Seeking a Joyful, Reciprocal Relationship with the Earth with Jon Turk

Jon Turk introduces his new book – Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu
Friday, November 12th
6:30 to 8 pm
Third Street Center, 520 S Third Street, Carbondale

Dr. Jon Turk is a scientist, author, and National Geographic award-winning explorer whose worldview was altered by extended visits with Moolynaut, a Siberian shaman. This relationship has been archived in the book, “The Raven’s Gift.” Jon has now written his 5 th book – this time exploring a landscape, culture and environment far removed from the Artic adventures featured in previous publications.

Join us welcoming Jon back to Carbondale. His last visit was for Five Points Film Festival in 2012 when he a fellow advernturer Erik Boomer presented their film detailed the challenges of completing the first circumnavigation of Canada’s Ellesmere Island by boat and on foot.

Jon’s new book Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu details his adventure While tracking a lion with a Samburu headman and then, later, eluding human assailants who may be tracking him, Jon Turk experiences people at their best and worst. As the tracker and the tracked, Jon reveals how the stories we tell each other, and the stories spinning in our heads, can be moulded into innovation, love and co-operation — or harnessed to launch armies. Seeking escape from the confusion we create for ourselves and our neighbours with our think-too-much-know-it-all brains, Jon finds liberation within a natural world that spins no fiction.

Set in a high-adventure narrative on the unforgiving savannah, Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu explores the aboriginal wisdoms that endowed our Stone Age ancestors with the power to survive – and how, since then, myth, art, music, dance, and ceremony have often been hijacked and distorted within our urban, scientific, oil-soaked world.

What reveiwers are saying:

“While tracking lions in Samburu, explorer and lifelong environmentalist Jon Turk is not afraid to ask the Big Questions: if humans have such impressive problem-solving brains, why have we ended up trashing the planet? Whether he is describing the midnight growl of a leopard outside his tent or ‘interviewing the Earth’ Jon Turk is a gifted storyteller, a wise elder and a fun companion.” – Marni Jackson: Author and editor with the Mountain and Wilderness Writing Program at the Banff Centre

“Adventurer, author Jon Turk’s worldview has been sculpted over the past seven decades by science, and shaped by mythology. In this, his proclaimed “final book”, Jon distills hard-earned lessons learned from his larger than life experience into the following: ‘The pursuit of happiness is the root of all unhappiness, and The pursuit of happiness is killing the planet. So. Where do we go from here?‘” – Pat Morrow: Mountaineer, filmmaker, photographer, coauthor of “Searching for Tao Canyon.”

Admission: $10
RSVP to reserve your seat to info@davinikent.org

More about Jon Turk HERE.