Advance Praise for The Circumference of Home

“What a gift and inspiration Kurt Hoelting has given us in this moving and brave narrative of place, perception, and participation.  Intimate landscapes, both inner and outer, are navigated and traversed, brought into focus and celebrated, seemingly separate worlds woven together into one seamless whole.  All this in the service of awakening to our predicament as a species, against the backdrop of one person deciding to radically explore his relationship to the living planet we call home and the mounting fever it is suffering because of us. The circumference of this circle includes us all.”

- Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness

“The world looks different when you’re walking through it, not driving. You notice, and as this fine book makes clear, some of the things you notice are very sad. But you also see the world as it is, which can’t help but be beautiful.”

- Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

“A wondrously compelling account of one man’s yearlong adventure—written by a man gifted with a sharp eye, keen mind and open heart. Hoelting tells his story in a way that is both intimate in detail and vast in its reach; contemplative in mood and yet challenging to the spirit; uniquely his story and yet rich with implications for the reader’s life. This book sits on my shelf next to Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, Terry Tempest Williams and Aldo Leopold, because that is the literary ecosystem to which Hoelting’s work belongs.”

—Parker J. Palmer, author of A Hidden Wholeness, Let Your Life Speak, and The Courage to Teach

“For several generations, we humans have observed that the world is growing steadily smaller. Yet as we slow ourselves back down to the pace at which our legs can stroll or pedal a decent bicycle, the experienced Earth begins to grow larger once again, each locale swelling with unexpected nooks and crannies. Each bioregion finally discloses itself as utterly unique and practically inexhaustible in its complexity and wonder. Here, by virtue of the lucidity of his prose and the quality of his practice, Kurt Hoelting expands the world.”

- David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology

“Beyond the disturbing news of climate change looms the inescapable fact that we are all personally, viscerally, involved.  How to understand this.  What to do.  The Circumference of Home is Kurt Hoelting’s answer.  A lifelong outdoorsman, as well as a meditation teacher and Zen practitioner, Hoelting’s love for the landscapes and seascapes of his native Pacific Northwest transforms the grief of global warming into an adventure of the body and spirit.  Written in the best tradition of American nature writing from HD Thoreau to Gary Snyder, this wonderful book will bring you deep pleasure –  and hope.”

—Norman Fischer, Zen Priest and author of Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls.

“A masterpiece in the traditions of Thoreau, Muir, and Abbey….While a poetic and compelling tale, this is also an uncompromising mirror for all of us to face our impact and see what choices we might make that—added together—could literally turn the tide. Too much of the climate rhetoric touches only the mind and the tiny muffled place of guilt within us. Kurt Hoelting evokes none of that, but rather the poignancy of holding the future in our hands the way we would a newborn, feeling full of love, hope, and concern.”

—Vicki Robin, author of Your Money or Your Life

“Even as we strive to transform the way we use energy, we must also re-examine the fundamental principles on which we base our life choices. Kurt Hoelting has taken this challenge to heart, embarking on a voyage of discovery in his native Puget Sound that has transformed his own relationship with the place he calls home. He offers this book as an invitation to the rest of us to embark on similar voyages of discovery, wherever we may find ourselves.”

—Alan Durning, Director, Sightline Institute and author of This Place on Earth

“The Circumference of Home is an important and inspiring book.  As Kurt Hoelting reclaims his life from the thrall of the automobile, he finds that he regains the great gifts of time, silence, exuberant good health, deep connection to his northwest home, and ultimately the personal integrity that comes from living a life he believes in. The Circumference of Home is a wild bike/kayak/ferry ride among islands and towns. But it is also a journey of the moral imagination, asking the essential question — in a time of dangerous ecological disruption, how ought I to live?”

—Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort

“In the face of climate chaos, Kurt Hoelting does not wring his hands in despair. . . He laces up his boots, airs the tires on his bike, loads up his kayak, and explores his home region using his own muscle power.  This fisherman, carpenter, mountain climber, storyteller, and Zen adept is well-equipped for the adventure.  He emerges from his low-carbon year feeling more fit spiritually as well as physically, and more hopeful about the human future.  Readers will also come away feeling hopeful about our capacity for living more deeply in place and more conservingly on the planet.”

—Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist Manifesto

“Kurt Hoelting first took me on a voyage around southeast Alaska to connect more deeply with the natural world.  Now he has modeled for all of us a still more profound connection — this book gives us firm footing to cross the treacherous and challenging ice pack that lies ahead.”

—Carl Pope , Executive Director, The Sierra Club

“We are all struggling with how to take meaningful personal action in response to the climate challenge. In his Circumference of Home Kurt Hoelting recounts his year-long vacation from car and air travel in a thoughtful and self-aware chronicle that shows the upside of a smaller carbon footprint. Kurt combines his skill as a storyteller with his strong and perceptive sense of place to give us an engaging and meaningful account of the constraints and freedoms that emerge when we stop to think about where we are going and how we get there.”

—Will Rogers, President, Trust for Public Land