BUTTERFLIES ON A SEA WIND: Beginning Zen

Marine biologist Rudloe, who works and live in the "hidden" Florida panhandle coast, sings the life of a beginning Zen practitioner. From early longings and attractions to Zen, through her first retreat that ends only to find her still face-to-face with her elderly and cantankerous grandmother, to longer retreats and truly sterling insights, Rudloe tracks the path through the elusive Zen forest, detailing the fluctuations of sitting and doing "nothing." Writing with a haunting, beautiful appreciation of the natural world, particularly of sea and coastal pine forest, Rudloe reveals her maturing depth. Her book has merit for anyone at any stage of the Zen path, for although she is not afraid to reveal her naïveté in the beginning pages, neither is she shy about showing the evolution of spirit that accrues through practice. Her prose, poetic at times, is always clear. Her best writing marries the elemental world of her work and life to the ephemeral spiritual world that merges and abides in her. At her best describing her connection to nature, Rudloe can also articulate ineffable mysteries with easy grace: "Staring at that silence and stillness long enough, merging with it, we eventually come to realize that the answers to our questions are within that stillness. We don't penetrate the silence, it penetrates and dissolves us." (Sept.)