I recently finished reading the book Earth, The Forgotten Temple. I found it a fascinating story. The tale of her sailing really held me, and I could almost feel the rocking of the boat and the spray of the sea as I read her accounts. The canoe trip through the Everglades sounded so refreshing, even as it was a challenge. I'm glad she wrote this book. Too many people forget that the Earth was our first temple, and it will be our last. I love the reverence for nature that this story has inspired and I've found myself looking for more of the spiritual in the natural world since reading her book.

I could scarcely put "Earth, the Forgotten Temple" down. The book is wonderfully done! I truly felt Niki Collins-Queen's own growth and experiences. The language of spirit is unwritten and unspoken. Every time it is reduced to language it is a translation. My own understanding of her experience is that she learned from feelings and emotions that Spirit gave her in the wilderness. Nature is spirit and speaks to us without the filter effect of words. So I paced myself to the feeling of the book and feel richer for it.

Earth, the Forgotten Temple is an account of canoeing through unknown waters, crewing aboard a stranger's sailboat, trekking through wilderness and sleeping alone beneath stars. The Church of the Great Outdoors delivers to the author an eagerness to embrace the natural world as she moves away from the usual comforts, conventions and confines in a personal quest for truth. Loaded with emotional baggage of feelings of abandonment, resentment and rejection, she works through that burden traveling alone in the wilderness and on the seas to an appreciation and acceptance of the beauty of a simpler life. Collins-Queen's quest is clear of mind and full of heart. Her tale is told through a happy, funny and amazing series of personal incidents as she treks about the world finding the path to home and to peace. She writes of spiritual redemption as if it were available to any thoughtful individual willing to let go of cultural demands of success and role-playing. Earth, the Forgotten Temple-A Spirit in the Wilderness-is a pleasure to read.