Graced by Waters: Personal Essays on Fly Fishing and the Transformative Power of Nature

John Dietsch—Brad Pitt’s stuntman and fly fishing coordinator for the film A River Runs Through It—explores the miraculous power of Spirit within waters and its potential to heal our deepest wounds in order to live more meaningful, balanced lives.

In a collection of more than two dozen personal essays cataloguing his connection to waters, John Dietsch connects his own message of grief, healing, and recovery to that of Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It, often considered as the Holy Grail of fly fishing. Weaving a tapestry of deeply personal storytelling with the metaphysics of rivers and fly fishing, Dietsch joins a cadre of other authors who have honored the lives of those who have gone before, writing about fishing as an exploration of loss—hoping to discover a form of recovery that takes place when grief becomes acceptance, and acceptance, faith. Above all, Dietsch explores the miraculous power of waters and their ability to heal that allow us to better access our Higher Power and teach us how to better live in harmony with God’s will.