Join renowned author David Hinton on two walks into the wild beauty and archaeological ruins of the desert Southwest--and to the edges of consciousness and Taoist cosmology that he explores on the way. In this poetic odyssey of nature writing that blurs the line between observer and landscape, Hinton's project is nothing less than to map our place in the cosmos and awaken to our interconnectedness with the wild spontaneity of the natural world. Like Henry David Thoreau and other great literary walkers, Hinton joins his profound philosophical worldview--informed by a lifetime of translating the Taoist and Ch'an Buddhist masterpieces of classical Chinese literature--with his keen eye for the slightest of nature's details. As he explores sweeping desert landscapes and the crumbling ruins of the humans who once lived there, Hinton simultaneously investigates the nature of sight and perception, tracing the movements of consciousness and the very roots of language.