley’s offering is not one to skim through at speed. If you want to understand it, take it chapter by chapter. Sit on the grass, observe the trees, look at the night sky… Only then will you start to understand what Gooley is trying to encourage.

The Sixth Sense he refers to is the same as the inkling that tells us someone is trying to get our attention when we are facing the other way. It is the sense that develops from the thousands of subconscious reactions that we experience daily but have largely been lost in relation to the natural world. The skills of the old countrymen, the wise old hands that could identify the path of an animal, the scent of the weather and which direction to head off in from a deep understanding of the natural world. To regain this lost sense is a tempting and rather wonderful idea.

Gooley offers the reader a chance to recover the outdoorsman’s natural sense through 52 “keys”, to exchange slow, analytic thinking for the fast thinking that makes connections with nature in a way that few now experience. I recommend turning those keys and seeing what happens.