“It is but an old woman’s dream…” says Waheenee of Hidatsa, mourning the passing of a way of life. And “We are all related,” repeats a phrase from a Sioux prayer. This beautiful book, blending gorgeous images, old and new, of people animals and scenery—all related—with words, prayers, poems and tales—from the people who lived here first—brings dream to life and helps the reader learn relationship.

Text and images are paired beautifully, flowing from page to page. Trees, in image and word, lead to musings on walking “with bare feet on the sacred earth,” to medicine, earth, sky, and mountain. Gorgeous sunrises, the circles of seasons… Indeed, all “[w]e who are clay, blended by the Master Potter” will find reminders of our own spirituality within these pages, whatever our faith, and be drawn by an evident respect for the whole of creation.

Bird song, bird nests and human nests; the words enthrall and the images flow, making this a book to be read in one awe-inspired sitting, or to be savored dawn after dawn at the window of the reader’s nest, looking out on beauty and asking, “Who made you?” Then know, “We do not walk alone.”

A book that combines cathedral-like imagery, pray-book sacredness, holy anthem, praise and poetry in the presence of nature’s glory, Spirit of the Earth is a picture book to treasure and delight in over and again.

Disclosure: I was given a copy by the publisher and can hardly believe my good fortune; it’s a beautiful book! ( )