Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World

READ THIS BOOK WITH YOUR BODY

After flipping her raft and shattering her leg on the remote Middle Fork of the Salmon River, elite athlete Katie Arnold must confront her broken body, spirit—and heart. Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World, a Zen meditation wrapped in a memoir, tells the story of a search for stillness by a woman born for wildness. As Shunryu Suzuki wrote, “Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky.” These are moments of wholeness, when we suddenly feel as if we’re part of everything, and everything’s part of us. Poetic and gripping, this book illuminates these moments to remind us that life’s challenges are a chance to live.

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Praise for Brief Flashings

“Katie Arnold does not turn back but turns toward and then turns inward in this miraculous and beautiful book about awakening. Her luminous writing sheds light on a life that is true and revelatory. This book is a must read for all of us on how to meet life fully and bravely.”

—Joan Halifax, author of Standing at the Edge

“A spellbinding narrative.”

–Bill Donahue, author of Unbound: Unforgettable True Stories From The World of Endurance Sports

"Katie has a deep wisdom about the ground of being. She understands it through her body, through running, and the natural world. She doesn’t just write about it, she transmits it. This book is a beautiful exploration of what it means to be truly alive.”

—Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones

"Katie Arnold’s second book is as abundant as the mountains and canyons from which she draws so much inspiration. Part memoir and part meditation, Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World meanders through midlife troubles both extraordinary and mundane. In loose narrative streams that mirror the currents and eddies of the rivers she loves, Arnold offers a quietly joyous testament to the beauty of imperfection and the power of learning to flow, fully and freely, within one’s own life."

–Marin Sardy, author of The Edge of Everyday

"I would follow Katie Arnold up any mountain or down any river running with her crystalline prose. This is a wise, vivid book about acceptance and forgiveness, about pushing to our outer limits, both body and soul, in order to find a new kind of wonder, love, and grace."

– Michael Paterniti, author of Driving Mr. Albert

“Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World wrestles with a paradox as slippery as wet river rock: If you want to find yourself, start by becoming utterly lost. Katie Arnold did just that, and she returns to us now with this honest, lyrical, and exuberant book. The peace she’s found radiates through these pages.”

—Christopher Solomon, Outside and Runner's World magazines

“This wise, lyrical book unfolds like a koan: How can a devastating accident on a river help you become the river?.”

—Florence Williams, author of Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey

“Katie Arnold's descriptions of running, whether through glorious mountains or bitter weather, whether in beautiful flow states or grueling agonies that call forth spectacular perseverance, make for electrifying and irresistible reading. I can't get enough of them.”

-Henry Shukman, author of One Blade of Grass

Brief Flashings press

Ten Junk Miles Podcast, “Long Run: Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World”

Trail Runner Nation Podcast, “The Runner’s Renaissance: A Fresh Start”

Santa Fe Reporter, cover story, excerpt + interview, “Practice Run”

KBAC Radio Free Santa Fe, “The Big Show with Honey Harris”

Women’s Running Stories podcast, “Zen on the Run”

CEO World Magazine, “Soulful Books Every Leader Should Read in 2024”

Upaya Dharma Podcast, “Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World” dharma talk

KMRD Community Radio, “Brief Flashings Playlist Show”

Running Home: A Memoir

In the tradition of Wild and H Is for Hawk, an Outside magazine writer tells her story—of fathers and daughters, grief and resilience, adventure and obsession, and the power of running to change your life.

I’m running to forget, and to remember.

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For more than a decade, Katie Arnold chased adventure around the world, reporting on extreme athletes who performed outlandish feats—walking high lines a thousand feet off the ground without a harness, or running one hundred miles through the night. She wrote her stories by living them, until eventually life on the thin edge of risk began to seem normal. After she married, Katie and her husband vowed to raise their daughters to be adventurous, too, in the mountains and canyons of New Mexico. But when her father died of cancer, she was forced to confront her own mortality.

His death was cataclysmic, unleashing a perfect storm of grief and anxiety. She and her father, an enigmatic photographer for National Geographic, had always been kindred spirits. He introduced her to the outdoors and took her camping and on bicycle trips and down rivers, and taught her to find solace and courage in the natural world. And it was he who encouraged her to run her first race when she was seven years old.

Now nearly paralyzed by fear and terrified she was dying, too, she turned to the thing that had always made her feel most alive: running. Over the course of three tumultuous years, she ran alone through the wilderness, logging longer and longer distances, first a 50-kilometer ultramarathon, then 50 miles, then 100 kilometers. She ran to heal her grief, to outpace her worry that she wouldn’t live to raise her own daughters. She ran to find strength in her weakness. She ran to remember and to forget. She ran to live.

Ultrarunning tests the limits of human endurance over seemingly inhuman distances, and as she clocked miles across mesas and mountains, Katie learned to tolerate pain and discomfort, and face her fears of uncertainty, vulnerability, and even death itself. As she ran, she found herself peeling back the layers of her relationship with her father, discovering that much of what she thought she knew about him, and her own past, was wrong.

Running Home is a memoir about the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our world—the stories that hold us back, and the ones that set us free. Mesmerizing, transcendent, and deeply exhilarating, it is a book for anyone who has been knocked over by life, or feels the pull of something bigger and wilder within themselves.

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pRAISE FOR rUNNING hOME

“A beautiful work of searching remembrance and searing honesty . . . Katie Arnold is as gifted on the page as she is on the trail. Running Home will soon join such classics as Born to Run and Ultramarathon Man as quintessential reading of the genre.”

—Hampton Sides, author of On Desperate Ground and Ghost Soldiers

“RUNNING HOME is totally captivating. The descriptions of running and all the interpersonal threads surrounding it are just sublime.The memoir has a wonderful deep center of gravity to it, so as Katie Arnold plumbs the depths of her history, she is also going deeper into herself through running, and all that it brings. A truly deep and wise book, and a gripping story of a most remarkable journey. What a spectacular combination!”

—Henry Shukman, poet, associate Zen master, and author of Achangel and The Lost City

“Profound on every page . . . What Elizabeth Gilbert has done for travel, Katie Arnold has done here for running. I was breathless by the end, murmuring thanks. Running Home is an instant classic, one that will be read for years to come.”

—Michael Paterniti, author of Love and Other Ways of Dying

“Katie Arnold is a gifted athlete and equally talented writer. In Running Home she speaks candidly about her relationship with her father and a family dynamic that verged on dysfunctional, yet was also empowering. Her story drew me in from the first line and I couldn’t stop turning the pages. A must-read for anyone looking for a deeper glimpse into the mindset of a fearless individual.”

—Dean Karnazes, ultramarathoner and author of Ultramarathon Man

“Running Home is a lovely, big-hearted, and inspiring memoir that looks life’s challenges right in the eye. Katie Arnold writes about the curveballs and heartbreaks—as well as the joys—with a pure emotional courage that matches her physical feats on the ultramarathon trails. This is a book with soul.”

—Susan Casey, author of Voices in the Ocean and The Wave

“RUNNING HOME deeply touched me. I could not put this book down, but instead of racing through it I slowed down to savor every wordt. I did not want it to end. Running Home reaffirmed how precious my time is with children, and it also inspired me to run again after my treatment for stage four lung cancer. The recovery has been long and challenging, but am starting to slowly put in some miles. A powerful, beautifully written book.”

—**Chris Johns, former editor-in-chief of National Geographic Magazine**

“Vibrating with energy and a driving love, the writing in this book matches the cadence of running, taking you on a sprint up and down the mountains and bends of human joy and grief. I dare you to put it down. Arnold is a powerful new voice that has no limits.”

—Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones and Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home

“Arnold masterfully captures the vulnerability of wading through grief with each step she takes towards self-discovery. This remarkable memoir will undoubtedly resonate with runners but equally so with children of divorce, new mothers, and those who have suffered the loss of a parent. An eloquent tribute to the complexity and vibrancy of a parent-child relationship.”