Field Guide to Now: Notes on Mindfulness and Life in the Present Tense

What if you could look for the present moment in a field guide, the way you might look up the name of a tree out your window?

For as long as you can remember, the tree has just been a tree, but in looking it up, it becomes something more: a Sassafras maybe, or a Tulip Maple, and suddenly you can feel the way your attention towards it shifts. You recognize the way its pollen gathers fine and yellow in the weft of your bedroom screen in May, or the way its shade freckles the dying grass at the end of summer. In the act of naming it, in discovering its traits and marks, the tree becomes something more to you.

What if you could do this for the moments that fill your life? That is what this book is about. The illustrated essays and prose explore the fabric of the present tense. With this book, talented blogger and artist Christina Rosalie combines narrative with original illustrations and field notes that spark inspiration. Within these pages she leads readers to rediscover how the small, mundane aspects of daily life can—through a shift in focus—become a springboard for the profound.

Christina Rosalie has been writing under the mentorship of Pam Houston since 2008. Her essays and short stories have won awards and been featured in print and online. Her blog, My Topography: The Shape Of Daily Life (http://mytopography.com) was the Best of Blogs “Best Creative Blog” winner in 2005, with a loyal and expanding audience of between 10,000 and 15,000 hits per day. A Field Guide To Now was successfully funded with more than $10,000 as a project on Kickstarter, and has a supportive following of backers who are awaiting their rewards in the form of chapter sneak peaks and postcards. Release of these will be timed to leverage the launch of the book.

She is savvy to and active in the wide community of social media, where she has been interviewed about this book project by Susannah Conway, Beth Nichols, Liz Lamoreux, and Rachelle Mee-Chapman. The project has also been featured on Crescendoh, Wishstudio, Gypsy Girls Guide, and Boho Girl. She is developing a Field Guide To Now e-course and workshop (to be taught online and at Squam Arts Workshops in New Hampshire after the book’s release), as well as an interactive Field Guide To Now website featuring a creative interview series and weekly reader contributions. She lives with her family in Vermont.

Christina Rosalie has been writing under the mentorship of Pam Houston since 2008. Her essays and short stories have won awards and been featured in print and online. Her blog, My Topography: The Shape Of Daily Life (http://mytopography.com) was the Best of Blogs “Best Creative Blog” winner in 2005, with a loyal and expanding audience of between 10,000 and 15,000 hits per day. A Field Guide To Now was successfully funded with more than $10,000 as a project on Kickstarter, andhas a supportive following of backers who are awaiting their rewards in the form of chapter sneak peaks and postcards. Release of these will be timed to leverage the launch of the book.

She is savvy to and active in the wide community of social media, where she has been interviewed about this book project by Susannah Conway, Beth Nichols, Liz Lamoreux, and Rachelle Mee-Chapman. The project has also been featured on Crescendoh, Wishstudio, Gypsy Girls Guide, and Boho Girl. She is developing a Field Guide To Now e-course and workshop (to be taught online and at Squam Arts Workshops in New Hampshire after the book’s release), as well as an interactive Field Guide To Now

website featuring a creative interview series and weekly reader contributions. She lives with her family in Vermont.