For My Father, Jack
Jack L. McConnell, 1934-1994
Through rock climbing in New Mexico, my father taught me to listen to nature and to myself, and to respect the joy and reverence nature freely offers.
He loved the clouds and their messages, the mountains and their silence, and the desert and its vibrance. As a lifelong mountaineer, model airplane pilot, and dedicated family man, our father taught us to find joy in our gifts and to share them with the world.
"Work hard and get in shape," was his humble key to life. But he practiced so much more and showed us that the greatest gift is to spend time with loved ones in the embrace of a summit or a vista or a birdsong.
He died too soon but was doing what he loved--rock climbing with his son in Estes Park, Colorado. We are forever grateful to the rescue team and those who helped him pass to the other side. We know you are still with us, Dad. We hear you in the alpine breeze and feel you in every adventure.
Awakening Wildness is offered in his legacy, my inheritance of connecting with nature and ourselves.
Fathers and Daughters
My father protected me not by shielding me, but by preparing me. By offering risks with his steady support.
He urged me to write, to explore, to play, to work as hard as I could at the things I loved most, including adventure. And he was right by my side in the wildest moments.
There are many daughters who, like me, lost their fathers too early. I have learned that our relationship continues and that separation is an illusion. Not only are they with us, but they are still guiding us, protecting us, whispering to us to take that risk, to live the life we have always imagined.
Our fathers lead us toward ecological grace--moments of resonance in which the deep feelings of reciprocity and care for each other provide us with transformative moments with Nature.
A Legacy of Joy
Thirty years after his death, my father still walks with me in the red canyons, along soft river banks, and toward sunrise summits.
Our relationship continues through the whispers of ponderosa and the calls of canyon wrens. We get to have this--to know this--because we can trust our intuition and our experience.
We get to choose joy, even when our hearts still long for them.
Awakening Wildness
A tribute, 30 years in the making, to our story of healing, loss, and connection
When her father, Jack, first led her into the canyons of New Mexico, he was teaching Christy more than knots and footholds; he was offering an inheritance of wonder. Six weeks later, he was gone--killed in a climbing accident in Estes Park, Colorado. The lessons learned in that short time have echoed through Christy's life as she sought to understand not only how to connect with nature as her father taught her, but also how to help others do the same. She has spent her life exploring what it means to live with an awakened, ecological heart.
Drawing on educational theory, philosophy, and lived experience, this book explores five pathways to deepen ecological experiences: aesthetic, where beauty awakens awe; adventure, where risk deepens relationship; flow, where immersion becomes transcendent; spiritual, where mystery offers new ways of knowing; and communal, where belonging expands to humans and beyond. Each chapter weaves a story with reflection--part field guide, part elegy, part invitation--to help readers cultivate their own relationship with wildness.
McConnell illuminates how encounters with nature can transform grief into gratitude, isolation into reciprocity, and fear into reverence. This book reminds us that wildness is not a place we visit, but a place we inhabit and that inhabits us.