Arguing With the Wind: A Spiritual Journey in Wilderness

As a teenager, Walt McLaughlin told his parents he'd been talking to God in the woods, and he ended up in a psychiatric ward on Thorazine. Years later a philosophy degree had done nothing to assuage his existential anxiety, so he hitchhiked west — and eventually flew alone into Alaska's Endicott River Wilderness with a .44, no radio, and two-and-a-half-weeks worth of food. On this episode of Constant Wonder, the writer and erstwhile hiking guide tells host Marcus Smith how a death wish that had shadowed him since adolescence finally broke — on a rain-soaked escarpment, with a raven croaking at him from a branch — and how he came to accept that the world is harsh yet beautiful. Walt McLaughlin lives in northern Vermont, close to the New England woods and wilds he loves. There he's proprietor of the small indie press Wood Thrush Books, online at woodthrushbooks.com. This episode includes a first-person account of depression and a suicide attempt. Guest: Walt McLaughlin, publisher and author, “Cultivating the Wildness Within”; “Arguing with the Wind: A Journey into the Alaskan Wilderness”; and “Confronting the Unknowable: Essays on God, Nature and Being Human”