Soul Friend and Other Love Notes to the Natural World

Praise for Soul Friend: And Other Love Notes to the Natural World

With poetic grace, keen insights on the human condition, and a clear reverence for the natural world, McEntee crafts her essays with a sensitivity reminiscent of Mary Oliver and a nimbleness evocative of Joan Didion. Each essay unfolds like a prayer, a testament to the fragile interconnectedness of all living beings. I adored every moment of Soul Friend, and you will, too.
—Nora Shalaway Carpenter, award-winning author of The Edge of Anything and Fault Lines

Reading Sheila McEntee’s collection of essays is the literary equivalent of what the Japanese call “forest bathing.” In unhurried, lyrical language, she guides us through landscapes—and lifescapes—with the intimacy and generosity of a best friend. Soul Friend is a book about nature, but also about human nature. Woven with her observations of birds and wildflowers are explorations of personal-but-universal joys and griefs; gifts and losses; loneliness; love; and flashes of spiritual grace that, like a winter flock of cardinals, alight for a moment and leave a memory for a lifetime. Savor these essays, reader. You will be well rewarded to follow McEntee as she leads you, flower by fern by birdcall, along a path “like a cathedral aisle, green boughs meeting high overhead in a holy embrace.”
—Colleen Anderson, author of Bound Stone and Missing: Mrs. Cornblossom

In her collection of essays, Sheila McEntee guides the reader through the complex, inspiring, and curious natural world in which we live. What makes her collection so accessible, though, is her ability to allow us to see ourselves in that world, not just as observers of the natural processes or inhabitants of that world, but as participants, who can learn from those observations. The opposite of anthropomorphizing, her work uses the lives and process we see all around us as a tool of enlightenment, asking us to reflect on our experiences of joy, loss, and wonder, triggered by those observations. At their core, these essays serve as a meditation for self-reflection and appreciation for the world around us. A welcome respite from the hurry-scurry of the virtual world we spend much of our time inhabiting.
—Curtis Smalling, Vice President, Audubon North Carolina

Soul Friend and Other Love Notes to the Natural World is a poignant blend of natural history and personal reminiscences. It will find avid readers in professional field naturalists and serious bird watchers, as well as casual backyard observers. From a touching piece on the death of her mother to stories of amusing animal antics in her own backyard, the book had me remembering, laughing, and simply enjoying Sheila’s take on the natural world.
—Scott Shalaway, certified wildlife biologist, syndicated columnist, and author of Building a Backyard Bird Habitat