Wild Like Flowers: START HERE
This provides the framework for how to utilize this section to read my second book, Wild Like Flowers!
This is the introduction page of my second book, Wild Like Flowers: The Restoration of Relationship Through Regeneration. You can buy the book here. Or, you can read it here.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Yawe, A Note, READ
Introduction, READ
To Jump Means to be Firmly Put, READ
To be Daybreak, READ
To be a Family, READ
To be a Stone, READ
Essay on Wilding, READ
To be Freedom, READ
To be a Weed, READ
Essay on Community, READ
To be a Relationship, READ
BOOK DESCRIPTION
A 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award in Nature/Environmentalism
This is a book about Regenerative Agriculture gone wild.
This book of short stories and essays is a wondrous meditation on sunrises and wildness, on wildflowers and walks. It is also a book about you, about me, and about the ecosystem regeneration possible through learning to see the wild gifts of Relationship.
Drawing on life in his Wildland-a 400-acre process-led and emergent farm that nurtures ecosystem regeneration, carbon sequestration, nourishing foods, bio-diversity, and species habitat-the acclaimed author and poet, emergent conservationist, and Savory Institute Hub Leader, Educator, and Consultant, Daniel Firth Griffith, provides a poetic portrait of the powers, magic, and rich abundance harvested by learning the language of connection and the restorative powers of Relationship.
Wild Like Flowers is a collection of personal reflections from Griffith's regenerative wildland that utilizes the magical gifts of being, connection, reciprocity, and community to probe the larger concerns of the modern agricultural movement in lyrical and meditative prose that is a true celebration of life itself. It presents a choice to stop; to nurture awareness; to learn a language of Relationship instead of dominance-of community not colonization. A choice that understands life and the landscape of our place as something we commune with-a Relationship-a vision that places human life a bit closer to being Native to this place.
PRAISE FOR WILD LIKE FLOWERS
“This beautifully written book of short stories and essays exudes atmosphere and a deeply felt sense of place—its ecology, geology, culture, and spirit. It tells the story of the rewilding of that place and the impact that has had on the family there to witness it. If there were a poet laureate of holistic management, his name would be Daniel Griffith.”
—Allan Savory, President, Savory Institute & Author of Holistic Management.
“Everyone needs to read this book if for no other reason than to honor prophets and poets. Giving ourselves time to imagine beauty and spontaneous, dynamic being relationships in and around us helps find balance. All my life I’ve struggled trying to balance out my western reductionist linear bias with an eastern holistic connectedness; I’m happy to say this book moved me toward that balance. You could call it a devotional.”
—Joel Salatin, Polyface Farm & Author of Folks, This Ain’t Normal, Salad Bar Beef, and You Can Farm.
“This book is about the core of regeneration, the relationship with place and the wild that is both around us and within us. There are a lot of books on techniques of Regenerative Agriculture. This book is not one of those. Through engaging stories, Wild Like Flowers gives us a glimpse into the reciprocal relationships that are possible when humans pause, observe and interact with the natural cycles. I recommend this book for anyone looking to tend to the wild within and around us as well as engage with the earth in a meaningful and regenerative way.”
—Doniga Markegard, Author of Dawn Again and Wolf Girl, Regenerative Rancher at Markegard Family Grass-Fed.
“A buoyant riff that gets to the heart of regenerative farming. Embrace the spirit of this exuberant book and let it take you someplace wild within you.”
—Judith D. Schwartz, author of Cows Save the Planet and The Reindeer Chronicles.
“Wild Like Flowers is a beautifully written work that places the reader onto the landscape itself, into the ecosystem, to be a part of it, not just a passerby. Griffith puts into words what so many in the Regenerative Movement are missing. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be a part of the community of Creation.”
—Gabe Brown, Author of Dirt to Soil, Farmer, & Pioneer of the Soil-Health Movement.
“Daniel Griffith invents an entire new language to share with his readers the entirely new set of emotions he has found himself immersed in since beginning his new, real life. He is living it, being it, and this book is his gift to allow others to begin to know what he is discovering. ‘Rivers are the confluence where gravitational pull meets opportunity,’ he writes. Do not approach this book with expectations: it is not like any other book. It is an outpouring, a sharing. It needs to be lived and breathed and not merely read.”
—Rosamund Young, Organic Farmer, Author, Secret Life of Cows.
“Daniel invites us to put our boots on and join him on a magical journey to become the wild and commune with the mystery of all that is, to rediscover our deeper selves as soil and life, as night skies, as relationship and endless rhythm, as wind and wildflowers . . . as miracles, aware. He also challenges us to mindfully safeguard the unfolding of the regenerative movement. Revolution, hope, hearth, death, life, choice. Not one word is wasted in this beautiful book, or redundant. Every sentence, masterfully woven and beautifully delivered, is a gift to the soul, bells calling us to come back home, triggering a smile or a tear in each turn of the page—“joy and hope with a side of tears.”
—Daniela Ibarra-Howell, CEO & Co-Founder, Savory Institute.
“Daniel’s book is a call to be wild and thereby alive. It seeks to connect us. It shows us what is possible. It encourages us to reflect, to listen, and to be in relationship with, instead of in control of, the world around us. It gives us hope for a beautiful world.”
—Abbey Kingdon Smith, Director, Jefferson Center for Holistic Management.
“Griffith’s work is one to savor. It gives voice to a whispered calling back to the land— to the feral quintessence of landscape and our relationship with it. There are no demands or teachings here; only a humble invitation to being and becoming wild.”
—David Leon, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Farmer’s Footprint.
“A cry from the heart. In Wild Like Flowers, Griffith has put into words the ache and exhilaration of a human soul rediscovering its long-forfeit role within Nature. This book is a clarion calling for course-correction—for a step down, a step back. Griffith makes clear: humility will save humanity.”
—Jesse McDougall, Author & Co-Founder and Director of Regenerative Agriculture at Regenerative Food Network, Inc.
“This book will make you think more deeply about our connection with food and how it is grown. Conventional agriculture has transformed an “Eden” of North America into a land and society that is broken. Daniel’s journey through “regenerative agriculture” has shown him that humility is the only way to self-awareness of our condition and his words have never rang truer in human history than today. “Wild Like Flowers” is not just a title of his book but a symbolic expression to a way of life that leads to regeneration of the soul.”
—Eric Perner, Owner, Double P Ranch & CEO of REP Provisions
“In Wild Like Flowers, Daniel Griffith captures what it truly feels like to be a Steward of the land—that everything is interconnected in both knowable and inseparable ways. Reading his eloquent, sensory prose, one is moved in awe to the complex, yet often simple, wild. As a fellow lover of early morning ritual, I feel confident I will return often to Wild Like Flowers as it is one of those books you keep close—knowing that just as a flush of quail, the bawl of a newborn calf, or the smell of oncoming spring never tires, so too is true with some books. This is one of them.”
—Donna Kilpatrick, Ranch Manager and Land Steward of Heifer Ranch
“As a steward of land, livestock, and natural wholes, I am ultimately driven by beauty—a beauty eloquently portrayed by Griffith’s poetic compilation of essays. He captures the joy that is realized when we are intimately intertwined, day-to-day, within this beauty—in the mysterious, miraculous intricacy of birth, decay, soil, roots, leaves, flowers, hooves, horns, and rumens.”
—Jim Howell, Author, For the Love of Land & CEO, Grasslands, LLC
“Well, Griffith makes it look simple! And, in many ways, it is simple: being part of and encouraging a land going wild! I encourage you to follow slowly behind Daniel, for he has literally super-human powers of observation that you will need to learn and has gathered the wisdom of the many ways taught by thousands of years of experiential learning. Move slowly and thoughtfully behind him, but certainly seek his ways and follow him”
—Britt Boucher, Foresters, LLC.
“A conscious unlearning of what it means to be wild, and a rediscovery of our innate interconnectedness to the natural world. Wild Like Flowers masterfully weaves together the ethos and inherent ecological truths of what it means to be in relationship to land, to each other, and to ourselves.”
—Bobby Gill, Director of Development & Communications, Savory Institute.
“Daniel Griffith masterfully weaves together history, philosophy, ecology, and literature into one poetic narrative that speaks directly to those of us who deeply love the land. Wild Like Flowers is one of those rare books that simultaneously inspires, educates, and awakens the reader to the promise of regenerative agriculture and its ability to heal our land, our planet, and, ultimately, ourselves.”
—Ed Roberson, Conservationist & Creator of Mountain & Prairie.