Radiance of the Ordinary: Essays on Life, Death, and the Sinews That Bind

From the author of the popular Slowdown Farmstead Substack: a raw, poignant collection of essays about cultivating authenticity in this age of great pretend.

When she was young, Tara Couture had a deep fear of death. In her twenties, determined to manifest her long-time dream of owning a farm, she worked alongside a cattleman whose perspectives on life and death would come to transform her own. When she found herself in the passenger seat of the cattleman's truck out on the Alberta prairie, in search of the bison herd from which they would harvest an animal, she could hardly believe this was the life she was living. But even more surprising was the realization the experience awakened in her: that life and death are inextricably connected. When we shield ourselves from death--or from any of the hard things in life--we close ourselves off to the beauty and richness of a life fully lived.

Full of evocative prose that elicits the smells, tastes, cold winds, and sticky summer sweat of Tara's place in the world, Radiance of the Ordinary elegantly explores the moments both complex and mundane, laden with grief and light with wonderment--from butchering and birthing cows to motherhood and the tragic loss of her youngest daughter. Throughout, the reader is reminded that the work we choose to engage with, the way we make our homes, the food we put into our bodies, the relationships we nurture, and the attention we pay to the ordinary moments--this is what matters. Taken together, these essays provide an unforgettable meditation on what it means to be alive in the twenty-first century.

Author: Tara Couture
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Published: 09/02/2025
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.13h x 5.91w x 0.87d
ISBN: 9781645023098


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/18/2025 pg. 1

About the Author
Tara is a writer and homesteader with a background in nutrition. She and her husband live on Slowdown Farmstead in Ontario, Canada, where they raise the cows, rabbits, ducks, geese, chickens, fruit trees, and vegetable gardens that provide them with most of the food they consume throughout the year. Tara writes about ancestral nutrition, family, homemaking, nature, sovereignty and autonomy, grief and loss, and authenticity on her Substack, Slowdown Farmstead, which has over 23,000 followers.