The Book of Mysteries

In this vivid blend of memoir, nature writing and ecological thinking, Rebecca Tamás seeks new answers in old folk ways. Suffering from burn-out and grief both environmental and personal, Tamás sets out on a journey across the UK guided by the Pagan wheel of the year, marking each solstice, equinox and the midpoints between them with a ritual drawn from ancient traditions. From a confrontation with the sharp pains of winter at Samhain in Edinburgh to a giddy experience of collective joy at Padstow's May Day, she finds in these traditional practices electric potential for transforming our relationship to the natural world and the flow of time. Intellectually penetrating and richly lyrical, The Book of Mysteries follows the drumbeat of seasonal ritual towards an immersion in the wild time of the earth. Ecstatic, radical and irreverent, this book is a rallying cry to wrest time away from the structures of work and capital, so as to encounter the life-giving mystery of the natural world.