The Perfection of the Morning: An Apprenticeship in Nature

Joan Buchanan is a writing instructor and storyteller, and the author of
Taking Care of My Cold! and The Nana Rescue.

Nature, meditation, the prairies, spiritual exploration, slowing down
the pace of life, developing and following your intuition—these are
the images and phrases that permeate this contemplative journey by
novelist, playwright, and short-story writer Sharon Butala. Shortlisted
for the 1994 Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction, The
Perfection of the Morning recounts the author’s abandonment of
Saskatoon for the isolation of a cattle ranch in the near-desert prairie
of southwestern Saskatchewan. Although the book’s meandering pace and
frequent repetitions sometimes irritate, they are in keeping with the
circuitous nature of Butala’s journey. Her gradual realizations,
reflections on Native and European history, and references to such
writers as Jung, Castaneda, and Merton build upon one another and
provide, in the end, a ringing sense of the intrinsic value of nature.