A Marine veteran with PTSD gravitates toward the natural world to find refuge from a human world difficult to navigate.

The inner beast is always there, always solid, always ready to fully embrace Charles Kniffen. In this memoir-in-stories, he seeks the company of nature and animals to allay his crippling social angst and to discover the most natural path to healing.

A boy’s dying puppy. A close encounter at sea with an angry shark. Being calmed and soothed by a whale while paddling his kayak through a heavy sea. In these places, Charles speaks with the beasts and shares their wisdom; he finds contentment, peace, and love. He needs only to quiet the nattering, ever-doubtful, and undermining presence of ego to find a place in the beautiful unfolding of the universe.

In Rude Awakenings, he finds that he is not, and never has been, alone; that we and all of our animal companions—wild, domestic, tiny as a shrew or great as a whale—are in this creation thing together. It is time and well past time to acknowledge that vital connection and work together as the people of the Earth.

As this ex-Marine wends his way through the puzzling world, he hears the voices of the animals and learns from Native American lore. Will we let animals guide us to a sustainable way of being? Will we open our hearts and our ears to truth?