Embers

Richard Wagamese, an Ojibway author, presents a collection of personal meditations and spiritual reflections organized into seven thematic sections. The book is rooted in his daily ceremonial practice and draws on Ojibway teachings, dialogues with spiritual mentors, and observations from his life as a writer and recovering person. Rather than following a narrative arc, it traces a progression of interconnected ideas about how to live a spiritually grounded life.

In the Introduction, Wagamese describes the morning ritual from which the book's meditations emerge. Each dawn, he performs a smudging ceremony, a traditional purification practice in which sacred plant medicines are burned and their smoke wafted over the body, using an eagle wing fan, a rattle, and the four sacred medicines of his people: sage, sweet grass, tobacco, and cedar. After smudging, he reads, sits in quiet contemplation, and offers a prayer of gratitude. On mornings when his connection to ceremony is strongest, meditations arise unbidden and take shape at his writing desk. He describes his worn living room table as a metaphor for his own battered but full life and characterizes the book's words as embers from ancestral tribal fires, from the spiritual fires of great writers, from every story he has heard, and from the relationships that have sustained him.

The first section, "Stillness," establishes silence and inner quiet as the foundation of spiritual life. Wagamese asserts that he is not his thoughts, actions, or possessions but the consciousness that perceives them. Throughout the book, he presents dialogues with Old Woman, an unnamed spiritual teacher. She advises him to "pack light" (10) on the spiritual journey, explaining that spirituality is found in the heart and in silence, not in grand words. He recounts his spiritual father's teaching that nothing in the universe ever grew from the outside in, a principle that keeps him focused on inner questions rather than external answers. Standing in the bush, knee-deep in snow, laying tobacco down as a ceremonial offering of remembrance for his mother, he once became aware of a full, tangible silence and found that surrendering grief to the ongoing act of living allows growth in the quiet spaces between words, actions, and changes.

In "Harmony," Wagamese explores interconnectedness with all of creation. He considers the Ojibway phrase "all my relations" (27), emphasizing that the most important word is "all" (27), encompassing every person, rock, blade of grass, and creature. He recounts a moment when a hawk dove toward him and stopped above his head, spreading her wings; in that collision of wind, hawk, and breath, he understood what it means to be alive: to be connected, aware of that connection, and grateful for it. Old Woman teaches that the purpose of being alive is to learn about one's relatives, meaning not just human family but the moon, stars, rocks, trees, water, and all living things. He meditates on breath as the primary relationship, arguing that from one's first breath, one joins everything that ever was, is, and will be. He describes learning that trees communicate through fungal networks in the soil, connecting this to his people's concept of "tree talk, tree people" (40), and recounts his shift from believing his body contained his soul to believing his soul contains his body, meaning he is never separate from Creator except within his mind.

"Trust" examines faith, surrender, and trust in Creator's presence through hardship. Old Woman explains that when things are hardest, Creator sends not thunderbolts but people as miracles who help stitch life back together. Wagamese identifies the hardest lesson he has ever learned: The greater plan is not his to create or know, and when he surrenders outcome, all things good and peaceful come to him. He describes moments when Creator seems absent as moments when Creator is showing trust in him. He recounts how his life changed through the word "yes" (62): He left school at 16, having completed only Grade 9, and struggled for years with homelessness and poverty. When the possibility of becoming a storyteller was presented, he said yes, leading to a journalism career, more than a dozen books, and numerous honors. His mother's death teaches him that he came to this life not to master devastating situations but to experience them, receiving soul lessons so he can eventually return to the beauty he was when he first arrived. Old Woman teaches that the point of prayer and meditation is not to understand the Great Mystery but to participate in it.

In "Reverence," Wagamese explores ceremony, awe, and the sacred presence in everyday life. Old Man, another spiritual mentor, teaches him to "remember to remember" (76): Throughout the day, he should recall the time taken to pray and give thanks so that everyone encountered becomes a beneficiary. Wagamese recalls his childhood desire to travel the world, which he called "going to see" (80), a phrase his parents interpreted as a desire to go to sea. He distinguishes between being "odd" and being "awed" (81), declaring awe the greatest ongoing relationship he wants in his life. He articulates the relationship between creativity and humility, asserting that writing is a spiritual process. He defines both the beginning and attainment of wisdom as wonder and reflects on the storytelling moons of long winter nights, when elders speak softly and people do not merely listen but hear.

"Persistence" addresses resilience, mental health, healing, and the sustained effort required to walk a spiritual path. Wagamese declares that he no longer wants merely to bounce back to where he stood before; he wants to go beyond. He identifies the first step toward healing from his mental health condition as trusting that a "beyond" (99) existed. He uses the metaphor of a cracked mirror: The crack tells him something is wrong, but healing is not finding a better mirror. It is seeing beyond the crack and learning to love his imperfections. He meditates on forgiveness as gaining release not from others but from himself, first embracing resentment, fear, and doubt in order to let them go. He explains the phrase "Stay Brown" (112) through his people's teaching that life is a circle: What one thinks, one creates; what one creates, one becomes; what one becomes, one expresses and experiences. He recounts his self-education: With little formal schooling, he copied passages by great writers in longhand to learn excellent craft, and he now does the same with spirituality, practicing daily to be selfless, honest, kind, and compassionate. Old Woman defines recovery as being reborn, recovering the spiritual qualities one arrived with but lost along the way.

"Gratitude" presents gratitude as the animating force of prayer and relationship with Creator. Wagamese describes offering his whole self in prayer to the rising sun each morning, giving only thanks, not requests. He distinguishes between happiness, an emotion resulting from circumstances, and joy, a spiritual engagement with the world based on gratitude. He observes that prayers focused on gratitude for what is already present bring more, while prayers focused on want create only more wanting. He defines himself not by what he does but by what he has received: sobriety, recovery, community, belonging, a life partner, and peace. He explains that he finds political strength through spiritual strength, praying in gratitude even for those who do not understand or empathize with the struggles of his people, because all are one body moving through time together.

The final section, "Joy," concludes with meditations on authenticity, wonder, and fully inhabiting each moment. Wagamese recounts standing on a high ridge in the wilderness when he saw another man 30 feet away, equally absorbed in wonder; they smiled, laughed, and wordlessly continued on separate paths, teaching that when people see each other through eyes of wonder, all barriers disappear. He describes the morning smudging ceremony once more: As the smoke rises, his mind empties, his heart opens, and he declares, "I am alive" (157). He meditates on storytelling as the essential human power, allowing listeners to discover questions within themselves. The secret of fully being here, he reflects, is learning to see things as though looking at them for the first or last time, so that nothing is too small or mundane. In that way of seeing, everything is wonder and everything moves his spirit. The book closes with an imperative that captures its culminating theme of embodied, joyful participation in life: "Dance, dang it, that's what feet are for!" (164).