Mary Kurtz’s memoir-in-essays, Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life is the quiet revery of a ranch woman who has lived and worked the land alongside her husband for forty years in the Elk River Valley. Under the gentle and wise ministry of Kurtz, this dark and light landscape of cattle and fireweed, of heartwood and wooly bears, of deep winter freezes and spring lupine ascends into a beautiful backdrop for her spiritual quest and awakening. Kurtz’s contemplation of life and mortality in “each holy place” of this valley, through seasonal and family ritual, places Apertures alongside the finest of Western writing.