Devotions
Mary Oliver · 2017
Her own selection from fifty years of attention. Open it anywhere; it will tell you to look at the geese.
Tools & Resources · A Quiet Library
Reading & Listeningwhat's been keeping me company
A small shelf of the books, voices and music I return to. Nothing here is required reading. Pull down whatever calls you, and leave the rest for another season.
Find them at your local library or independent bookshop whenever you can.
For the eyes
The Reading List
Poetryfor reading aloud, slowly
The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy · 1996
Prayers written by a young poet to a God he could only half see. Tender, strange, and made for candlelight.
The Essential Rumi
Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks · 1995
The thirteenth-century mystic of longing and the open door. Read one poem a morning.
Blessing the Boats
Lucille Clifton · 2000
Short, fierce, joyful poems about the body, family and survival. Winner of the National Book Award.
The Carrying
Ada Limón · 2018
Poems about grief, wanting and the natural world, by a poet who later became U.S. Poet Laureate.
Ledger
Jane Hirshfield · 2020
Clear, quiet poems that weigh what we owe each other and the earth.
Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings
Joy Harjo · 2015
Song, prayer and story from the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate.
Mysticism & Spiritthe long conversation with the holy
Anam Cara
John O'Donohue · 1997
Celtic wisdom on friendship, solitude and the soul. Gentle enough for hard seasons.
To Bless the Space Between Us
John O'Donohue · 2008
Blessings for thresholds of every kind: new jobs, grief, mornings, endings.
Revelations of Divine Love
Julian of Norwich · late 14th century
The first book in English known to be written by a woman, and the source of 'all shall be well'.
When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chödrön · 1997
Buddhist counsel for the days when the ground disappears. A book people keep by the bed.
The Miracle of Mindfulness
Thich Nhat Hanh · 1975
A small, practical book on washing the dishes to wash the dishes.
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Sue Monk Kidd · 1996
A memoir of one person's search for the sacred feminine within and beyond her tradition.
Women Who Run with the Wolves
Clarissa Pinkola Estés · 1992
Folk tales read as maps of the wild, instinctive self. Dense, and worth it.
Memoir & Essayscompanions for the soft life
Wintering
Katherine May · 2020
On the fallow seasons of a life, and the wisdom of rest. The book for a hard winter.
Journal of a Solitude
May Sarton · 1973
A year alone in a New Hampshire house: flowers, depression, work, weather.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Annie Dillard · 1974
A year of fierce attention to one Virginia creek. Pulitzer Prize, and still astonishing.
Refuge
Terry Tempest Williams · 1991
A mother's illness, a rising lake, and the birds of the Great Salt Lake, braided together.
The Book of Delights
Ross Gay · 2019
A year of writing one small delight a day. A practice disguised as a book.
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Rebecca Solnit · 2005
Essays on uncertainty, the color blue, and the gifts of not knowing the way.
Upstream
Mary Oliver · 2016
Essays on nature, writing and the poets she loved, in the same clear voice as the poems.
Quiet Philosophyfor slower thinking
Braiding Sweetgrass
Robin Wall Kimmerer · 2013
A botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation on gratitude, reciprocity and the gift economy of the earth.
The Serviceberry
Robin Wall Kimmerer · 2024
A short, luminous companion: what an abundant berry teaches about sharing.
Consolations
David Whyte · 2015
Short meditations on everyday words like rest, longing and courage.
The Sense of Wonder
Rachel Carson · 1965
A slim book on keeping wonder alive in children and in ourselves.
How to Do Nothing
Jenny Odell · 2019
Resisting the attention economy by noticing birds, place and each other.
Four Thousand Weeks
Oliver Burkeman · 2021
On the shortness of a life, and the relief of accepting you can't do it all.
The Poetics of Space
Gaston Bachelard · 1958
A philosopher on drawers, nests, corners and attics: the poetry of the rooms we dream in.
The Seasons & the Old Wayshistory, folklore and the wheel
The Stations of the Sun
Ronald Hutton · 1996
A careful, readable history of the ritual year in Britain. The best grounding for the Wheel of the Year.
Carmina Gadelica
Alexander Carmichael (collected) · 1900
Prayers, blessings and charms gathered in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, including those for the Day of Bride.
The Spiral Dance
Starhawk · 1979
A foundational text of modern goddess spirituality and ritual, still widely read.
Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom
Rachel Pollack · 1980–83
The classic deep reading of every tarot card, from a beloved teacher.
Owning Your Own Shadow
Robert A. Johnson · 1991
A short, wise introduction to shadow work from a Jungian analyst.
Meeting the Shadow
Connie Zweig & Jeremiah Abrams, eds. · 1991
An anthology of essays on the shadow from many writers and traditions.
For the ears
The Listening List
Voicesbooks read aloud by the people who wrote them
At Blackwater Pond
Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver · 2006
Dozens of her poems in her own unhurried voice. Hearing her read changes how the poems sound on the page.
Braiding Sweetgrass
Robin Wall Kimmerer · audiobook
Read by the author, which makes the stories of her family and her teachers feel like a conversation.
Podcastsfor walks and long drives
Poetry Unbound
Pádraig Ó Tuama · On Being Studios
One poem read twice, with a short reflection in between. About fifteen minutes.
On Being
Krista Tippett · On Being Studios
Long, gentle conversations about meaning, faith, science and how to live.
The Slowdown
American Public Media · since 2018
A five-minute daily poem and reflection, hosted by celebrated poets, beginning with U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith.
Music for the Practicefor candles, baths and quiet mornings
A Feather on the Breath of God
Gothic Voices · Hildegard of Bingen · 1982
The visionary twelfth-century abbess's chants, sung so purely they feel like light.
Spiegel im Spiegel
Arvo Pärt · 1978
Ten minutes of piano and violin that slow the breath without asking.
Sleep
Max Richter · 2015
An eight-hour lullaby. The shorter album, from sleep, is perfect for evening practice.
Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Brian Eno · 1978
Music meant to be as ignorable as it is interesting, which is exactly why it's good for writing and ritual.
Officium
Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble · 1994
Medieval and Renaissance sacred song with saxophone, recorded in a stone monastery church. Unexpected and deeply calming.
The Visit
Loreena McKennitt · 1991
Celtic songs and old ballads, including Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott'.
Watermark
Enya · 1988
Layered voices like weather. Many people's first taste of music that feels like prayer.
Take what is yours.
Leave the rest for the next wanderer.