tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66081344432466275042024-03-14T09:56:23.563-06:00Page Lambert: All Things Literary & All Things Natural Narratives from author Page Lambert about writing and art for those who desire a more creative connection with the natural world. Connecting People with Nature. Connecting Writers with Words.Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-1182670310030633282023-09-19T18:31:00.059-06:002024-03-06T08:38:49.057-07:00Riding the Tiger with Ellen McLaughlin<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"When rehearsals for King Lear started," friend, actor and playwright Ellen McLaughlin told us our first night on the river, "Just ride the tiger. That's what my director told me."</div><div> </div><div>Ellen had been starring in King Lear <i>as King Lear, </i>a female actor portraying one of Shakespeare's most demanding and tragic male characters. The director didn't tell Ellen to hire a voice coach and learn to speak like a man, or to dress like a man (which Ellen wouldn't have done anyway). She told Ellen to <i>ride the tiger. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>The show opened and closed to packed audiences and critical acclaim. A day and a half after Ellen's final exhilarating performance, and after a brief reunion with her husband who had driven two thousand miles to celebrate their anniversary, I whisked her away for an all-women, 6-day rafting trip on Utah's Green River. </div><div> </div><div> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJ-vbuiVMRCo9UJx_TlkUw5fCMr8C-x3TdalBc2fNo9e-D2hRP1i1995wmWlZgS-3I6XjsuF0ffFX29iblOPCCcHS-JaHp4O9-yHqs2o0rmhUmp-ljiBPjEAmrlUMZD3UD2zR46jxCQho6WTifKnRbif8h-l1LjGgGxVsl8l7mv4E8S10Gyj5psbM9s46/s3909/20230816_114910.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2933" data-original-width="3909" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJ-vbuiVMRCo9UJx_TlkUw5fCMr8C-x3TdalBc2fNo9e-D2hRP1i1995wmWlZgS-3I6XjsuF0ffFX29iblOPCCcHS-JaHp4O9-yHqs2o0rmhUmp-ljiBPjEAmrlUMZD3UD2zR46jxCQho6WTifKnRbif8h-l1LjGgGxVsl8l7mv4E8S10Gyj5psbM9s46/s320/20230816_114910.jpg" width="320" /></a>Our trip leader Brenda had been with me for nearly all of my river writing journeys over the last twenty-six years. She approached notorious rapids like the Big Drops and Skull with intense focus. She approached the less notorious rapids the same way. The Colorado and Green have claimed lives and, like tigers, deserved our utmost respect. Our small flotilla of five oar boats and fifteen women had entered the Gates of Lodore beneath a tranquil blue sky, water bottles and river journals at the ready. </div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCkKW251Lge7Wnqaa4gEVvule3mZz5e16Y4SSLD9vakmu_Hq9LUCUnZ80EWgGQvNbKACQtJ_9Z7R18tGeDmUpmID66AUg59QGUwc-Z7sr_521GHl78F5_UF7rt8bRCBs6xPrDydYHyIKd-Dzj1ol47dWdM0ZDfoK4eEHIfTPyyQyxCBz2wb0fokcn0QTXB/s4000/20230820_210503.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCkKW251Lge7Wnqaa4gEVvule3mZz5e16Y4SSLD9vakmu_Hq9LUCUnZ80EWgGQvNbKACQtJ_9Z7R18tGeDmUpmID66AUg59QGUwc-Z7sr_521GHl78F5_UF7rt8bRCBs6xPrDydYHyIKd-Dzj1ol47dWdM0ZDfoK4eEHIfTPyyQyxCBz2wb0fokcn0QTXB/s320/20230820_210503.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>That first night, we gathered our camp chairs into an intimate circle beneath a galaxy of stars spun into a milky spiral more than ten billion years ago. I handed Ellen the story stick - a simple wooden stick worn satiny smooth by all the female hands that had held it. Ellen told us how she had ridden that tiger, performance after performance, all summer long.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next morning, we greeted dawn silently, listening to the sounds of nature instead of our own chattering. We listened to canyon wrens, to water lapping at the shore, to our pens scratching thoughts onto our river journals, our spindly sentences like gangly blue herons tiptoeing across river stones.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKrS1O8hml8YWPxBXPp1vuZK0_DlVV_mlUEwDfsEmst6YPUWj6DzwYqqBm9-SbDiPzQqDZXUD0m9UsCTKqwdL2QVrgyTgW6ZefNvOs_O03CvLc6AB8vVLzvfb_W0tPlG9B3g9c1JqHBSz_mMmfmzNL3bPhuN63e7dw6EUQvAJKKToYk9Er_MhkaYFYNXo/s4000/Gates%20of%20Lodore%20journaling.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKrS1O8hml8YWPxBXPp1vuZK0_DlVV_mlUEwDfsEmst6YPUWj6DzwYqqBm9-SbDiPzQqDZXUD0m9UsCTKqwdL2QVrgyTgW6ZefNvOs_O03CvLc6AB8vVLzvfb_W0tPlG9B3g9c1JqHBSz_mMmfmzNL3bPhuN63e7dw6EUQvAJKKToYk9Er_MhkaYFYNXo/w640-h480/Gates%20of%20Lodore%20journaling.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I wrote in my journal what the director had told Ellen. <i>Just ride the tiger. <br /></i></div><div> </div><div>"Stay in your body," Ellen also told us. "It's the only place you can get anything done."</div><div><br /></div><div>Watching Ellen's friend Linn perched on a rock, I reread Linda Hogan's poem "Journey," which I had given the women before we launched. Linda wrote of rivers, reminding us that the river doesn't look back to where its been, or wonder what lies ahead, <i>for it knows everything is before it. </i>I felt the rough surface of the rock on which I sat and felt the compressed layers of time in the red stone, with its faceted cracks and fissures and pockets of soft sand. Solid and enduring, the rock was the embodiment of the past jutting into the present. In Linda's poem "Journey," she also writes that the animal <i>she rides </i>wants to drive forward, wants to overrun her banks. Are we then, I wondered, both the tiger and the actor sitting upon her back? Both rock and river? </div><div><br /></div><div>When we ran Hell's Half Mile, no one thought of anything but the roar of the river and the vertical rush of water over stone - we were flesh and blood, bones and sinew, riding that tiger - just like we were later when we played in the canyon's rushing waterfalls to cool the heat from our bodies. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixj3IAjGY4c79TaDnyPclMC60LQ9D2VTbmNEIFFAV3-pKd6LVdPFJ4RZD6noIQupmlNxU7daNpEgSVtARP-6wjfnFZygP5wBusuK5ISjstid4XZylPZ3hASNKnTN5OmXCcxipXUKDdnpsxtz37CZeS8VaOdgrTi2k_Nc7A6XgebOYs9D7cW39Xlu0wP2_u/s4511/Playing%20with%20the%20water.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3400" data-original-width="4511" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixj3IAjGY4c79TaDnyPclMC60LQ9D2VTbmNEIFFAV3-pKd6LVdPFJ4RZD6noIQupmlNxU7daNpEgSVtARP-6wjfnFZygP5wBusuK5ISjstid4XZylPZ3hASNKnTN5OmXCcxipXUKDdnpsxtz37CZeS8VaOdgrTi2k_Nc7A6XgebOYs9D7cW39Xlu0wP2_u/w640-h482/Playing%20with%20the%20water.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />On Day Three, at Rippling Brook II, while sitting on a rock by the river, I reread Ansel Elkin's poem "Native Memory." <i>Where the Cherokee stood on these same stones and cast their voices into the canyon below. This place</i>, she wrote, pointing with words, <i>you are here, a red arrow on the atlas. </i>I thought of my Cherokee husband and his grandmother who walked the Trail of Tears, and her words brought tears. Where, I wondered, are my places? The South Platte River where cottonwoods grew, where I sat as a child on fallen trees at the edge of a pond listening to fat toads ribbeting from their perches on flat-leafed lilies? </div><div><br /></div><div>That same river, a dear childhood friend, rose up from her banks one wet spring day and, in a wild rush of water twenty feet high, took away the pond and the lilies and the frogs and our home. Fifty years later, she's still my friend. I visit her sometimes when I'm in Denver where her flow has been tamed - for now, anyway. People picnic on her banks now. But I remember when she turned from a meandering stream winding her way to the Missouri, to a tiger clawing at everything that lay in her path.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sitting here on the banks of the Green River, I can still smell the frog pond, the rich decay along its marshy edges. I can still feel the rapid heartbeat of a toad in the palm of my hand, can still smell the grassy scent of snakes slithering to drink at her edge, can still feel their rubbery skin against mine, still see the flick of their tongues tasting the morning air. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFT9IN6QIEr3kxqUlwW0xHoeuqapvXyOVENMr-RTGumn7gJBHVCvOsD0_Q29Io4fLU7Vpa8-KJCqzZca8hd1177b_4wAMw4KGxQTGt-gga9-He3oEXhO95p0DpR7d4yRvoACL-B7Oa4oO5vhLd1P2cIQX6N6K5f8EJZ5v0AvCCPtF2wYoJKnlqTgNpB3T/s4000/Page%20Lambert%20Green%20River.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFT9IN6QIEr3kxqUlwW0xHoeuqapvXyOVENMr-RTGumn7gJBHVCvOsD0_Q29Io4fLU7Vpa8-KJCqzZca8hd1177b_4wAMw4KGxQTGt-gga9-He3oEXhO95p0DpR7d4yRvoACL-B7Oa4oO5vhLd1P2cIQX6N6K5f8EJZ5v0AvCCPtF2wYoJKnlqTgNpB3T/w640-h480/Page%20Lambert%20Green%20River.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>There was no canyon there among the cottonwoods, no stones to stand upon as had my husband's Cherokee ancestors in their homelands. But those woods and that river remain my indigenous place, my place of deep roots. If the heart had a red arrow, it would point there, like this pictograph points to our memories of the past - when we understood our animal bodies and our human desires. When our thoughts were images and our words were prayers. When we knew, like the river, that everything was before us. <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0qL6ejRRuI1bMaZgrprfde5J4UcIV-ETF7Fon6IbmrbLk52-lQiS-BMEwdW3IBbEXqnucSoDm99PttJ8-asCpt6v6AxNvNFmiu8L3Xb7OqqaYhutzXsOJCAF8XylJ1eZfHodNpviqnjJNziGlo3HWlLGwHxfZmAwHyXGcAvDczuOJDUgbOY2cU7JCNqxi/s5184/Green%20River%20pictograph.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3888" data-original-width="5184" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0qL6ejRRuI1bMaZgrprfde5J4UcIV-ETF7Fon6IbmrbLk52-lQiS-BMEwdW3IBbEXqnucSoDm99PttJ8-asCpt6v6AxNvNFmiu8L3Xb7OqqaYhutzXsOJCAF8XylJ1eZfHodNpviqnjJNziGlo3HWlLGwHxfZmAwHyXGcAvDczuOJDUgbOY2cU7JCNqxi/w400-h300/Green%20River%20pictograph.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfQMyVdEiKnDgcUfTU-TXcuCb8QkC2ZSOkxj5KKY-FCR-Em6bBO6CMCErSrHXKDhU2_RhlHYGzTh-Ya-f2lVDpo-HCDm6G0clddCAEb_TJccYccNiudOdF2WEEGbWSHFgoT6W2PzPs3wwODA_eNDjudqYe1qs-RguzrfwqfrzJyN73IEznAkyiu50FzyI/s595/Ellen%20McLaughlin%20King%20Lear%20Christian%20Science%20Monitor.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="537" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfQMyVdEiKnDgcUfTU-TXcuCb8QkC2ZSOkxj5KKY-FCR-Em6bBO6CMCErSrHXKDhU2_RhlHYGzTh-Ya-f2lVDpo-HCDm6G0clddCAEb_TJccYccNiudOdF2WEEGbWSHFgoT6W2PzPs3wwODA_eNDjudqYe1qs-RguzrfwqfrzJyN73IEznAkyiu50FzyI/w181-h200/Ellen%20McLaughlin%20King%20Lear%20Christian%20Science%20Monitor.jpg" width="181" /></a>Ellen McLaughlin acting the role of King Lear. Photo by Jennifer Koskiken, Colorado Shakespeare Festival<i>. </i>To learn more about Ellen's remarkable work, <a href="https://www.ellenmmclaughlin.com/#home" target="_blank">go to her website</a>. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> <br /></div></div>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-79181935185960176892022-11-23T17:13:00.024-07:002022-11-24T09:30:53.720-07:00Sabbaticals: Resting the Landscape of the Heart<p>Cultures and communities that still live close to the land as our ancestors once did - farmers and ranchers, tribal people, rural neighbors - all know the wisdom of allowing the land to lie fallow. Even the neighborhood horse co-op that I belong to rotates our herd of horses from one mountain pasture to the next during the growing season. "Leave enough biomass <i>above the ground," </i>traditional wisdom advises, "so that the sun may feed the roots <i>below the ground.</i>"</p><p>The golden grasses are dormant now - resting and recouping. The horses rest, too, conserving their energy. During a recent spell of subfreezing temperatures, each morning the herd stood quietly facing the sun, as if their bodies were living, breathing solar panels soaking in the warm rays. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFCGJGRtqIy3pDkLefrBf29rZ18JcMm5gcCzz9Dpd030PYAmeFuJ-lEkgPj6HYqlSeDxg-INqZFNBWWZvX7GzAhAA3N1fIX9imqBthl-BeH5SMrGO13rwNCk_OBCeV4J1gDDKdEpVdRWwsGnqSdmMJ_8O8KOMy5WiTXlwxmRiv5uKbHuyhV7CPglDiog" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2039" data-original-width="2945" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFCGJGRtqIy3pDkLefrBf29rZ18JcMm5gcCzz9Dpd030PYAmeFuJ-lEkgPj6HYqlSeDxg-INqZFNBWWZvX7GzAhAA3N1fIX9imqBthl-BeH5SMrGO13rwNCk_OBCeV4J1gDDKdEpVdRWwsGnqSdmMJ_8O8KOMy5WiTXlwxmRiv5uKbHuyhV7CPglDiog=w640-h444" width="640" /></a></div><br />Yet I often grind away at each day, sometimes not lifting my eyes long enough to feel the sun on my face, let alone rest long enough to nourish the roots that sustain me. Perhaps I need a sabbatical. <p></p><p>The archaic word has always fascinated me. Imagine a colony of ants, scurrying to and fro their hill of hidden treasures, suddenly stopping and telling their ensconced queen that for a while ... <i>well</i> ... <i>for a while, they just won't be working. They're on sabbatical.<br /></i></p><p>To take a sabbatical, whether from a job or a relationship, whether for a day or a year, goes against the cultural grain of our modern lives. Even resting on the sabbath is a practice for only the most devout, those who continue to turn to the Bible. <i>Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof ... but the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land ... thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard ... for it is a year of rest unto the land.</i></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4grbY3fuVL5SJ3BF-U1cYFKukQMj96j0ijPXT97iaVPeddBzcRBTw1acl0tYMcdUH8_FjLLDvuoNeLAtCpb7Tve0yG4S1pjryCeEfrWAY0s_-jpJ6_EcEJRJUkrOwcrVDptdi4yC-ebdXyCQkS45KsQpZbwF6xse2f5P87gb2t60DsED9jbSPyOiiag" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="600" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4grbY3fuVL5SJ3BF-U1cYFKukQMj96j0ijPXT97iaVPeddBzcRBTw1acl0tYMcdUH8_FjLLDvuoNeLAtCpb7Tve0yG4S1pjryCeEfrWAY0s_-jpJ6_EcEJRJUkrOwcrVDptdi4yC-ebdXyCQkS45KsQpZbwF6xse2f5P87gb2t60DsED9jbSPyOiiag=w400-h288" width="400" /></a>How like the land we are - offering up the perfect fruits of our imperfect labors season after season. Yet how I wish someone would plant a fall cover crop over my depleted summer soil - let me lie fallow for the winter, blanketed by clover and beans and crown vetch, so that come spring I will awake renewed.</p><p>I've been neglecting this blog for months now, though the time away has not been a time of rest. Half a dozen unfinished posts lie waiting in my draft folder. Perhaps I've been trying too hard to say the perfect thing, to bring the perfect harvest in from the field. Yet, at the same time, I <i>have</i> been planting the seeds for next year's bounty as I finish a novel, work on client manuscripts, and tend to a myriad of details for upcoming retreats - always hoping to inspire others to take their own sabbaticals. </p><p>Yesterday, I struggled to find the perfect answer when asked, as I often am, to explain the "lit" part of our annual "Literature & Landscape of the Horse Retreat." At a loss to know how to answer this Facebook friend, I closed my eyes and imagined myself back in Wyoming with the horses who are always at the heart of these lit sessions. </p><p>In a few moments, I opened my eyes and started typing: "The creative aspect of this retreat isn't about workshopping our writing. Rather, it is about the horses reminding us of the power of deep immersion - of being present, moment by moment, in a natural and wild landscape. This immersion unleashes and re-inspires creativity because we are reminded that <i>we are a living part of all of this, belonging to the land just as the horses do</i>." </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeD_6RXq4wj60sFPYFownZEsObPxnbG8BA0CesMqAigMVIpMNlLmV4dfi1Hk9-OinOrbejmYIDwlrGvy-R6f3Sw8zyYlIfYF6uzFIhTeFUWx17APIc9HAy9xNcGR_jmWQRgdKCgPUX7DUfnTCiCqJ5GgUz0LnIDXnyGF3B00Ml-DggU--RTHCh9SN38w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2504" data-original-width="4608" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeD_6RXq4wj60sFPYFownZEsObPxnbG8BA0CesMqAigMVIpMNlLmV4dfi1Hk9-OinOrbejmYIDwlrGvy-R6f3Sw8zyYlIfYF6uzFIhTeFUWx17APIc9HAy9xNcGR_jmWQRgdKCgPUX7DUfnTCiCqJ5GgUz0LnIDXnyGF3B00Ml-DggU--RTHCh9SN38w=w640-h348" width="640" /></a></div><br />I continued typing. "We provide journals, and the <i>time</i> to journal, sometimes while mingling among the horses out in the meadow as they graze. We allow time to listen, and not just talk." I thought about how often, during a ride, we will drop into silence and listen to the sound of the horses' legs moving through the grass, or the soft creaking of leather saddles, or birdsong in tree branches. Once, when we grew silent, all the horses took a deep collective breath, as if grateful for a few moments free of human chatter.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-ITrOhtnxMrGG0-ndoCRNQv4NhUcVQHa8mB1UZZsrmYTka6OfzNdP5f_oACYrqEtjh5ajDENZE6DPMMG-E5NbZMzcGp_ms0I0zICPyeUe8_GgG1oslEs4O4YCBtTHjIOlE9VO3jt5MqfbYEK2o8oVEQmECapgto3bWYolM1fIIvnCT0dWQ_B9k1vQIg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2235" data-original-width="4582" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-ITrOhtnxMrGG0-ndoCRNQv4NhUcVQHa8mB1UZZsrmYTka6OfzNdP5f_oACYrqEtjh5ajDENZE6DPMMG-E5NbZMzcGp_ms0I0zICPyeUe8_GgG1oslEs4O4YCBtTHjIOlE9VO3jt5MqfbYEK2o8oVEQmECapgto3bWYolM1fIIvnCT0dWQ_B9k1vQIg=w640-h312" width="640" /></a></div><p>"We groom our horses," I went on to tell my Facebook friend, "learning to understand their nonverbal communication, how to <i>feel</i> their energy. The heart energy of a horse radiates outward from their body fifty feet, like the sun radiating outward from its core, and sometimes we use stethoscopes to listen to the beat of their hearts. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiddhEBnaxqzVC6hwBXOGZKH8CCS5NlwlxGk63VGCk-iQtOhJHm2LjFV_1ofT_LIv_STjOJqiGfpLI2nhPOgvv0swqUWctXCv4YE96lor8KxJZ1e5bmBws91E9Ed6qWsBUEiCW9dQgyxkjsMqw_-p0xWaGZhyat0xN0b63Fzp3LXiLiPT5z7n1KcOhdWQ" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiddhEBnaxqzVC6hwBXOGZKH8CCS5NlwlxGk63VGCk-iQtOhJHm2LjFV_1ofT_LIv_STjOJqiGfpLI2nhPOgvv0swqUWctXCv4YE96lor8KxJZ1e5bmBws91E9Ed6qWsBUEiCW9dQgyxkjsMqw_-p0xWaGZhyat0xN0b63Fzp3LXiLiPT5z7n1KcOhdWQ=w320-h240" width="320" /></a></p><p>Sometimes when we gather for lit sessions, I might read David Whyte's poem "Four Horses" aloud to help us rediscover our own exuberant joy as we imagine the horses in the field next to his house running along the fence, their hooves filling his open door <i>with an urgency just beyond his grasp.</i> How they transform his whole day into joy. Or I might draw parallels between the patterns we see in nature, and the rhythms and patterns beating within the heart of a story. Or I might talk about Wyoming being the home of the earliest-known fossil of the ancient ancestor of the horse, Eohippus, and use this as a prompt to lead us backward in time to our own roots. </p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIAbqDIEcsog1riFCBKDQHN8dQJVIvyHl7RD1Meu2iFvBqROc_GvZEbTiZc49zfQV98_3JmPmC3rbHnpU5vY7S8LC70LQ0aagLZzlXl83UM1Ne9ZqkNnju6ZJpx-eJoaNaORdeA_X2nmniGmtlJ3PWAHoKCV1aso3zplPzHRKA32vaFaJJU1aYHtsUpw" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="975" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIAbqDIEcsog1riFCBKDQHN8dQJVIvyHl7RD1Meu2iFvBqROc_GvZEbTiZc49zfQV98_3JmPmC3rbHnpU5vY7S8LC70LQ0aagLZzlXl83UM1Ne9ZqkNnju6ZJpx-eJoaNaORdeA_X2nmniGmtlJ3PWAHoKCV1aso3zplPzHRKA32vaFaJJU1aYHtsUpw=w320-h202" width="320" /></a></div><p>Pictures help explain the retreat, of course though (not surprisingly), most of the photos are of horses. Those of us who write (not everyone does) are often disguised as cowgirls at heart -- whether grown, or not so grown. Are these retreats sabbaticals? Yes, in the sense that we are absent from our normal responsibilities, yet we are very much present in the moment. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnV5lou-_UI-XEP-rTtPLD0gmeOFkg_RotGz9KxA9JGJS6ldL-G8ZrVqX1DagbZDSlkCQZeWrEzc8ak6OrO6HRcYGJH696CdDiu6nn9tDCBLJTsEveF_mwBDWTCzISVvNNACFtfJz-0PZRF8PMe2CFB_BYZ289dxR6JVj7W76q7ITsFfGAApVGeoyHtw/s960/Sarah%20-%20Bailey,%20Stetson%20and%20Page.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnV5lou-_UI-XEP-rTtPLD0gmeOFkg_RotGz9KxA9JGJS6ldL-G8ZrVqX1DagbZDSlkCQZeWrEzc8ak6OrO6HRcYGJH696CdDiu6nn9tDCBLJTsEveF_mwBDWTCzISVvNNACFtfJz-0PZRF8PMe2CFB_BYZ289dxR6JVj7W76q7ITsFfGAApVGeoyHtw/s16000/Sarah%20-%20Bailey,%20Stetson%20and%20Page.jpg" /></a></div><div>This is perhaps the greatest gift we glean from the horses and nature, <i>being present within the heart of the moment. </i>This holiday season, I wish you all the gift of presence - with family, and friends, and neighbors. And with all the animals who live at the center of our lives, and all the animals who walk the borders of our existence, ever aware of us, ever hopeful, ever faithful.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Love, Page</i><br /><p></p></div>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-6265240897010941092022-06-21T11:01:00.003-06:002022-06-21T11:01:25.320-06:00Summer Solstice<p>Deborah O'Connor is a gifted astrologer and, on the near eve of my birthday, I find her latest message especially insightful and wise. I hope you do, as well. The photo of the Indian Paintbrush I took on the edge of the canyon near our mountain home several years ago. I have always cherished my June birthdays, and this one seems even more impactful.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kGWmAoml8zdDcJFeciWWPbF_It4-7C3WbuiixrZQWf0c9kxMf7ESV5o0g29vXr3uD_C3HL1Q_AQghzNG1OOlDM12OFcvR9F3hH4YuPSGqnLPoilrwDdsS3vQ0_1JyluVeVgQMU_jnRbABNNtN-aEdq0LQT2cc93pcRRjrN6SFEvQR3i7BMWKi69eVg/s506/Brilliant%20Indian%20Paintbrush%20-%20Lambert.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="506" height="562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kGWmAoml8zdDcJFeciWWPbF_It4-7C3WbuiixrZQWf0c9kxMf7ESV5o0g29vXr3uD_C3HL1Q_AQghzNG1OOlDM12OFcvR9F3hH4YuPSGqnLPoilrwDdsS3vQ0_1JyluVeVgQMU_jnRbABNNtN-aEdq0LQT2cc93pcRRjrN6SFEvQR3i7BMWKi69eVg/w640-h562/Brilliant%20Indian%20Paintbrush%20-%20Lambert.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Midsummer
is a poignant time. Light itself moves through us and into our world with more
intensity than any other day of the year.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On
this bright and light-filled day, we recognize that, like the sun that has been
expanding itself more and more and more for six months now, we have been
working—body and soul—to energize our lives. But today is a turning point,
literally. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Summer
Solstice begins when the Sun moves into heart-aware Cancer. This is a day when
Time itself pauses to see the way forward. Since the sun began to gain light
and strength at Winter Solstice six months ago, we've driven ourselves as we
felt its energy filling more and more space in us. But today we get to stop
long enough to create a little ritual in honor of the courage and tenacity and
strength it’s taken to get this far. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
you are so inclined, you might find yourself with friends, feasting, dancing,
singing to the sky. And if you are more solitary, you may wander into a wild
space with every sense inviting the fragrance of the wild rose, listening for
the songs of the warblers and the loons, feet deep in cool water.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However
you choose to celebrate Midsummer—with your head tipped back to the sky in
laughter and song, or with a single candle lit in gratitude for the Beloved—it
is your (<i>Cancer</i>) heart that hopes to be in the lead now. It is your
sense of inner knowing that will be your best compass, nourishing you on
love—for yourself and for all that is.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">May
all being know peace and be filled to overflowing with light.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Deborah </p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Learn more about Deborah O'Connor and her gifted work as an astrologer. </i><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.lovedogdesign.com">www.lovedogdesign.com</a></span></i></p><p></p>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-52477139578799251942022-03-11T14:48:00.083-07:002022-03-12T14:27:35.326-07:00Wrap Your Heart Around the World <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivgFtDtE31pB11gu7KZL7wwXlBYoJWVOLI3Xf08Gh3xnNWBGCINPiHbfarJ6p717jNCMb5QBdYXC5DKptAYScfhPdJDyYrTZt97niIeS1JN6McKKZpCKLeIlj4nos28riu0Pzxiz_sVOFTkGasy7OgVMXGO5Q0nSExl6u0re4mL2feDIgrNn_diG2xbQ=s360" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="360" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivgFtDtE31pB11gu7KZL7wwXlBYoJWVOLI3Xf08Gh3xnNWBGCINPiHbfarJ6p717jNCMb5QBdYXC5DKptAYScfhPdJDyYrTZt97niIeS1JN6McKKZpCKLeIlj4nos28riu0Pzxiz_sVOFTkGasy7OgVMXGO5Q0nSExl6u0re4mL2feDIgrNn_diG2xbQ=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div></div><p></p><div><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Time Magazine</span></i></div><div><br /></div><div>In 1964, the Beatles walked down the steps of a Pan Am Boeing 707 and stepped onto American soil at New York's Kennedy Airport. A few months later, my parents drove our family of four across the United States from Colorado to the World’s Fair in New York City. From there, we drove to Montreal, sold our car, and sailed on the cold waters of the Atlantic down the St. Lawrence Seaway on a steamship bound for England. We didn’t step back on American soil until 1965—one year, 27 countries, and one London Beatles concert later. </div><div><br /></div><div>The world would never be the same—for our family, for the Beatles, for the teenage girls who swooned over John, Paul, George, and Ringo as girls had swooned over Elvis and James Dean. Those times now seem deceptively innocent, the girls with their penny loafers and ponytails, the half-grown boys with their bobbed bangs singing, S<i>he's in love with me, and I feel fine</i>... <i>She's so glad, she's telling all the world.... </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Ukraine is telling the world now - and none of us feel fine. <i></i></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJAHNbv-XxkkefAwa4ZwC7i05_vLiMNucx4kB0CHs6fRxUarv04KhhT1oAiZtHdv9oVX-S2zhrBXEpssMaLb1cZO1kq9hn9Wt3Bu2SUJQg-_CD_thE21bbJyxRk4HTLbECDGeoyKM9mx3f4zXHy_SPNEoatzpDIrVF8VhNuvda7SHwEw1Up0aoOKExoQ=s1185" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="1185" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJAHNbv-XxkkefAwa4ZwC7i05_vLiMNucx4kB0CHs6fRxUarv04KhhT1oAiZtHdv9oVX-S2zhrBXEpssMaLb1cZO1kq9hn9Wt3Bu2SUJQg-_CD_thE21bbJyxRk4HTLbECDGeoyKM9mx3f4zXHy_SPNEoatzpDIrVF8VhNuvda7SHwEw1Up0aoOKExoQ=w640-h368" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York's World Fair, 1964, photo by Garry Winogrand. </span></i></p><div>When our family courageously stepped foot on Russia's frozen soil in January of 1965 (less than a month after attending the Beatles concert in London), we ventured behind the forbidden Iron Curtain and into the Soviet Union. We did so with brave and foolish hearts. The Communist Party bureaucrats had just forced Khrushchev from power, and our Russian interpreter closely guarded our conversations. When we stood, nearly frozen, in line at the Kremlin’s Red Square to see Vladimir Lenin’s entombed body, we were not allowed to speak with the Russian tourists. The frigid history of the USSR was breathing down our necks.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXQxLILI8hUPqxCPfk7o_azUsLZROjkzqQdsBz_3j8UfyQmY3VMhzUXwRwhfKJkj7DG8k4WoZZwRE9hgRmH-8ligNytyIbkBkZzRcJHd9UrzH7qdRfUUvUVxi_l8Augl9qxHe0nrqS9Uye4nIMbe80u3d-nE8BKsa7iu_bVY1qhGHuitKbFbmNA7dbrw=s6406" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3711" data-original-width="6406" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjXQxLILI8hUPqxCPfk7o_azUsLZROjkzqQdsBz_3j8UfyQmY3VMhzUXwRwhfKJkj7DG8k4WoZZwRE9hgRmH-8ligNytyIbkBkZzRcJHd9UrzH7qdRfUUvUVxi_l8Augl9qxHe0nrqS9Uye4nIMbe80u3d-nE8BKsa7iu_bVY1qhGHuitKbFbmNA7dbrw=w640-h370" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Ten days later, crossing from East Berlin to West Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie, we saw fresh blood on a straw bale from one man’s desperate run for freedom. He did not make it. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so the Ukrainian people now flee. Yet my nephew, who lived in Moscow for nearly 9 years and now lives in France, knows the Russian people are <i>not </i>the same as the Russian government. He has friends of many nationalities - Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, etc. "It’s part of the richness of living here," he writes, "and it means a war like this will touch you personally no matter your background…"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">During our family's trip around the world, we traveled modestly and without fanfare, priding ourselves on being courteous Americans, on smiling first, on learning how to say please and thank you in the language of our host country. My father’s hand was always extended in friendship, his enthusiasm nearly always contagious. Our mother's smile was always gracious, always willing to trust. We were<i> not </i>rich Americans, but the richness of humanity filled each day.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I am grateful to our parents for instilling in me the love of travel and the desire to explore other cultures. I am grateful for the chance to travel once again to Peru, to France, to Italy, and beyond. I am grateful that our parents taught us to wrap our hearts around the world, no matter how imperfect, no matter how many epidemics, no matter how many wars. <i>Love, love me do, </i>the world calls out now. <i>I'll always be true. </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgdGazEjdcTP95Jjo6AYlW8C8U_sXDjN2S1puvYmJZcGEh9zGhjre7DoYmhY6T4hvZXXu1xg2QL_G6lsJQ--fuNJA1Kqt97OEhvyMdV4J0T_RVTfXXTeIzgZ1b7RW5OpOGCTWf7_S6mZeBZRj_rh042yRjvHqPtISxs1UeTrgUEmjXoi1xNJgfzNjY2w=s1018" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1018" data-original-width="986" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgdGazEjdcTP95Jjo6AYlW8C8U_sXDjN2S1puvYmJZcGEh9zGhjre7DoYmhY6T4hvZXXu1xg2QL_G6lsJQ--fuNJA1Kqt97OEhvyMdV4J0T_RVTfXXTeIzgZ1b7RW5OpOGCTWf7_S6mZeBZRj_rh042yRjvHqPtISxs1UeTrgUEmjXoi1xNJgfzNjY2w=w620-h640" width="620" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo of our parents taken as we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, one year later.</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you are interested in joining me in Italy this May or for my Peru adventure in August, </span><span style="font-size: small;">please email page@pagelambert.com. More info on all my travel adventures at www.pagelambert.com.</span></div></div>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-19335868913922403692022-01-01T17:43:00.020-07:002022-01-05T08:30:54.220-07:00If Only the Moon Would Still the Tides<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj57nEThY0_52nxvVoRPJ3g417zRM_kktk8hxrouRSqkOU9pGEapChdfiFli5k2dyeLJeyLG9MygelPs7nqLCJJZ-DlXlHiyI39DxiOfE2uyL0lqrVaECcJf8OQjl9YU6w5BBYhU5RuJUs0YNQj62I0KNRdH6TVDOPKQvtJNDV_kV_E-CkSkKtl6YwH-w=s480" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="167" data-original-width="480" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj57nEThY0_52nxvVoRPJ3g417zRM_kktk8hxrouRSqkOU9pGEapChdfiFli5k2dyeLJeyLG9MygelPs7nqLCJJZ-DlXlHiyI39DxiOfE2uyL0lqrVaECcJf8OQjl9YU6w5BBYhU5RuJUs0YNQj62I0KNRdH6TVDOPKQvtJNDV_kV_E-CkSkKtl6YwH-w=w640-h222" width="640" /></a></div><br />When John took this photo of my favorite knoll at the ranch in Wyoming, eight years had already passed since I'd climbed to her barren top and peered down at the redtail hawk soaring beneath. Yet the stories I continue to tell about this land create an ongoing dialogue that pulses through everything new.<p></p><p>During the last half of 2021, I shrugged off guilt as each monthly blog post went unwritten, in part because new chapters of the novel on which I was working continued to unfold. The writing experience had become less about interpreting the world, and more about listening. </p><p>Immersed each morning in the novel, I listened to the Colorado wind blowing through the ponderosas outside my window and to the woman whose story I was telling. When Monique rested her hand on the back of her grandfather's gray horse, I felt the horse's warmth beneath my own.*</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOxS5roqJhjMRB82qC3VtPe-8Y0S-rRWKmYMVUZGRf8Gdpit6YNB3TxTD_KzPNvserW_3eVhGJGBmO_2aDPJUMsOoQLZH68cdoRklVeundK6Z0rHQeElpN4GNkxt0c3xwEjnJBegzQ_2w56ThrJ41ITNMIJqTtjvq7AEbmMQYoyjzP9cWFrTkK6SFV2Q=s2717" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1412" data-original-width="2717" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOxS5roqJhjMRB82qC3VtPe-8Y0S-rRWKmYMVUZGRf8Gdpit6YNB3TxTD_KzPNvserW_3eVhGJGBmO_2aDPJUMsOoQLZH68cdoRklVeundK6Z0rHQeElpN4GNkxt0c3xwEjnJBegzQ_2w56ThrJ41ITNMIJqTtjvq7AEbmMQYoyjzP9cWFrTkK6SFV2Q=w640-h332" width="640" /></a></div><p>When Monique slid onto Nishiime's back and draped her bare legs around his ribs, urging him along the lakeshore and into its watery depths, I could hear the churning of his legs and the bellow of air rushing through his lungs. Imagery flowed onto the pages, however imperfect. I became less the weaver and more the witness. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTudGwpV4mvujL32RjBmfefeWZDN-3CoQNsOUXHVPQyjGTASaicDjXd2YtBHvJTf3RY6CZgXGrurnbWQK1cOt8tiQQcio5RARhyrmKDdJivoSvNm4bwwNu63XP08A2ZalAzSHSXd0yv7v/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1920" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTudGwpV4mvujL32RjBmfefeWZDN-3CoQNsOUXHVPQyjGTASaicDjXd2YtBHvJTf3RY6CZgXGrurnbWQK1cOt8tiQQcio5RARhyrmKDdJivoSvNm4bwwNu63XP08A2ZalAzSHSXd0yv7v/" width="180" /></a></div>This morning, on the first day of the new year, still wanting to <i>listen, </i>I opened the January <i><a href="https://fullecology.com/" target="_blank">Full Ecology</a> </i>newsletter from my dear friends Gary Ferguson and Mary Clare. Gary has been writing and teaching about the wilderness for more than thirty years. His enduring voice is rooted in knowledge gained from decades of intimate sojourns into the wilderness. "I began my writing career by exploring the tracks humans have left in nature,” he tells us. “Now I’m mostly interested in the tracks nature leaves in us.”<p></p><p>I love the ten-year-old photo below of my daughter Sarah because both horse and rider seem an integral part of the landscape, not separate from the mountains rising beyond nor from the sage-covered grasslands flowing beneath. The tracks she leaves depict both the external and internal journey.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgW2N7R40VFK3oaAv3PDF4ZaVXPKfMrpi7_1PeokZ3SMDH7VWfSmTewr8Utw3ENnixOwAXgG4TSdE9oMALfOoB_VVy0CKFmtBdn70017gb4kt50Az1mY6wwR-dXkVB0f6hm8Uchd2xTmxyCZefmo7OG4i5N20cBCNoinK6a0YAqH2MkPc68DLKtg24AZg=s1536" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1536" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgW2N7R40VFK3oaAv3PDF4ZaVXPKfMrpi7_1PeokZ3SMDH7VWfSmTewr8Utw3ENnixOwAXgG4TSdE9oMALfOoB_VVy0CKFmtBdn70017gb4kt50Az1mY6wwR-dXkVB0f6hm8Uchd2xTmxyCZefmo7OG4i5N20cBCNoinK6a0YAqH2MkPc68DLKtg24AZg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><p>Nature, I believe, has brought Gary and Mary closer to a state of grace and wisdom because their hearts are open to the immenseness of <i>all that they do not yet know. </i>Nature is more than the conduit that connects them. Nature is the eminant source. </p><p>In today's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beQ89I9CjOs" target="_blank"><i>Full Ecology </i>video,</a><i> </i>Mary reminds us that we are more than the waves breaking on the shore. "We are an expression of the entire ocean." </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfCPfDsyBU2pDb2B7XrSF9Ty4cCkV-HSePufMJ2lVKB0HiiuKiz30X152lO0inI--MqOi2uFtKdGvkWgaPf7nGeUMlze0uaD8w5E4P6d9lPLbcbokMDdVM6gXC4qYYHqYZTqza9feittzzBR4gcvlyxX4kRY54Lyr3QBiG9LmIW8UnajOtPjIWYaffNA=s922" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="922" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfCPfDsyBU2pDb2B7XrSF9Ty4cCkV-HSePufMJ2lVKB0HiiuKiz30X152lO0inI--MqOi2uFtKdGvkWgaPf7nGeUMlze0uaD8w5E4P6d9lPLbcbokMDdVM6gXC4qYYHqYZTqza9feittzzBR4gcvlyxX4kRY54Lyr3QBiG9LmIW8UnajOtPjIWYaffNA=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><p>If the moon would still the tides and allow me to go back in time for just one day, if I could dive again into the Hawaiian waters pictured above with my sister, and swim out to the reef with Marta's and our father's ashes, I would watch more intently this time, listen more earnestly. </p><p>We wore snorkels that day and, with our faces submerged, watched as the ashes flowed from the cremation sack into the gentle current. We pointed excitedly at the sparkling trail of particles, watching as the ashes - lit by sunlight - spiraled and unfurled. When we could no longer dicipher Dad from ocean, ash from floating sand, we raised our heads into the bright blue day, ecstatic by what we had seen. </p><p>"They glowed like the Milky Way!" We laughed. "It was like the whole ocean just swallowed the heavens!"</p><p>We floated that day unaware for a few moments that we were not part of the ocean, not part of the sky, not part of the father who floated away. Suspended in a wholeness that knew no separation, no division, we floated for that one moment in the timeless Truth of connection. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEins2Ep4jAPiGQfjHk_WbL8iNVlB9DfCZ-t4Prjkt3elxkdifffFObQvZBqruT_6Iz4y4FGt4fFAWkZSi4jJgik-eGmY6RI0JEL5bTIIgrxEGHiWJjiRAp7PvA4LNKwzvwDT1xVlu4zBFUOYhfbPA8wzzU05GV3pxNSQrzxcjwbr6tjAtJ2UeWuIvyiPw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEins2Ep4jAPiGQfjHk_WbL8iNVlB9DfCZ-t4Prjkt3elxkdifffFObQvZBqruT_6Iz4y4FGt4fFAWkZSi4jJgik-eGmY6RI0JEL5bTIIgrxEGHiWJjiRAp7PvA4LNKwzvwDT1xVlu4zBFUOYhfbPA8wzzU05GV3pxNSQrzxcjwbr6tjAtJ2UeWuIvyiPw=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>*Painting of my gray gelding Farside, the inspiration behind Nishiime, by artist Sybil Hill.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>**An artist’s concept of the early Milky Way. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Z. Levay, STScI, AURA.</i></div>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-63660496245587335722021-05-03T16:09:00.020-06:002021-05-09T13:42:06.022-06:00The Crows Who Knew the Fox Who Knew My Mother <p>Always, in the month of May, I feel my mother's presence in the untamed view outside our windows (which was once her view), in the mountain neighbors who once knew her, even in the noisy crows who congregate in the gangly ponderosas in our yard. The elders of this crow family might have been youngsters when Mom was alive, growing as she aged, recognizing her just as they recognized the mother fox and each new set of kits who denned below the house.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZqfKGwfQ9Sn7N2-sed5WeuEAkYBDtwMPMFsUXzM8JeRwQlB7VViWeXgSwE_MKS42QOrq_FwqKnporVvaHoGG-a6RcQGXxQsp448LmAnDZ_lFWQqIqV2-zeyS-FSxrBP4Sl2UwW9IjWb2/s2686/Kit+fox+2+-+on+rocks+-+Mount+Vernon+Colorado+-+John+Gritts+%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1171" data-original-width="2686" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZqfKGwfQ9Sn7N2-sed5WeuEAkYBDtwMPMFsUXzM8JeRwQlB7VViWeXgSwE_MKS42QOrq_FwqKnporVvaHoGG-a6RcQGXxQsp448LmAnDZ_lFWQqIqV2-zeyS-FSxrBP4Sl2UwW9IjWb2/w640-h280/Kit+fox+2+-+on+rocks+-+Mount+Vernon+Colorado+-+John+Gritts+%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Mom loved nature, and walks in the woods, but she also loved Japanese art, exotic travels, world-class museums, good books, classical music, Darjeeling tea, and French food. She never had these things growing up, which is perhaps why, later in life, she loved them so much. She loved Van Gogh, but not as much as she loved Claude Monet. A print of Monet's <i>Japanese Bridge</i> found its way onto every bedroom wall I had as a child.<i> </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkSE2XL-biMI5rDAiCck_r7uCshzjrFTnrWWuTzd28uuVtRtLO8UgqN9doFgf49N8SHY1xNxaOExlNYJzP-Xr7ag7RSeDDfRFtL5NLd9wZMV2pIlDfAwDrlhSAD0X4KBwI3rEqy-3NMBCC/s750/monet-paintings-the-japanese-bridge-1899.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="750" height="616" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkSE2XL-biMI5rDAiCck_r7uCshzjrFTnrWWuTzd28uuVtRtLO8UgqN9doFgf49N8SHY1xNxaOExlNYJzP-Xr7ag7RSeDDfRFtL5NLd9wZMV2pIlDfAwDrlhSAD0X4KBwI3rEqy-3NMBCC/w640-h616/monet-paintings-the-japanese-bridge-1899.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>I've been re-reading my old journal entries from 2004, when my mother's valient struggles with cancer finally got the better of her. She always told us not worry, that she was "just heading out on another adventure." </p><p>I lived here with her then, as her caregiver. One of the last meals we shared dining out with neighbors was at Le Central, a small and much beloved French restaurant in Denver. Her weight had not yet dropped to a skeletal 65 lbs., and she was still able to enjoy food. We shared mussels in a white wine broth, French onion soup, escargot, and a spinach salad before going to a booksigning at the Tattered Cover.</p><p>A month later, we went to see the "Treasures of Ancient Egypt" exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. We had seen many of these same Egyptian treasures in 1964, during a family trip around the world. Fifty years later, with her own death visible on the horizon, Mom found the mummies and burial tombs especially fascinating.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrAuMn9H6DNE4yFyc_XeNcrZcS8nLSlOOVUdfFckdbmwmbo1uAhftm4_QRQiIx4cR4gLqaJqg7ZhCexaNygEWdXImhjvIG08lUQnTjh8jiLtxHMVSY9cW6x_dkkOBAuLjePoSpLRiF-8zW/s1920/King+Tut+Artifacts+Public+Domain.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1484" data-original-width="1920" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrAuMn9H6DNE4yFyc_XeNcrZcS8nLSlOOVUdfFckdbmwmbo1uAhftm4_QRQiIx4cR4gLqaJqg7ZhCexaNygEWdXImhjvIG08lUQnTjh8jiLtxHMVSY9cW6x_dkkOBAuLjePoSpLRiF-8zW/w640-h494/King+Tut+Artifacts+Public+Domain.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>I'm reminded, reading my journals, how lighthearted she was about her own death, She told the hospice nurse one day that she was sure death would come soon. "Tomorrow is the day!" she said emphatically. </p><p>When tomorrow turned out <i>not</i> to be the day, she asked me to help her put on her coral-colored kimono (purchased from a shop in Toyko during that same astonishing trip). "It would be lovely to sit on the deck and say goodbye to some of the neighors," she said. </p><p>When the crows squawked to announce that the nurse had arrived, Debbie found us on the deck. "I'm glad to see you out enjoying the sun," she said. Mom smiled and answered, "Well, I don’t see any point in lying in bed if I’m not going to die today!” </p><p>The neighbors did come--one at a time, staying for short visits after Debbie left. That night, I wrote in my journal, "Mom is so tiny now. On good days, her eyes are bright, her sense of humor fluid, her wit sharp."</p><p>While Mom remained lightheared, even to the end, I didn't. Seeking spiritual guidance, I read books like Brian Luke Seaward's <i>Quite Mind, Fearless Heart, </i>Joseph Campbell's <i>The Hero with a Thousand Faces, </i>Thomas Moore's <i>Dark Nights of the Soul,</i> essays by<i> </i>Anais Nin. My healers tried to teach me how to "fill another's well without emptying one's own." Still, my soul emptied as mother's filled. </p><p>Eleven months before Mom passed through that mysterious veil of time, she told me she wanted to go to Hawaii to see Brooke, her oldest daughter and my big sister. Brooke had spent years caring for mother in all the ways possible when you live three thousand miles across the ocean. </p><p>After traveling together to over 27 countries during that trip around the world, this would be my last adventure with our mother. At the airport en route to Hawaii, Mom befriended an airport employee, Ashama, a young man from Calcutta, India. He helped her into a wheelchair and escorted us through ticketing, security, and, an hour later, finally to our gate - but not before wheeling mom into Pour la France for a cup of tea. "You may perhaps have Darjeeling for my friend Jane?" he asked the hostess, grinning.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5SXM0ElMWWBXtpWeCVFRjA_-GO3cJk9SDRcJmyoVCXpTT7eONgkPG2AVOomn-tIi7V9icOz5l2IM5R1ndWoSgI8TX3_Hzor3wBqb5hKg3Tu4QFTxJeIrHU9UA0Iz9lkwDewo8tyeoHCY/s634/Mom+%2526+Page+Hawaii+%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="634" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5SXM0ElMWWBXtpWeCVFRjA_-GO3cJk9SDRcJmyoVCXpTT7eONgkPG2AVOomn-tIi7V9icOz5l2IM5R1ndWoSgI8TX3_Hzor3wBqb5hKg3Tu4QFTxJeIrHU9UA0Iz9lkwDewo8tyeoHCY/w640-h424/Mom+%2526+Page+Hawaii+%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>A few weeks after Mom died, I wrote this line in my journal, a quote from the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis. </p><p>"I said to the almond tree, 'Friend, speak to me of God,' and the almond tree blossomed." </p><p>With a late spring snow falling outside the window today, thinking of the May birthdays my mother and sister have shared, I searched online for photos of almond trees in blossom. And accidentally, <i>of course,</i> I found Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting, <i>Blossoming Almond Tree, </i>which my mother loved because of the strong Japanese influence.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnzwpvKUs1pqcJbPkLIEM2Z0EEzSeThRPqcMU42qoWzG0ouReniywI6vIri7ay-KGLd_s3Jo3woyb_IwFcdq-jyQE3ahicuXxnnsvgSGK_79TTamJCUNYAzyMD0wSR1XKN7ZQpNxAMpMI/s495/Almond+Blossoms+Van+Gogh.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="495" height="469" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnzwpvKUs1pqcJbPkLIEM2Z0EEzSeThRPqcMU42qoWzG0ouReniywI6vIri7ay-KGLd_s3Jo3woyb_IwFcdq-jyQE3ahicuXxnnsvgSGK_79TTamJCUNYAzyMD0wSR1XKN7ZQpNxAMpMI/w640-h469/Almond+Blossoms+Van+Gogh.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>When Van Gogh began this painting for his brother's son, he did not know that within a few months he would no longer be painting, would no longer be alive. "I started right away to make a picture for Theo's son," he wrote, "to hang in their bedroom, big branches of white almond blossoms against a blue sky." </p><p>He went on to write, "I felt ill at the time I was doing the almond blossoms. If I had been able to go on working, you can judge from it that I would have done others of trees in blossom..." Alas, he had not been able to go on.</p><p>As the snow came down, I searched for more familiar paintings and found Monet's <i>The Luncheon. </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ13YXOmcd_ddpuJtwZqpru0oJa8nn9bMTSIFo3VCAuQY3IOBvRNk1H6hP5bEwGH5h_7TfW6M12FZBM4dxLNNI4cL_WithjXBV3bwDxAhueKLkaD-Bs4FJwD49P80f9byPLmHx4TqJoa14/s800/Monet_Luncheon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="800" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ13YXOmcd_ddpuJtwZqpru0oJa8nn9bMTSIFo3VCAuQY3IOBvRNk1H6hP5bEwGH5h_7TfW6M12FZBM4dxLNNI4cL_WithjXBV3bwDxAhueKLkaD-Bs4FJwD49P80f9byPLmHx4TqJoa14/w640-h506/Monet_Luncheon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Monet died in 1926, the year before our mother (christened Jane Barbot), was born in May of 1927. I find these kinds of connections fascinating. Mom always dreamed of painting, perhaps because a distant relative of ours was the painter John James Masquerier, son of Mary Barbot. <div><br /></div><div>When I look at Monet's painting <i>The Luncheon</i>, I imagine that Mom and Brooke and I have just had tea and croissants, and Brooke and I are walking in the garden. I imagine Mom with her grandchildren, sitting on the earth with them as her own mother would have done. There are crows in the trees, of course, and perhaps a fox or two hiding in the bushes, which are alive with the blossoms of a new season. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Picture post script: Here is a photo of my sister Brooke taken in Hawaii in 1995 with my daughter Sarah. Photo of the fox kits by John Gritts.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-Qx6ThGphEbU11P3FA3NSzwPFy89pWM2LrwRP2-_Bc3n3R8adzH8TL53k2Zp33kjA8WRRPznGAK3WCbIRypYcvQV-kv-SCCFpftlFQKVUarwN4vnx8aElFUv-WClnDwVjNdILARqlAUB/s1550/Aunt+Brooke+and+Sarah+Hawaii+1995.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="1550" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-Qx6ThGphEbU11P3FA3NSzwPFy89pWM2LrwRP2-_Bc3n3R8adzH8TL53k2Zp33kjA8WRRPznGAK3WCbIRypYcvQV-kv-SCCFpftlFQKVUarwN4vnx8aElFUv-WClnDwVjNdILARqlAUB/w640-h450/Aunt+Brooke+and+Sarah+Hawaii+1995.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-72612801844306647392021-01-31T16:30:00.007-07:002021-02-04T12:00:22.868-07:00On the Green River, In the Steam of Another Lifetime<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Two special women in my life just passed and I find myself filled with nostalgia for my own mother and for a childhood that was, by all measures, a good one. And yet there were tragedies, as with all childhoods. This poem, in this new year, takes me into the heart of a few of these memories...</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikDisqj5mIR4bS3-_zw0JzIaYDfbfLQgGsifaKEMo5c88AHcurpmew-6zPOOHy7n1jBzOAspV7jFw-_2YRk5KxEt63o5TY3mD5Jpjre2dhQbHxk2_kLgDpmtIgSeXIc9o2KkAhBXcTwukb/s1280/FROG_POND.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikDisqj5mIR4bS3-_zw0JzIaYDfbfLQgGsifaKEMo5c88AHcurpmew-6zPOOHy7n1jBzOAspV7jFw-_2YRk5KxEt63o5TY3mD5Jpjre2dhQbHxk2_kLgDpmtIgSeXIc9o2KkAhBXcTwukb/w640-h480/FROG_POND.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Forty-five years ago, Colorado’s South Platte River</div></div><div style="text-align: left;">left her banks and thrust herself at the tall cottonwoods</div><div>whose deep roots until that moment drank </div><div>matter-of-factly from her mossy waters near</div><div>the frog pond by my childhood home</div><div><br /></div><div>twenty feet tall, the river roared across mowed lawns </div><div>scoured cul-de-sacs, inundated our home</div><div>as indiscriminately as she snatched Betsy Grant’s </div><div>two-story brick house, carving a gaping hole</div><div>where the basement had been, leaving nothing</div><div><br /></div><div>but a curtain rod. I do not remember if the day</div><div>the rains came, on the heels of mountain snowmelt</div><div>if on that day, a rainbow – like now, here</div><div>on the Green River – stretched across the blue</div><div>horizon offering itself as retribution and apology</div><div><br /></div><div>a covenant between earth and sky pledging in hues </div><div>of orange and yellow and green never to snatch</div><div>another home, or flood another field. I do not remember</div><div>feeling betrayed by the river that took our home </div><div>that day, perhaps nostalgic, thinking of</div><div><br /></div><div>the days I had walked the river shore hunting</div><div>driftwood, how innocently I had skirted the murky</div><div>places where quicksand lurked, or spent drowsy</div><div>afternoons sitting in the sun beside the mossy pond. Frogs lived</div><div>among the logs that floated there. Deep throaty bellows</div><div><br /></div><div>ricocheted across the stagnant waters, the frogs’ bulbous eyes</div><div>attached to the sides of their bony skulls like peeled grapes. </div><div>I wondered after the flood ravaged our home, what became</div><div>of the frogs and the flat-leafed lilies, I never found</div><div>their green bodies floating among the river debris as I found</div><div><br /></div><div>the skulls of cows and horses washed from farm fields</div><div>to flounder beneath the soggy sky. I never found the frogs</div><div>nor the lilies, nor the curtain that once hung</div><div>in Betsy Grant’s bedroom, nor the innocence I knew </div><div>before the river snatched our home. Here</div><div><br /></div><div>on Utah’s Green River, <span style="text-align: right;">I watch a burrowing toad</span></div><div><span style="text-align: right;">and towering red sandstone cliffs </span><span style="text-align: right;">and think of my sister</span></div><div><span style="text-align: right;">in Hawaii and of our last Christmas </span><span style="text-align: right;">with our mother</span></div><div><span style="text-align: right;">how Brooke’s friend Upali laid lentil cakes </span><span style="text-align: right;">and a hand mirror</span></div><div><span style="text-align: right;">wrapped in red satin at our mother’s feet </span><span style="text-align: right;">because</span></div><div><span style="text-align: right;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="text-align: right;">in his country of Sri Lanka, </span>half-way across the world, </div><div>mothers are to be honored. I think of how, only hours</div><div>after we ate the spiced lentil cakes, a giant tsunami</div><div>struck the villages of Upali’s homeland where long-legged</div><div>spoonbills waded among reed-beds, where male birds </div><div><br /></div><div>gathered sticks from old nests for the building</div><div>of new nests. I wonder now if their nests survived the tsunami</div><div>if Upali’s family wandered the scoured seashore</div><div>searching for loved ones among the debris</div><div>if the clouds that once gathered above</div><div><br /></div><div>the sloped mountains of Colorado found their way</div><div>to the leaden sky above the turbulent blue waters of</div><div>Sri Lanka. Here now, on the edge of the Green River</div><div>I sit beneath a blue sky that stretches like decades</div><div>across memories and miles</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWodhYVPgT_lLEHbbkXBNm4WLvT-DT_WsIPUPch0CVXCjSKflU7Q1iuypbZI_9WcmufL38Z84aXnkdFN2emXOC2HXlubvTdXkZpzgHK3LYkX6kTqJgMAelDsKT9P7SBPTKgsrpYb4Ibsh6/s2048/Sojourns+-+2007+TWWI+Canoes+on+the+Green+2008+catalog+Lambert+photo+credit.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1555" data-original-width="2048" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWodhYVPgT_lLEHbbkXBNm4WLvT-DT_WsIPUPch0CVXCjSKflU7Q1iuypbZI_9WcmufL38Z84aXnkdFN2emXOC2HXlubvTdXkZpzgHK3LYkX6kTqJgMAelDsKT9P7SBPTKgsrpYb4Ibsh6/w640-h486/Sojourns+-+2007+TWWI+Canoes+on+the+Green+2008+catalog+Lambert+photo+credit.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>and contemplate the canoes straddling the shoreline</div><div>like salmon far from home and think of the river fish</div><div>gasping for breath in the mud-filled living room</div><div>where my sister and I once played chess with our father</div><div>where once, when our parents were both alive, we spread </div><div><br /></div><div>world maps on the white carpet and traced with our fingertips </div><div>the borders of foreign countries, traced the black curves</div><div>of the Pearl of the Indian Ocean when Sri Lanka was Ceylon</div><div>when Upali was just a dark wiry boy</div><div>living among satinwood trees</div><div><br /></div><div>when I was just a pleasantly plump blonde girl drifting </div><div>among cottonwoods, long before I soaked my bones</div><div>in a hot tub at the foot of a softly sloping mountain</div><div>drinking hot toddies, watching snowflakes melt</div><div>in the steam of another lifetime. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>P.S. Here is a photo of Upali at my sister's in Hawaii with my husband John and me, taken in 2015.</i></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMp4jUo7cpcV6WqA-8BpzH2Wz7IJnfnWk2WCEo4DRETXolifoB_19ZohyphenhyphenhftJChlWSdNJtDVG_Bpc_WxWx-3xBhpfKmvnsNJveD6wyi05kLXIY-EOEkNIzr5Is66eXXggVxNPBm8D2WbD/s1280/2015+Upali.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMp4jUo7cpcV6WqA-8BpzH2Wz7IJnfnWk2WCEo4DRETXolifoB_19ZohyphenhyphenhftJChlWSdNJtDVG_Bpc_WxWx-3xBhpfKmvnsNJveD6wyi05kLXIY-EOEkNIzr5Is66eXXggVxNPBm8D2WbD/w640-h480/2015+Upali.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-36431010935199796732020-10-27T13:49:00.005-06:002020-10-27T13:54:28.207-06:00Like Horses, We Falter When We Lose Our Way<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The morning after the veterinarian injected the little white mare with a sedative, and then a lethal dose of barbiturates, the herd did not want to go out to the pasture. They stayed near the gate where the sweet elderly Arabian had taken her last breath. “The timing is good,” the veterinarian had said. “Not too soon, and not too late.” She had taken care of Echo for many years. None of us wanted the thin mare to endure another hard winter, even with the herd beside her, even with abundant hay.</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEQESMv3McI78F6IXHn562siCSaW5xblZhTuPYnVrZ5oPZJr43aY7O6odumZQrklXr21xgk3DiL2CeRgKZDfD02N4jFnaDbHh7aRCgezN1_Cg8Ah9CCmTjGqdkG1wnkw8flik0RBEeuAL/s504/Gary%2527s+Spring+Snow+%2526+horses+BW+W9762+web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="504" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEQESMv3McI78F6IXHn562siCSaW5xblZhTuPYnVrZ5oPZJr43aY7O6odumZQrklXr21xgk3DiL2CeRgKZDfD02N4jFnaDbHh7aRCgezN1_Cg8Ah9CCmTjGqdkG1wnkw8flik0RBEeuAL/w640-h248/Gary%2527s+Spring+Snow+%2526+horses+BW+W9762+web.jpg" title="Photo of Mount Vernon horses by Gary Caskey Photography" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The slender white mare had roamed these high mountain pastures for nearly thirty years. As other horses came and went, Echo’s presence remained as constant as the glow of moonlight over the meadows. She wasn’t a leader. She wasn’t an enforcer. She wasn’t even a follower. But like her name suggested, she was the mirror that reflected back to the other horses their sense of order, their sense that all was right in the world. </div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Like the vista of a deep canyon inspires us to shout across the water and wait eagerly for the return of our own voice ... <i>Hello?... Hello?… </i>the little mare reminded the other horses that they were a community, and she was at its center. <i>You are not alone. You are part of something grander. </i></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2Kw0g3AFXD7O6UqlJRR3wQrvF6nOdtqtA3U5Tuc1NFyXiCiID5AaY3SNsnHFxvvl_kbruDEmqMaZV7mxVdEVKEjy7M5jBkwdKQTPihisInWTWFvIScfzi-ksMym79t1lC4mLhFcEWmMP/s2048/2013+River+Writing+Crazy+Brave+Gazing+Across+the+River.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF2Kw0g3AFXD7O6UqlJRR3wQrvF6nOdtqtA3U5Tuc1NFyXiCiID5AaY3SNsnHFxvvl_kbruDEmqMaZV7mxVdEVKEjy7M5jBkwdKQTPihisInWTWFvIScfzi-ksMym79t1lC4mLhFcEWmMP/w640-h480/2013+River+Writing+Crazy+Brave+Gazing+Across+the+River.JPG" title="Photo by Page Lambert" width="640" /></a></div><p>Remembering the herd clustered near the gate where Echo had died, I thought of all the horses that might be waiting for her in the great beyond, her herd in the sky. <i>San Martine. Casteel. The weather horses Windy, Cloudy, and Sunny. The Peruvian Pasos de la Montana and Abril. My gentleman Arab Farside. Sweet Lena. Handsome Wendy. Dominica, the big warmblood. </i>And so many more.</p><p></p><p>With each new member, and with each loss, the herd has had to restructure itself. Each horse must learn, or re-learn, its place within the herd. Each new horse must learn to respect the leaders, will suffer discipline and loneliness if they do not. Winter or summer, the horses do all of this while moving like a flock of birds in the sky—floating on the wind—always touching but not touching. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB0AJurPqA8tZeThqjGmyATDdD0umXu33iCgyQyu8vp8rqT3WRAyWnvqgJK67uEUqjigFx0rv-uOJd9218DVnGK2zzfiErmgziHVl6XjuMP7AktmoHrc1LlXnkdPW8mZg3zXRlH_GP0aiu/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="818" data-original-width="1200" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB0AJurPqA8tZeThqjGmyATDdD0umXu33iCgyQyu8vp8rqT3WRAyWnvqgJK67uEUqjigFx0rv-uOJd9218DVnGK2zzfiErmgziHVl6XjuMP7AktmoHrc1LlXnkdPW8mZg3zXRlH_GP0aiu/w640-h436/image.png" title="Flock, Wikipedia, Commons" width="640" /></a></div><br />Our human herd at the barn mirrors whatever is going on with the herd, but we don’t always recognize that we are doing this. Change disrupts our sense of order. We are rarely as graceful as the horses in reestablishing our equilibrium. We look for leadership. And like now, we falter when there is none. <p></p><p>Echo's herd looks to the elders of the herd for leadership, now more than ever - big gentle black Milagro, the undisputed aging king, and Di, the wise queen mare. She stands quietly behind him here, patient in her reign, though it will eventually slip away from both of them. We do not know who will step up to take their places. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0gGQKiTAwqD2F5STKj90Tm2fWo1cfA0KiImBFbrsH4MqlGU7ttqjNGt5YRf695ARq8XgD-GaE8NI1kygXgZ15DeY_Qf3wXqW9gOVnImrWrEUSLdGd3yGqOeB0VNcsCOj7ul_XsDKFEt5c/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0gGQKiTAwqD2F5STKj90Tm2fWo1cfA0KiImBFbrsH4MqlGU7ttqjNGt5YRf695ARq8XgD-GaE8NI1kygXgZ15DeY_Qf3wXqW9gOVnImrWrEUSLdGd3yGqOeB0VNcsCOj7ul_XsDKFEt5c/w640-h480/image.png" title="Photo by Page Lambert" width="640" /></a></div><br />I worry for our human herd—the one outside these pristine pastures. I fear that humans lack the wisdom of these horses. I fear that we no longer understand that our survival and serenity depend on our ability to <i>form and hold community. </i>Echo knew this when she welcomed my Arab gelding Farside to the herd, following him as he explored his new home. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img data-original-height="344" data-original-width="609" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVOZg1sjLGjahLCfsj-2zDFGMhNqzLHsI906bFCqiak8xFGsq5KMZAHQzUcPVG1fkz3f6pSCWdo_dhWRWz-_yhq3IwIi8DDDqkm1nvT4mDOs4QrXAAG84dRyGK3NEckB0OtffTSD749U_1/w640-h362/image.png" title="Farside and Echo. Photo by Page Lambert" width="640" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let us look to our animal friends for guidance. Let us study the network of kinship that exists beneath the boughs of the trees. Let us learn from the tufted bunch grasses of the West that thrive from a common root system. Let us listen to the earth and to each other. Let us remember that we are part of something grander. <i>Let us do this while the time is right. Before it is too late. </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><b>NOTE: </b></i><i>How do we start? Here's a suggestion...</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHXH1oo0VaSMxlmR38bp3SA92h2-YA9Wa2Q7AKEY3QPVWU0YqojeWHMiJHEbAhQ9FT9CgFWuKN6jWgK8i88IWdzyDhO3RkYuDC8Y8EhA5BLkyZpsb_UtyfhrgHYawMgkopfsne47w8yS7/s800/Flying+Lead+Change%252C+Kelly+Wendorf+book+cover.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHXH1oo0VaSMxlmR38bp3SA92h2-YA9Wa2Q7AKEY3QPVWU0YqojeWHMiJHEbAhQ9FT9CgFWuKN6jWgK8i88IWdzyDhO3RkYuDC8Y8EhA5BLkyZpsb_UtyfhrgHYawMgkopfsne47w8yS7/w200-h200/Flying+Lead+Change%252C+Kelly+Wendorf+book+cover.png" width="200" /></a></div><br />In her groundbreaking <a href="https://equusinspired.com/">EQUUS</a> training program, <a href="https://equusinspired.com/flying-lead-change/" target="_blank">Flying Lead Change</a>, Kelly Wendorf teaches a way of leadership "modeled on a 56 million-year-old system of the horse herd––a path that has allowed humans and horses alike to survive the kinds of global and societal threats we now face, such as climate change and mass extinction." The book was released this month and is available now. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="640" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7BPueOLB5seH18Q0OK1Uydelq8o2DLt9P1tpEwdC9LUMp2yyrt49PvOUas4a6EZEQuMsB9RaD8I4yUES-oRLa1YUftY8naMkK9tEOgk7Fkb22FEH4QjjM8fc3l9C74FaDPFuMog65MeL/w200-h127/image.png" width="200" /></div>Page Lambert's upcoming retreat <a href="https://www.pagelambert.com/santa_fe.html" target="_blank">"Santa Fe & Taos Autumn Sojourn" </a>(September 2021), includes a private morning session with Kelly and the horses of EQUUS. <a href="https://www.pagelambert.com/contact.html" target="_blank">Contact Page</a> if you'd like more information about this 7-day retreat. </div>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-67592441220670277552020-07-31T20:02:00.001-06:002020-07-31T20:02:13.737-06:00Returning to Kindness: What the River and the Poems of Linda Hogan Teach Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Gg2oZf15kFHnJM_9qOXcEbVHDXaLslRLXUIsHJyGCFEcsqBFmyHbx6sFgUjIqTFt_XNVkdNLmkq8yUMIKuwxxBrH83Ls6eRKCiH4vRI1QQec2D13GN5M_hGuVSmAI_pWCskqXbuI6JYa/s1600/Reading+on+the+rafts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="1600" height="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Gg2oZf15kFHnJM_9qOXcEbVHDXaLslRLXUIsHJyGCFEcsqBFmyHbx6sFgUjIqTFt_XNVkdNLmkq8yUMIKuwxxBrH83Ls6eRKCiH4vRI1QQec2D13GN5M_hGuVSmAI_pWCskqXbuI6JYa/s640/Reading+on+the+rafts.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Women have been gathering at the river for thousands of years. It is where we have traditionally come to greet the sun, to cleanse and purify ourselves, to find inspiration, to tell our stories, to create a vision for the future.<br />
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Torrey House Press, the publisher of Linda Hogan's newest book of poetry, <i>The History of Kindness, </i>writes that these new poems “explore new and old ways of experiencing the vagaries of the body and existing in harmony with earth's living beings.”<br />
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"There is no one like Linda Hogan," writes author Terry Tempest Williams. "I read her poetry to both calm and ignite my heart. <i>A History of Kindness</i> is a series of oracles rising from the page born out of a life of listening, feeling, responding."<br />
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For women, living in harmony with our bodies, and with nature, does not always come easily. We are often encouraged by society to embrace a lifestyle that is everything but harmonious with nature. We are led to believe that harmony with our bodies is not possible--that we must somehow change or alter ourselves, especially as we enter the era of the wise woman, the elder woman.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vzIwLUro8MCpFOL02yLqqDzI76v6vttRFIOI0KKKPtjKfJuptY7u7_rT-HGxzjsEBY0YM5UNYlqnTUMj7DnubZ0QbGdNsC0E0TYKhwsKSdxaJ-JxUa2LSLUwReiljejvyOIVBtQABRNU/s1600/2006+Cat+Women+Bathing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="448" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vzIwLUro8MCpFOL02yLqqDzI76v6vttRFIOI0KKKPtjKfJuptY7u7_rT-HGxzjsEBY0YM5UNYlqnTUMj7DnubZ0QbGdNsC0E0TYKhwsKSdxaJ-JxUa2LSLUwReiljejvyOIVBtQABRNU/s640/2006+Cat+Women+Bathing.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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On the river, we are allowed to embrace the relationship we once had with our physical selves. We are invited by the river, and by the wilderness from which the river springs, to remember what we knew when we were young--that we are not separate from nature. We are born of, and a part of, all that is natural.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilkI_4gLA2rSFuMJtNJla7RCxxyrU8SNBmyW_dbc_YCwcEuofPb7PAHblKlujI0jkNLaWe_3odk4Foipd1m-kFYwzynhsCfjJTL7qa6XHrc3uwXLSC2ZcOpYUbumnvVPxwwPtH-BAP9Z_d/s1600/Linda+Hogan+A+History+of+Kindness+.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilkI_4gLA2rSFuMJtNJla7RCxxyrU8SNBmyW_dbc_YCwcEuofPb7PAHblKlujI0jkNLaWe_3odk4Foipd1m-kFYwzynhsCfjJTL7qa6XHrc3uwXLSC2ZcOpYUbumnvVPxwwPtH-BAP9Z_d/s320/Linda+Hogan+A+History+of+Kindness+.png" width="201" /></a>Kindness on the river takes no effort. Nor does laughter. The river invites gentleness, playfulness, thoughtfulness--and yes, kindness. We are reminded that one of the greatest pleasures available to us is the pleasure we receive when we give perform small acts of kindness, the most important of which is listening to one another, of honoring each other's stories through the act of attentive listening.<br />
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This year on the river, I am gifting the women with copies of Linda's book, <i>The History of Kindness. </i>We will carry her words with us as we float through the landscape, and we will be reminded of the great circle of women and of how our stories spiral inward even as they spiral outward.<br />
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<br />Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-16528909690990617472020-06-22T14:34:00.012-06:002021-04-30T10:51:20.805-06:00The Earth, A Reclamation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><i>The poem and poet's statement below, and accompanying photographs, first appeared in the May 2020 digital issue of <a href="https://terralingua.org/langscape-magazine/read-langscape/vol-9/" target="_blank">Langscapes Magazine</a>, published by Terralingua.Org. The print version of the magazine, Volume 9, is now available. I wanted to also share "<a href="https://terralingua.org/langscape_articles/reclamation/" target="_blank">Reclamation</a>" with the subscribers of "All Things Literary/All Things Natural." Thank you. </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6zGgEiNO-keQ4up4nHDICK9YXlR3WBH7uw_usCTLZmHtO_rgNtpVdaODMIDCmamupFxuCqYZpwr-S2sUlrFNWkjYIwA1Wk2-Pu7o5WsJtdAxYNjhVw5ymMu6IxASNQNCLlULHDp_9ofB/s2048/Reclamation+-+Langscape+Magazine+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1444" data-original-width="2048" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6zGgEiNO-keQ4up4nHDICK9YXlR3WBH7uw_usCTLZmHtO_rgNtpVdaODMIDCmamupFxuCqYZpwr-S2sUlrFNWkjYIwA1Wk2-Pu7o5WsJtdAxYNjhVw5ymMu6IxASNQNCLlULHDp_9ofB/w640-h452/Reclamation+-+Langscape+Magazine+%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">Reclamation</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">They say
the traffic in London has killed the song of the nightingale. When they
serenade each other, they sound more like the honking of horns, the squealing
of brakes, and so the nests</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">lie <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">empty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">Yet a coyote sought shelter
in a Chicago Starbuck’s last month, the closest thing to a cave he could find,
stood shaking next to the cooler in the dark corner with the Odwalla juices and
the caffeine drinks and the mineral water from Fiji. Just last weekend, in
Santa Fe, in the hours before dawn, on the Plaza while the town slept, a
mountain lion leapt through the door of a jewelry store, leaving a spider web
of broken glass. In Denver, raccoons pilfer garbage beneath city streetlights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">Sleek Peregrines, with
nesting boxes built into skyscrapers, stalk the pigeons cooing from the
rooftops. Owls swoop down alleys, between buildings, hunt the falcons which
hunt the doves. Moose leave the northern wetlands, trek long-legged across
Wyoming’s Red Desert, nip purple blossoms from our alfalfa field, half-way
between here and the short grass prairie; black bears forage in suburban
kitchens, paw their way to the shallow end of public pools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">Elk herds cross highways,
leap burrow ditches, tear through fences, travel the old migratory routes to the
land their ancestors once grazed, while in Billings the city council passes
laws prohibiting dogs in public parks. Yet, they say that New York City,
without man to trim its hedges, prune its trees, mow its grasses, replace roads
and bridges and traffic signals, would soon be overrun with feral dogs, yellow
eyed cats, and ivy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">New York City, without man
or woman to tame it, would within two hundred years begin to crumble, in half a
century would turn to dust, turn back to the earth within a millennium. Wars
would fade from the horizon, borders disintegrate, walls come tumbling down,
pandemics pass from memory. Silt would rise in the dams, rivers return to their
beds. A new human would rise, begin the task all over again, would carve flutes
from the branches of cedar trees, piano keys from the tusks of mammoths, stain
glass from the sands of the Sudan, sew drums from the skins of buffalo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">Songs would rise from its
thirsty throat, deep and guttural. Eventually, the trilling of women would
pierce the night sky, slice through the blue darkness like a sleek whale.
Nightingales<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">would
return<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">to their
songs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;"><i>About the Poem</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTZOgWXz32fZR7WLrcLoSDXPyZHKlBLd7jQXT9bx3hmG6HG7AoKlcSM2w0-daUr2IGP4baBpW7565OO1FjlHZDE3JAFYReWY3mjZdAZk-k7rAtLFRlbNjI9yCIAxLK5P6Jc7DC4RVLPgip/s1600/%252310+Lambert.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTZOgWXz32fZR7WLrcLoSDXPyZHKlBLd7jQXT9bx3hmG6HG7AoKlcSM2w0-daUr2IGP4baBpW7565OO1FjlHZDE3JAFYReWY3mjZdAZk-k7rAtLFRlbNjI9yCIAxLK5P6Jc7DC4RVLPgip/s320/%252310+Lambert.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">Many
years ago, I read that in London the nightingale, at the northern edge of its
habitat, had been red-listed because of growing concern among conservationists.
The influence of London’s “urbanscape” was impacting nightingales in unexpected
ways, altering even the courtship rituals on which the species relied—the
beautiful serenades of the male nightingales were changing. Its very <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">language </i>was changing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">I was
struck by this image and it became the first underpinning for my poem,
“Reclamation.” I began noticing other examples of unusual interactions between
animals and humans, places where worlds collided in ways that threatened
species and diversity. “Reclamation” attempts to bring to the reader’s
attention these places of intersection and asks the reader to pause and
consider how the dominance of one culture over another (human culture over
nature), creates an imbalance that might eventually threaten our very
existence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxdDUklNls1-wuACcEh9_KtMWCwARLzThJG23ODXAJoPgdmgrqRSvirFkOORtkyIBwAeBU78tkoA6LZ-U8zscqrYiQ3BJ9pa-5M_gnBFBD9BoIxy10jfEFCROAdXg82g8nIHYtOIw54tFC/s1600/%25237+Lambert.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxdDUklNls1-wuACcEh9_KtMWCwARLzThJG23ODXAJoPgdmgrqRSvirFkOORtkyIBwAeBU78tkoA6LZ-U8zscqrYiQ3BJ9pa-5M_gnBFBD9BoIxy10jfEFCROAdXg82g8nIHYtOIw54tFC/s400/%25237+Lambert.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sand sculpture by Roxanne Swentzell, Santa Clara Pueblo, <br />New Mexico. Photo: Page Lambert, 2010</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">The
second underpinning came when I read how quickly a metropolis such as New York
City would return to its pre-contact natural state if humans no longer
inhabited it. The landmass upon which the city is built lies only a few hundred
feet above sea level, is flanked by two rivers, and once had diverse
geology—varying from solid granite to swampland to densely overgrown hillsides.
The idea that it would only take a few hundred years for this landscape to
return to its natural state seemed like a very hopeful idea. Humans might wipe
ourselves off the face of the earth, but we are not powerful enough to wipe
away all creation. Nature could rise from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our
</i>extinction, taking its own conscious and powerful actions to recreate life
on planet Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;">This poem
perhaps sits at the edge of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
extinction rebellion, </i>finding its center in Nature’s rebellion rather than
our own, but also asking the question, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How
would we do it over if we were given a second chance?</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 12pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://terralingua.org/langscape_articles/reclamation/" target="_blank">Read the published version</a> of "Reclamation" and the poet's statement in Langscape Magazine (Terralingua, May 22, 2020). </i></span></div>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-15645432535231645212020-04-30T18:38:00.000-06:002020-05-02T07:56:53.149-06:00Where the Condors Fly <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I should be in Peru right now, visiting with the traditional weavers in my broken Spanish, dotted with poorly pronounced Quechua words, smiling at Elena, petting her lamb, telling her about the ewes we used to have in Wyoming, about the lambs my children used to raise. Our laughter would embarrass her, but her eyes would twinkle and suddenly we would be just two women standing on a mountainside.<br />
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I harbor a secret dream that rises up whenever I visit Peru. In the highlands of Peru, progress seems to stand still but time travels on, swirling among the ancient Apus where the condors fly, sifting through fields of ripening corn, floating down the Urubamba River, rising as mist that floats across the ancient citadel of Machu Picchu.<br />
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Time travels through the fingers of the Quechua weavers, too. Ancient patterns appear like magic in wool freshly dyed with crushed leaves that only a few days ago fluttered in the breeze.<br />
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"When you speak Quechua," I am told, "you convey emotion." When Quechua children take animals to the pasture, they count them by their names. They do not count one by one, as individual animals, for to do so would separate each animal from the whole, from their community.<br />
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In Spanish, the Quechua child is taught that one duck plus one duck equals two ducks. But in Quechua, a duck is a thing <i>alive</i>, not an abstract concept. The Quechua child, for whom the ways of nature are not unknown, knows that one duck, plus one duck, will make many baby ducks! In nature, one plus one does <i>not </i>make two.<br />
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Here in Colorado, I sit at my desk and read that large poulty producers, because of Covid-19, are being forced to "depopulate" their chicken flocks, killing millions. I read that over 700,000 pigs <i>a week </i>might have to be killed by the large producers<i>. </i>How would you explain this to a Quechua child who understands the contours of a hillside by the ways the llamas travel across it? To a child who</div>
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understands that following the two-toed track of the alpaca will help him find his big sister, <span style="text-align: center;">or to a </span><span style="text-align: center;">child who knows the name of the alpaca whose wool he wears on his back? </span></div>
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I wish that I had a time machine that could take me away from the news stories and would fly me over mountains and continents, across rivers and creeks, away from the ocean and to the peaks of the Andes. </div>
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Here is my dream.</div>
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I dream of a resurgence of
backyard gardens, with chicken coops and fresh eggs and clucking hens. I dream that city councils will ease restrictions on animals in backyards, maybe allow a milk cow, or a goat or two. Would that be such a bad thing? I dream that animals will once again become members of the family, napping beneath our laundry drying in the sun, eating scraps from our meals, growing fibers for our clothes. I dream of animals that will know the touch of our hand, the sound of our voice.<br />
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In Peru, in the fertile valley fields, animals instead of tractors till many of the fields and help to plant the Inca corn, the amaranth and quinoa. The earth is churned into furrows in the spring by plows pulled by the bulls that graze the fields in the fall. The bulls require no petroleum, no tires, no oil changes, no idling on cold mornings. In the fall, when the fields lie fallow, the bulls rest two or three to a field, grazing among the stubbles. And when they die? These same bulls - the ones resting in the fields - when they lie down to die they do so on an earth that holds them as it held their brethren. Even after they are gone, they remain part of the family, farmers sit in chairs made from their leather, kneel on rugs made from their hides, sip soup made from their hollow and gracious bones.<br />
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In rural Peru, in the early mornings, shepherds—men and women, young boys and girls—trail cattle and sheep, even pigs, down the roads along the grassy edges where they are tethered to graze during the day. Grass is not sprayed with pesticides, nor mowed or trimmed. Rather, it feeds the animals that feed the people. At night, the animals follow the shepherds peacefully home, the bulls trailing behind with their lead ropes wrapped safely around their horns, soft rain falling upon man and beast, field and peak.</div>
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Perhaps this dream is only nostalgia, reminiscent of my own Wyoming days spent with the animals that fed us. Much poverty exists in the rural areas of Peru. There is suffering - lung cancer from the coal burned to keep warm, lack of clean water, alcoholism. But there are markets where people come together. Where oranges are traded for potatoes, bananas for corn, where the people who carry their wares down from the mountain haven't forgotten that we are all beasts of burden, where food is sustenance and the earth is still sacred.<br />
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Yesterday, on Facebook, I reached out to a friend who guided us in Peru in 2012. Dario and his wife live in Pisac. I asked if they were safe. If the pandemic was bad there. He wrote that he and his family were well, and that in Pisac there were 19 <span style="text-align: center;">covid cases, and in all cusco only 200 cases. "But everything is controlled," he wrote,"with the energy and the spirit of the <i>Pachamama.</i>" </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">I found this photo of him from 2012 and posted it on his Facebook feed. </span><span style="text-align: center;">"</span>Añaychayki," he wrote back, "<span style="text-align: center;">I send blessings from the Apus, from the mountains that are alive." </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">And so, as I dream of Peru, and of the great eternal spiral, of the origins we share with the animals, with the sun and moon, the earth and rivers, I send you spring blessings from these Rocky Mountains, where eagles fly and dreams are born.</span><br />
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<a href="http://pagelambert.com/peru.html" target="_blank">Click here for complete details about the April 2021 Peru Adventure, </a></div>
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<a href="http://pagelambert.com/peru.html" target="_blank">WEAVING WORDS & WOMEN</a></div>
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<i>My thanks to Kathie Nitz for two of the photos.</i></h4>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-63519574274794687892020-03-31T20:59:00.002-06:002020-04-01T10:11:29.934-06:00What if God gave us a Do-Over? What if Kristin Flyntz's imaginary letter from the virus to us isn't imaginary after all?<b>If you haven't yet watched Kristin Flyntz's video</b> (see below), pick up your journal, find a quiet corner, then click on the photo below. As you watch and listen, imagine our species making this earth our home for a mere 200,000 years. Imagine the 4 billion years that the earth has been home to as many as 8 billion other living beings. <b>We are babes in the woods.</b><br />
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<b>Consider, what if the human species is only <i>one</i> of a million sentient species? </b>What if we are not even the <i>most </i>sentient species? What if the earth, and all life on earth, has been trying to have a meaningful conversation with us for thousands of years?<br />
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<b>What if we suspend our disbelief,</b> and watch <b>this video</b> with humility, with our senses engaged and our human egos disengaged? What if we suspend our disbelief, like we do when watching movies or reading novels, and pretend (just for 3.5 minutes) that we're <i>not</i> the smartest beings on the planet, that <i>all</i> life carries within it the same miracle of creation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/a-letter-from-the-virus-listen/?fbclid=IwAR39z0WRGXdQ1-KffOfeD2LrSNcgVIBP7UsKFheMU5HdpI3fg9r5GRheJtM" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="995" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4wvvNOW9gL0W7tTcvt7e8vC2UsaY2dXzNtSHEfB4Z3bi-niAHJY4X956quSXy6QzRfZ9Z7hmklp4yslvPtAZKFqagOsiYJ-jCsg5VJpxFjOFCabjL53lWhOEiJNhTwthZZNqs17k7z_I/s400/Covid-19.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<b>What if God says we get a do-over? </b>What would you do differently? What would I do differently?<br />
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<b>After you watch the video, pick up your journal </b>and write what your heart is speaking. What <i>would </i>you do differently? What kind of relationship would you like to have with other human beings? What kind of conversation would you like to have with the earth? Do you believe that the earth is listening? That nature is listening? That God is listening?<br />
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<b>We are capable of <i>being love,</i></b> <b>manifested here on earth. </b>But first we must believe in love, in compassion and humbleness and second chances. If we listen, we can learn a new language.<br />
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<i><b>Note:</b><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>Gratitude to writer Kristin Flyntz for her poem, "An Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans," and to videographer Darinka Montico for her profound companion images.</i>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-17239916684111602192020-02-29T17:09:00.002-07:002020-03-19T08:57:54.382-06:00The Coronavirus and The Eight Master Lessons of Nature: What Gary Ferguson and Mary Clare are Teaching Us About Living Well in the World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>March 19, 2020 Update</b>: Journalist John Vidal poses this question in <i>The Guardian</i>: "Is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19?As habitat and biodiversity loss increase globally, the coronavirus outbreak may be just the beginning of mass pandemics." Scroll down for the link to the article.<br />
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Did any of you, when you first heard that the coronavirus was sourced from a live-animal market in China, have this fleeting thought: <i>What did we expect after centuries of treating animals cruelly? Did we think there would be no consequences? </i>Perhaps it’s time we look not only into the pathology of the coronavirus, but also into the morality of it.<br />
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We have always known there would be a day of reckoning. The <i>bad news</i> is that the final arbitrator might be Supreme Nature herself. The <i>good news</i> is that<b> the final arbitrator might be Supreme Nature</b> herself.<br />
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<b>In <i>Lesson Five</i> of </b><i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575767/the-eight-master-lessons-of-nature-by-gary-ferguson/" target="_blank"><b>The Eight Master Lessons of Nature</b> </a></i>(“Our Animal Cousins Make Us Happier—and Smarter”), author and good friend Gary Ferguson writes that “the very same science that’s helped us better appreciate the intelligence and range of feeling in many wild mammals is now suggesting that the animals we raise for food have also evolved with impressive levels of consciousness.”<br />
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The fact that Gary would even have to make this point is a reminder of how far we have wandered from our own animal natures. Thanks to writers like Gary, we may no longer be surprised to learn that elephants will honor the death of one who departs the herd (Gary gives us some beautiful examples of this), but most of us are surprised to learn that a herd of domestic cattle also pays homage to a member who has passed on. (To read the story of Ava, the cow pictured in the background with her dead calf and other herd mothers, please go to Autumn Wettner, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/steelstockranch" target="_blank">SteelStock Ranch, Facebook</a>).<br />
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I have had editors take a red pen to my sentences when I refer to animals as “one” or “who.” I have argued with editors who would insist that I refer to an animal as 'it' instead of 'she' or 'he.' <i>But she’s not an ‘it’! </i>I have exclaimed. <i>How can she be an ‘it’ when I am watching her give birth? </i><br />
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Why is it much easier to divert our attention away from our kinship with animals, than to embrace what it is they teach us about ourselves?<br />
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<b>In <i>Lesson Four </i>of <i>The Eight Master Lessons of Nature </i>(Healing the Planet, and Ourselves, Means Recovering the Feminine),</b> Gary explains, in story after story, how the vast majority of human cultures came to undervalue the feminine. “Again, nature has created a world where the success of elephants and wolves and lions and countless other species comes from a full expression of both sexes,” writes Gary. “The idea that one gender is more important than another is a human illusion— one that ignores the fact that nature is an expression of the balance between the two. Plain and simple, life thrives when the masculine and feminine are fully partnered.”<br />
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Women were not the only victims of this divisive paradigm. Men, too, became estranged from their own wisdom when they ceased to look to the feminine aspects of Nature for guidance.<br />
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Gary, who began leading <a href="https://wildwords.net/?page_id=176" target="_blank">outdoor wilderness retreats</a> for troubled teens in the 90s, openly talks about this in <i><b>Lesson Four.</b></i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSY8BQd2NtpeLrqc7slSLWFHv4nE3rc27asJ9Jl8iGbwySVMt4wukv1TN-TR4sEeWfvE0TkAeNxPqTPAN6qoj9fJtOSuRicY9niUJkTEuJJDeF8xQWmKGCqLxv4L4c7RgorTt7H9dvAFRj/s1600/Gary+Ferguson+Shouting+at+the+Sky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="980" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSY8BQd2NtpeLrqc7slSLWFHv4nE3rc27asJ9Jl8iGbwySVMt4wukv1TN-TR4sEeWfvE0TkAeNxPqTPAN6qoj9fJtOSuRicY9niUJkTEuJJDeF8xQWmKGCqLxv4L4c7RgorTt7H9dvAFRj/s400/Gary+Ferguson+Shouting+at+the+Sky.jpg" width="400" /></a>"It was only in my later teens, when I was really steeped in the natural world, actually seeing how these energies were entwined, that some of these earlier assumptions began to unravel, including, happily, many of the misguided conclusions I’d made about the value of the feminine in boys. In men. In me." (this photo was used in the cover art of Gary's book <i>Shouting at the Sky: Troubled Teens and the Promise of the Wild</i> )<br />
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Gary asks the reader, in the first lesson, to <b>embrace the mystery </b>of all that we do not know. He reminds us that, like Albert Einstein, Jane Goodall is "unwilling to explain life through truth and science alone. 'There’s so much mystery. There’s so much awe.'” In this audio sample from <i>The Eight Master Lessons of Nature, </i>Gary reads beautifully from this section<i> </i>(<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575767/the-eight-master-lessons-of-nature-by-gary-ferguson/" target="_blank">Penguin Random House)</a><br />
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<b>In what way, then, is Nature the Supreme Arbitrator? </b>What can we learn from Nature about humility, and diversity, and surviving disasters such as wildfires, or the coronavirus? What can we discover about the economy of Nature that will help us to better balance the vast resources of our earth? What can learning about the generosity of an elder tree that shares nutrients with younger trees teach us about honoring our own human elders? </div>
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In<i> <b>The Eight Master Lessons of Nature</b>, </i>Gary's<i> </i>call us to rekindle our connection with Nature. "It really is possible to mend our relationship to the world around us and, through that mending, release an intelligence millions of years in the making. The journey begins with eight lessons—each one a window into seeing both outward and inward at the same time, views that afford a very different reality than the one we settled for all those years ago."<br />
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If you would like to learn more about how to integrate these Master Lessons into your life, please take a moment to explore <b><a href="https://fullecology.com/" target="_blank">FULL ECOLOGY</a> </b>(retreats, workshops, conversations and keynotes) that Gary offers in partnership with his wife, Mary M. Clare, Ph.D. Blending biology, storytelling and social science, Gary and Mary are committed to helping us "reclaim our human nature."<br />
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NOTE: According
to <i>National Geographic's </i>editor: “On February 24, the Chinese government
moved to make permanent the temporary ban on the trade and consumption of live
wild animals for food. The Standing Committee of the National People’s
Congress, the country’s top legislative body, issued a decision that lays the
groundwork for amending China’s Wildlife Protection Law, which governs the use
of wildlife, to permanently criminalize wildlife as food. The decision further
stipulates that the trade of wild animals for medicine, pets, and scientific
research will be subject to “strict” approval and quarantine procedures.”<br />
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NOTE: <i>The Guardian</i>, John Vidal, March 19, 2020: "Tip of the iceberg: is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19?" <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/tip-of-the-iceberg-is-our-destruction-of-nature-responsible-for-covid-19-aoe" target="_blank">Read the article.</a>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-71282637210236861922020-01-31T20:26:00.004-07:002020-02-02T21:06:44.531-07:00Cummins' American Dirt and Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth: Can stories, even when they aren't our own, build bridges? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmb7HE0yZ-mDfdaz-4k_3VRSmfHT0gLuwzfSQ5N5PLWKL103ZYr89zcwzhpCtq8-vrW5yqPMiC78HJi9MRzojCLR-3BH7YpAEJbmiKQNrLE-Nhg7Bzps-y0qYbEsldybAhnPh0XahIsmrc/s1600/Jeanine+Cummins+SFGate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="735" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmb7HE0yZ-mDfdaz-4k_3VRSmfHT0gLuwzfSQ5N5PLWKL103ZYr89zcwzhpCtq8-vrW5yqPMiC78HJi9MRzojCLR-3BH7YpAEJbmiKQNrLE-Nhg7Bzps-y0qYbEsldybAhnPh0XahIsmrc/s320/Jeanine+Cummins+SFGate.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
Jeanine Cummins is on the hot seat right now for writing <i>American Dirt</i>, a novel about immigration and life on the Mexican/American border, which was (until a few days ago) believed to become one of the most important novels of 2020. Oprah named it a Book Club Choice. Stephen King endorsed it, as did Ann Patchett, John Grisholm, Sandra Cisneros, and other notable writers. <i>The New York Times</i> and Amazon gave it the #1 slot. Rumor has it that the publisher paid Cummins a 7-figure advance.<br />
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A few days ago, the dirt hit the fan for Cummins and Flatiron Books (an imprint of MacMillan). The book tour was cancelled. Oprah was unusually quiet for a few days, then <a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=oprah+american+dirt&&view=detail&mid=19C001D7770051E669DA19C001D7770051E669DA&&FORM=VDRVRV" target="_blank">posted a video</a> on her book club Instagram page allowing for an opportunity in March to discuss the controversy in more depth.<br />
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Suddenly, <i>American Dirt </i>was everywhere. And nowhere.<br />
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January 31st <i>Slate Magazine</i> published an <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2020/01/american-dirt-controversy-will-publishers-change.html" target="_blank">article by writer Laura Miller</a>, which discusses this question:<br />
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<i>Will the American Dirt Fiasco Change American Publishing? Editors inside the biggest houses discuss what went wrong—and whether they’ve learned lessons from the controversy.</i><br />
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What did go wrong?<br />
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Some suggest that if the publisher had presented the novel to the public as commercial fiction (much like <i>Where the Crawdads Sing</i>) rather than literary fiction, reviewer expectations would have been different.<br />
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"Where Cummins’ publisher went wrong," according to Laura Miller's <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2020/01/american-dirt-controversy-will-publishers-change.html" target="_blank"><i>Slate </i>article</a>, "was to present <i>American Dirt</i> as if it was also, in the senior editor’s words, 'a contribution to a vital understanding of this issue,' with the implied claim of representing the issue accurately rather than using it as a backdrop for an entertaining suspense story."<br />
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<i>So it’s a genre issue? The book was pitched to the public all wrong? </i><br />
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Cummins wrote that she wished that someone "slightly browner" had written the book, but no one had, so she did, with the hope that the book might become a bridge between cultures.<br />
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Do readers care? After the anger about cultural appropriation fades away, will the novel help the non-Latina reader, who was only interested in a good story, develop more empathy for Latinas in the throes of the immigration crisis? Can two-dimensional characters serve as a bridge of understanding about the lives of real people?<br />
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Must authors refrain from writing stories with characters whose life experiences are not their own because they fear the won’t “get it right?”<br />
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The controversy is not new. Conscientious writers cannot help but be haunted by this ethical dilemma. Should a male novelist write from a woman’s point of view? Should a woman novelist write from a man’s point of view? Can the rich write about the poor? Can the poor write about the rich? Dare we cross into unknown territory? Are the worlds we grew up loving, through the books we read long ago, no longer legitimate?<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Hypothetically, from whom should Pearl S. Buck have gotten permission before writing </span><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Good-Earth/Pearl-S-Buck/9781501132773" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank"><i>The Good Earth</i>? </a><span style="text-align: center;">What right did she, the daughter of white missionaries, have to try and depict the lives of Chinese peasants? </span><br />
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<i>How do authors know when a story is ours to tell? </i><br />
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Years ago, while living in Wyoming, I wrote an 1850 historical novel with a main character whose mother was an Oglala Lakota Sioux and whose father was a Scottish Highlander. Two years of intensive research preceded the writing of that novel. I visited the places where my characters lived. I sought out a Lakota advisor who helped with the language. A university professor of Native American studies, who was also an esteemed singer of a Lakota drum group, vetted the writing. My bookshelves were filled with volumes written by Native American experts of the 1800s. I lived in the cultural heartland of the people about whom I was writing. The trails I hiked may well have been the trails they walked.<br />
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But did any of this give me permission to write their stories?<br />
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At one point during the writing of that novel, I was deep in contemplation over the name of the Lakota grandmother. I heard a commotion outside and looked out the window of my small office in the log home we had built. My children and our dog (whose barking had gotten my attention) were in the oak draw beneath the barn, huddling over a large snapping turtle (unusual for our part of Wyoming).<br />
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I went outside and climbed down into the draw. Without thinking, I bent over and placed both hands around the turtle's shell, and abruptly lifted up the creature.<br />
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Its head reared back. Its jaws lurched open. It hissed. Loudly and ferociously, and very near my face. The kids stood back. The dog quit barking. I held her away (I sensed it was a female).<br />
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<i>How presumptuous of me to grab her! </i><br />
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I heard a voice. To say the voice was in my head minimizes the power of the words, which were clear and deliberate.<br />
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<i><b>You may write my story, but know who I am. I am Turtle Woman.</b></i><br />
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Everything changed after that moment. I listened more. I approached the story humbly. I wrote from the core of my own human experience. I wrote emotional truths as I knew them. I trusted that where I failed in factual details, I would succeed in emotional authenticity.<br />
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My understanding of the lives of Chinese peasants in the early 20th century may not be all-encompassing, but if love can build a bridge, then Pearl S. Buck surely did.<br />
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Though I was not yet a mother when I first read <i>The Good Earth</i>, the story became the fertile soil from which my own understanding of motherhood would grow. I can picture the land and hear the characters, even now....<br />
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<i>The sun beat down upon Wang Lung and his new wife, O-lan, for it was early summer. Moving together in perfect rhythm… turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods. </i><br />
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<i>The earth lay rich and dark, and fell apart lightly under the points of their hoes… </i><br />
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<i>Wang Lung looked at the woman. Her face was wet and streaked with earth. She was as brown as the very soil itself… Then in her usual plain way she said in the silent evening air, ‘I am with child.’</i><br />
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Perhaps the best we can do as writers when we question if we have the right to tell a story is to turn inward, where our own conscience dwells, and to ask if our characters live there too.<br />
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Do their hearts beat alongside ours?<br />
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Are we listening when they point us toward the truth?<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><i></i><i></i><i></i>Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-42803853829784854602019-12-23T12:46:00.003-07:002019-12-23T15:37:00.134-07:00The Gifts My Father Has Given<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ZCm3kST9ebjbSRUrANFItU8wPooCr3IH3_1SfIGvipcBGKoTAHHNILWLi4J4K98xBa-BVQI2zWit9Ukl9zpJrZmNFyVCzl73BnqEXoIVpsh2LkDlHPEdexT7AAl5C2N9wq4Bhlluhypd/s1600/Loren+%2526+Marta+Dunton001+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="706" data-original-width="905" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8ZCm3kST9ebjbSRUrANFItU8wPooCr3IH3_1SfIGvipcBGKoTAHHNILWLi4J4K98xBa-BVQI2zWit9Ukl9zpJrZmNFyVCzl73BnqEXoIVpsh2LkDlHPEdexT7AAl5C2N9wq4Bhlluhypd/s320/Loren+%2526+Marta+Dunton001+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
In my hands I held a hardback copy of <i>Jules Verne’s Classic Science Fiction</i>, torn airmail packaging scattered at my feet. The inscription: “To Matt, with love from Grandpa Loren, San Francisco.” <i>Why is my 75-year-old father sending my 9-year-old son a 511-page book? </i>The inappropriateness of the gift irritated me—a gift hurriedly bought with too little care given.<br />
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But perhaps it was unfair of me to expect my father to know what a boy of nine would like. Then I remembered that spring, when we had visited San Francisco. Dad had sprinted after a cable car, grabbing Matt’s hand and leaping aboard. Later he plucked a nickel off the street.<br />
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“Matt, look! When you put a coin on the track—the cable car almost cuts it in half!” I can still picture them standing there, heads bent in mutual admiration.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQW1eWJM9PReA1z4sS6WB62ZOnklqZ5OFf8XuHGnXW6f0GchfiTK07-X2aLGgRiVN8vmgY4OD6LlLvBdP8HGsiRjNRYk740feZz6lgU_NUWJ9AMQq9sVymZV1a7slM8BSozfHrfADGy5X/s1600/Black+Lab++%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQW1eWJM9PReA1z4sS6WB62ZOnklqZ5OFf8XuHGnXW6f0GchfiTK07-X2aLGgRiVN8vmgY4OD6LlLvBdP8HGsiRjNRYk740feZz6lgU_NUWJ9AMQq9sVymZV1a7slM8BSozfHrfADGy5X/s320/Black+Lab++%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a>Less irritated, I stared out the window at our dog Hondo, sleeping on the deck. He had been with us since he was eight weeks old. Gray hairs covered the muzzle of glossy black head, and the lids beneath his brown eyes drooped slightly. His huge Lab feet splayed when he walked, more gray hairs grew from between his pads. I thought of my father’s beard and how I had watched the streaks of gray widen until gray was all there was.<br />
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Freckles rested next to Hondo, her border collie fur ruffling in the breeze. Much of her puppy freckling had faded. I thought back to previous summer.<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Fourteen years represent a full life for a dog. Hondo’s moon had begun to wane, growing weaker with the setting of each sun. The time for a second dog had come, but it was with guilt that we brought Freckles home to the ranch. When she scrambled out of the truck, puppy legs trembling, Hondo was a perfect gentleman. He sniffed and she cowered. She whined and he licked. Tails wagged, and a friendship was born.<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKEHbAR3MgT-Evk_zqztNjkYNfUdFSNpKmqocM8hl4c9R6NZ1-Lyi32wgJSsjS6gANXyRO9dI3v4CJenZXDWBoSlJUvLqNO1fSDDFlMEZ4_CGjVZFRHQ3B7dMSUQKS5WgZWIsQlXNIR3zP/s1600/barn+spring+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKEHbAR3MgT-Evk_zqztNjkYNfUdFSNpKmqocM8hl4c9R6NZ1-Lyi32wgJSsjS6gANXyRO9dI3v4CJenZXDWBoSlJUvLqNO1fSDDFlMEZ4_CGjVZFRHQ3B7dMSUQKS5WgZWIsQlXNIR3zP/s320/barn+spring+2012.jpg" width="320" /></a>Down at the barn, Freckles watched Hondo, a gracious teacher, sit patiently while we saddled the horses. She sat down as well. The cats rubbed up against Hondo’s legs and Freckles learned not to chase cats. We rode out to check heifers, and Hondo trotted faithfully behind. Freckles learned that it was not all right to harass a cow or deer. Freckles grew lanky, and a new sprightliness came to Hondo’s step. Years fell away. We began throwing sticks for him again, and he fetched until his panting jaws could no longer hold the stick. Freckles never learned to love the game, but she cheered him on anyway. He was given a brief reprieve, a second wind.<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Then a hot summer day and too many miles traveled on dusty cow trails took their toll. Hondo collapsed by the corral. Soft coaxing and gentle stroking brought him around. Matt and Freckles looked on, watching him stagger to his feet and shake the dirt from his coat. Hondo drank deeply from the bucket by the house before climbing to the deck and taking up his post near the door. The next time we saddled the horses and rode out into the pasture, we locked him in the horse trailer. He peered through the wooden slats; his feelings hurt beyond comprehension.<br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
“It’s all right, old boy,” I had said, “we’ll be back.” But he had become deaf and did not hear me. After that we had continued to take him with us on our rides. His moon would wane, no matter how protective we were.<br />
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I remember setting the heavy volume of Julies Verne on the table and picking up the discarded packaging. Outside, a car had driven by on the gravel road. Freckles heard the car and stood, ears pricked forward. Hondo slept. Then Freckles barked, a quick and high-pitched sound—unlike the deep, chesty waring that had guarded our home for fourteen years. It was the noise of the car that finally awakened Hondo; Freckles high-pitched bark penetrating his increasing deafness. He lifted his head to look about and saw Freckles on duty, poised and ready. With a dep sign of resignation, he lowered his head onto his paws and closed his eyes.<br />
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I wanted to go outside and take Hondo’s gentle head in my hands look into his brown eyes and speak softly, letting him feel with his heart those things he could no longer hear me say. I wanted him to cling to my world a little longer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYlQnx63W5iYae0BT_bXUzHbr2dgl3Pg0LqHi0coQcUKAZqSx8xWFLNHQqkTwmspzUUmJ6RYVmY3vdibqd2i1CUm86y7Kp9S4WeiGSZ2ODXBUCL__k5NkfFPXhkvacsYz7Rh-GP-evefA9/s1600/LorenDunton1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="151" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYlQnx63W5iYae0BT_bXUzHbr2dgl3Pg0LqHi0coQcUKAZqSx8xWFLNHQqkTwmspzUUmJ6RYVmY3vdibqd2i1CUm86y7Kp9S4WeiGSZ2ODXBUCL__k5NkfFPXhkvacsYz7Rh-GP-evefA9/s320/LorenDunton1.gif" width="271" /></a></div>
Instead, I picked up the book and reread the inscription.<br />
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“To Matt, with love from Grandpa Loren.”<br />
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Suddenly the gift made sense. Fourteen years had separated Hondo and Freckles. Sixty-five years and a thousand miles had separated my father from his grandson. Only a few more years of gift-giving had stretched before him. He, too, counted the setting of each sun, watched the waning of his moon. Time did not allow him the luxury of sending only appropriate gifts. If in ten years Matt opened this book, ready to dive 20,000 leagues beneath the sea, it would be his grandfather’s words wishing him bon voyage.<br />
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Putting the heavy volume down softly on the table, I opened the door and walked out onto the deck. Hondo’s fur shone in the sunlight. He felt the vibrations of my steps and his tail began to move slowly, back and forth.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrAXuu7gjYNkdmmhxlq_poLsbIqVqP7oZjvPBJMj_DdVFyWj7A0_OYOLdKTBkWAUclxpCK3suFoFJz5ZskxVzM_gSC6KKbtPJ-s687mIqgT2Wd3xeFayXl9rEONY61PPqITcFqKnUWdiS/s1600/College+for+Financial+Planning+50th+-+speaking+.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrAXuu7gjYNkdmmhxlq_poLsbIqVqP7oZjvPBJMj_DdVFyWj7A0_OYOLdKTBkWAUclxpCK3suFoFJz5ZskxVzM_gSC6KKbtPJ-s687mIqgT2Wd3xeFayXl9rEONY61PPqITcFqKnUWdiS/s320/College+for+Financial+Planning+50th+-+speaking+.jpeg" width="296" /></a></div>
<i>Post Script: My son is 35 years old now, and though he has not yet journeyed 20,000 leagues beneath the sea, he does fly 20,000 feet up into the wild blue sky. My father and Hondo have long since passed on, but last week my father was honored at the 50th Anniversary of the College for Financial Planning in Chicago. The board chair flew me, as t</i><i>he daughter of Loren Dunton, founder of the College and Father of Financial Planning,</i><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>to Chicago as their guest of honor for the black-tie gala event. In this photo I am speaking about my father and the passion that always fueled his visions. This Christmas seems like an appropriate time to share "Gifts," the story above (first published in my memoir In Search of Kinship, later reprinted elsewhere, including Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul. P.S.S. A note about the photo of the black lab: although the photo above is not a photo of Hondo, the same love and devotion shines through. </i><br />
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<br />Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-85702905397689191652019-11-28T15:28:00.005-07:002019-11-28T17:56:11.749-07:00The Kindness of Mister Rogers, The Wonder of Nature <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0v9pOJkitfUnoWpJQI9ys5mjJNTFt9HAYJ9GEXcpeTktOOL6I7n8xWfck6T3W5Ki-SENpX3N-5Gi8plKAX-M7m3jodmRMTMYoda4HVOIU0xHVcWGIxk-jyLiA_HTdYXru0awrEPsHze-5/s1600/Mr.+Rogers+Kindness+and+Wonder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0v9pOJkitfUnoWpJQI9ys5mjJNTFt9HAYJ9GEXcpeTktOOL6I7n8xWfck6T3W5Ki-SENpX3N-5Gi8plKAX-M7m3jodmRMTMYoda4HVOIU0xHVcWGIxk-jyLiA_HTdYXru0awrEPsHze-5/s320/Mr.+Rogers+Kindness+and+Wonder.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
I was only a little surprised when I read in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/11/27/what-happened-when-i-showed-vintage-mister-rogers-my-st-century-kids/" target="_blank">Mary Pflum Peterson's piece</a> in <i>The Washington Post</i> that her 21st century kids liked, <i>really liked,</i> the original Mister Rogers. So much, in fact, that they binge-watched all the old episodes with her.<br />
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"He likes kids, Mommy,” her daughter said. “Kids know when a grown-up likes them.”<br />
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But it was her youngest son's comment that got my attention. </div>
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“And he’s not too loud,” her son added. “When we watch him, there’s no noise. You don’t have to worry about anything.”</div>
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Our modern world is, most often, a noisy place. Which is not the same as being <i>filled with sound. </i>And for Peterson's son, noise is worrisome. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-WqsgUxl5us9a_NfoyRkGOL2aii_68CXD9nOOB7OwoH1E4FCLdexoQ-tz0ZNW8Blxqb_HTEjBU1tOfhiE_-tHiWD0aYHZ_87tjMDY8JUzE-HUiATdKFgCnL6wvO4e8dCnpNv5wRDzIFGt/s1600/Thanksgiving+morning+2019+1+John+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-WqsgUxl5us9a_NfoyRkGOL2aii_68CXD9nOOB7OwoH1E4FCLdexoQ-tz0ZNW8Blxqb_HTEjBU1tOfhiE_-tHiWD0aYHZ_87tjMDY8JUzE-HUiATdKFgCnL6wvO4e8dCnpNv5wRDzIFGt/s320/Thanksgiving+morning+2019+1+John+4.jpg" width="320" /></a>We live on the edge of a forest, and rarely is the forest silent. Fall is filled with the sounds of chickadees caching their winter supply of seeds and insects, black Abert's squirrels trying to outrun the red fox squirrels, crows warning away intruders. </div>
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As I sit here in the quiet stillness of our log home, snow is sliding from the boughs of the ponderosas in great loud thumps as the sun warms the branches. Earlier, on this Thanksgiving morning before the sun had fully risen, a few of our neighborhood's bull elk wandered through the deep snow in our backyard, pausing to gnaw tree bark before shaking their massive heads at each other, rattling their antlers half-heartedly now that the rut was over. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qP8cdd_tadovYdYH2ffC_AYQ2J6j37ImcDY1esxGzJJcrDnr4BkeJ_fZyQfhwV22ofeO0tfLFh0QyTQRS_ED_Cf8pSi_afHAHH8yi-LnIGJ3BHmWkyNqDCAKU30Oug330LXHun5nhgYq/s1600/Carly+with+deer+shed+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="729" data-original-width="590" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qP8cdd_tadovYdYH2ffC_AYQ2J6j37ImcDY1esxGzJJcrDnr4BkeJ_fZyQfhwV22ofeO0tfLFh0QyTQRS_ED_Cf8pSi_afHAHH8yi-LnIGJ3BHmWkyNqDCAKU30Oug330LXHun5nhgYq/s320/Carly+with+deer+shed+%25282%2529.jpg" width="257" /></a>The rattle of antlers when bulls challenge each other is a primal sound, sharp and percussive as the air vibrates through the woods. Two bulls vying for dominance. But noisy? Worrisome? No. Not like the political noise now coming from our once hallowed halls of Congress. </div>
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Here is a photo of my granddaughter Carly taken a few years ago when she was hiking in the Montana woods with her mother. Each step brought new wonders, like when she happened upon this deer shed waiting quietly to be discovered. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisG3nEuhtEBYYmsXUEXUKc7NlA7UmseCqVahz2qdTC9wtAxXXtMylTlDrIGuP8pUv-HTJmFjY2uPTiNmL2ykFnq2CYYY8__AOZdKz5fgLPk8JRJ99-aY_xJuodUendzBhBDs3iPaNGkb3f/s1600/Jayde+Sept+2018+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="728" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisG3nEuhtEBYYmsXUEXUKc7NlA7UmseCqVahz2qdTC9wtAxXXtMylTlDrIGuP8pUv-HTJmFjY2uPTiNmL2ykFnq2CYYY8__AOZdKz5fgLPk8JRJ99-aY_xJuodUendzBhBDs3iPaNGkb3f/s320/Jayde+Sept+2018+%25282%2529.jpg" width="291" /></a>And here is a photo of my granddaughter Jayde, the soft silence between her and her horse unfolding as quietly as the promise of a story waiting to be discovered between the covers of a book. </div>
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Perhaps of all the gifts we can give our children, the gift of a few moments free of noise and worry is the most precious gift of all. Think of what an hour of wondrous silence might mean to them? Think of the spaciousness that would open up in their day, inviting the sounds of nature and their own quiet contemplations to enter.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9l-ikS-BrrDyTL_CVqtetLMPREtJAUVre9KKC7T9haJtd9UkayZCT7p_2U5ThHWpFkZP5xng2jSny4GlOn_qmVM48Xk9XHzE6eEPdmGzdB6cHMUY6kKrcKueCkYHLF5okWTdfbqB18u2I/s1600/Easter+2019+Jayde+and+Carly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9l-ikS-BrrDyTL_CVqtetLMPREtJAUVre9KKC7T9haJtd9UkayZCT7p_2U5ThHWpFkZP5xng2jSny4GlOn_qmVM48Xk9XHzE6eEPdmGzdB6cHMUY6kKrcKueCkYHLF5okWTdfbqB18u2I/s320/Easter+2019+Jayde+and+Carly.jpg" width="240" /></a>It's not surprising that the youngest son of Mary Pflum Peterson was drawn into the quiet spaces that Mister Rogers carved out of each day's noise for all the children who entered his gracious world.<br />
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We were reminded once by Mister Rogers that "Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence." He believed that "we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives."<br />
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I am grateful that my granddaughers find the world to be a wondrous place. I am grateful that their parents can sit silently with them outside, listening to the sounds of nature. I am grateful that they understand that the world will speak to us, if only we remember to be quiet and listen.<br />
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Blessings to all of you on this day of thanksgiving.<br />
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NOTE: Author Gavin Edwards reminds us in his new book <i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062950741/kindness-and-wonder/" target="_blank">Kindness and Wonder</a></i> (featured above) that Mister Rogers matters now, more than ever.</div>
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Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-49556924805936683242019-10-31T16:24:00.002-06:002019-10-31T16:24:42.350-06:00Isn’t that the whole freaking point of fiction? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80gc0h6LXHKDBSdaU_p6kk9uu4cjpjPkS1BiiNm-fvLH8CSbX0zYYyZIzPn0Y_XrnksipEuduxGHLyde0ey7fJLwhx3HfBHZzbsWFWAao9k_tUnAZj6xBUKznKFkGdpM6OwGY7QrYDjer/s1600/BookExpo19-Show-Floor-Exhibitor-Penguin-Random-House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="1600" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80gc0h6LXHKDBSdaU_p6kk9uu4cjpjPkS1BiiNm-fvLH8CSbX0zYYyZIzPn0Y_XrnksipEuduxGHLyde0ey7fJLwhx3HfBHZzbsWFWAao9k_tUnAZj6xBUKznKFkGdpM6OwGY7QrYDjer/s320/BookExpo19-Show-Floor-Exhibitor-Penguin-Random-House.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
If you read fiction, chances are you’re drawn now, more than ever, to stories that help you escape today’s polarizing politics. Nostalgic stories. Futuristic stories. Stories that draw you into worlds other than your own.<br />
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Penguin Random House editor Sally Kim, during a panel in New York City at this year’s <a href="https://www.bookexpoamerica.com/" target="_blank">BookExpo</a> (the industry’s mega trade event), suggested to the audience that readers are urgently craving perspectives that are <i>not</i> their own.<br />
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“Which, of course,” she said, “is the whole freaking point of fiction.”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihmmDvy67v4lxq8jsg3qqsL3FT-okp3mWHUTIXTuCwgqMreX031rQ4AaLw29BpwGG3baJGG018dK-koRW5F6CtkIDJ3PI_fu0U6LX_fE9yTOzSiPXjG-6u7S3kEDmwfrmrSySGo-ZuaIPn/s1600/War+and+Peace+-+Leo+Tolstoy+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihmmDvy67v4lxq8jsg3qqsL3FT-okp3mWHUTIXTuCwgqMreX031rQ4AaLw29BpwGG3baJGG018dK-koRW5F6CtkIDJ3PI_fu0U6LX_fE9yTOzSiPXjG-6u7S3kEDmwfrmrSySGo-ZuaIPn/s320/War+and+Peace+-+Leo+Tolstoy+cover.jpg" width="200" /></a>So why is it so hard for us, when it comes to politics, to lift the cloak of opinion from our own back and crawl inside someone else’s skin—just for a minute?<br />
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We do it all the time when we read fiction—we jump from one character’s point of view to another’s without batting an eye. We lose ourselves in a scene where the author takes us deep inside the heroine’s innermost desires, and them<i>—bam—</i>we’re taken inside the mind of the man who’s about to break her heart, and we understand his reasons for it. Perhaps we even like the guy.<br />
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“I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression,” wrote Russian writer Leo Tolstoy more than a century ago, “when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.”<br />
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The narrative point of view in one of the most famous of all the world’s novels, Tolstoy’s <i>War and Peace</i>, tells the story of the French invasion of Russia through the lives of five aristocratic families. Tolstoy hesitated to call the book a novel because it is also a philosophical exploration. The cast of characters is extravagant, as are their immense and often conflicting perspectives.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMewDEwfRgCECXe7jUBSY3rG4BOMYV3wnBKxTIsSB1fxooapnoLqABn8QURtjC9Xd3ecepnMyXfZuViEt0RCh1mec5nPU6fA0IOIRhx7jmy2n12NbiqbwUpq0peg-bB2b5VqmgYJbpaM9x/s1600/War+and+Peace+BBC+mini-series.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1600" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMewDEwfRgCECXe7jUBSY3rG4BOMYV3wnBKxTIsSB1fxooapnoLqABn8QURtjC9Xd3ecepnMyXfZuViEt0RCh1mec5nPU6fA0IOIRhx7jmy2n12NbiqbwUpq0peg-bB2b5VqmgYJbpaM9x/s320/War+and+Peace+BBC+mini-series.png" width="320" /></a><br />
Surely modern-day Putin has read the world’s most famous Russian writer? Makes one wonder what novels, <i>if any,</i> are on the nightstands of the leaders of the world.<br />
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Tolstoy brought a new consciousness to the novel through <i>War and Peace</i> because he gave the reader not only that omniscient, god-like view of the world, but he also invited the reader inside the hearts of his characters. He made the world question what they thought they knew to be true.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb_Gzn00r5Oycvv-uzDZpIdNPwyRYMnX2E72rSvr-ubYW863vHmLGvGCj5zkkiVLNLQFHI_ZR8ezrLkGuvn-QMCJsoIgUJhSe8OyX9AOSYCTzhcDscqu-gbEvXMLTbW5FkfNBJyd30arpm/s1600/Anna+Karenina+-+Ovrelia+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb_Gzn00r5Oycvv-uzDZpIdNPwyRYMnX2E72rSvr-ubYW863vHmLGvGCj5zkkiVLNLQFHI_ZR8ezrLkGuvn-QMCJsoIgUJhSe8OyX9AOSYCTzhcDscqu-gbEvXMLTbW5FkfNBJyd30arpm/s320/Anna+Karenina+-+Ovrelia+cover.jpg" width="240" /></a>This is the power of fiction in skilled hands. This is the power of walking in someone else’s shoes—even if only for a moment—even if only for ten minutes standing in line for coffee. Curiosity is a healthy place for the human mind to dwell. Especially when coupled with humility.<br />
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“The only thing that we know,” Tolstoy wrote, “is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.”<br />
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To admit our ignorance, then, is to give ourselves wings. Sadly, many of our politicians, even those with good hearts and noble ideals, are flying low to the ground.<br />
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Perhaps it is human nature to prefer familiar landscapes. Where we know the lay of the land, the places where like-minded friends hang out. Where the daily specials are the same, week after week.<br />
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But what about the fun in discovering that you like hot pastrami on holidays even more than turkey? What about the thrill of the unknown? What about those wings?<br />
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The view from the sky is the god-view. Tolstoy knew that. Yet it was the journey into the heart of Anna Karenina that led him to discover more intimately what it meant to be human.<br />
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“I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”<br />
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And so we must, if we are ever to find peace in the face of war, look into each other's eyes and listen with our hearts. Lest all the novels of the world turn to ash, and the last phoenix has fled.<br />
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Note: Thank you to publishing guru Jane Friedman for bringing my attention to the quote from Sally Kim. Read <a href="https://www.janefriedman.com/current-trends-book-publishing/?utm_source=Jane+Friedman+%2F+Electric+Speed&utm_campaign=9e6201d2b2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_30_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b84a4334ba-9e6201d2b2-209224513" target="_blank">more of Jane Friedman's take-away</a> from BookExpo 2019. Thank you to photographer <a href="https://garycaskey.zenfolio.com/" target="_blank">Gary Caskey</a> for the photo of the Wyoming eagle.<br />
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Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-90837963055195303822019-09-04T17:48:00.000-06:002019-09-04T17:48:14.874-06:00On the road again!!<i>Nature & Words </i>is on a summer sabatical, which is to say that I just "got off the river" after my 22nd annual "River Writing Journey for Women," which featured renowned sculptor Roxanne Swentzell as my featured artist, 21 other amazing women, an ancient canyon, a river following an ancient bed to the sea, and .... <div>
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Now I'm on the road again, heading to New Mexico with my husband John Gritts to lead our 7-day, "Santa Fe & Taos Sojourn: Sacred Lands, Sacred Art, Sacred Words" retreat.</div>
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Wishing you safe travels if you're on the road, and sequestered moments of creativity if you're close to home.</div>
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Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-54652286910265273202019-07-30T10:53:00.000-06:002019-07-31T19:19:12.292-06:00Honoring N. Scott Momaday, Honoring Our Ancestors<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0gx_a1GBAw7DLgnR79V4zYV2LP-hyhl1A2ub3OOZHziXwlFrCjxJpG1CumyZc7KGFkpMPkbvV1aHBO3RRCpf5x1JfV5hJrotzWkD5TC0elOP6x-xxgeAT6HtNmh9BUe9j5pF4T8SamtZr/s1600/Ken+Burns+American+Heritage+Prize.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="1407" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0gx_a1GBAw7DLgnR79V4zYV2LP-hyhl1A2ub3OOZHziXwlFrCjxJpG1CumyZc7KGFkpMPkbvV1aHBO3RRCpf5x1JfV5hJrotzWkD5TC0elOP6x-xxgeAT6HtNmh9BUe9j5pF4T8SamtZr/s320/Ken+Burns+American+Heritage+Prize.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>NEW YORK, NY — Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet,
playwright, and professor N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D., accepted the <a href="https://www.americanprairie.org/ken-burns-american-heritage-prize-2019" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">2019 Ken BurnsAmerican Heritage Prize</span></b></a> at an event held at the American Museum of Natural
History. May 2019. </i></div>
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Last week my daughter Sarah, visiting from Oklahoma, took
home with her a chest filled with her great-grandmother’s antique grape-patterned
silverware, and a portrait of her great-grandmother taken when she was a young
newlywed. An antique pewter broach from this same great-grandmother
had been the center piece of my daughter’s wedding bouquet. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-GiPfaw50GdLn7YtXPDSgrgVMe6IpjJNRHQ5sK3PTgSxQpHTlb7gEojGMoGeYlSeHMXLPJgZSxVYmW3qLBRZXAkvsvrfGVkKxoF4EbNtu-_ynv9sWWKJgQbHXZ_CGWD5uGbh3_pOSjDo/s1600/bouquet+with+GraGra%2527s+pewter+broach+-+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1600" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-GiPfaw50GdLn7YtXPDSgrgVMe6IpjJNRHQ5sK3PTgSxQpHTlb7gEojGMoGeYlSeHMXLPJgZSxVYmW3qLBRZXAkvsvrfGVkKxoF4EbNtu-_ynv9sWWKJgQbHXZ_CGWD5uGbh3_pOSjDo/s320/bouquet+with+GraGra%2527s+pewter+broach+-+cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a>While organizing the silver, I shared a few family stories
with Sarah. “Could you write them down, Mom?” she asked. She wanted to share
the stories with her daughters when they were older. I printed out a chapter I had
written for <i>The Light Shines from the West, </i>a book on the rural American West<i>, </i>which included this story:<o:p></o:p></div>
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"As a young woman, my Missouri-born grandmother knew both
physical isolation and sensory deprivation. Tragically orphaned at the age of
twelve, around 1899 she was sent by train from Bolivar, Missouri to California
to live with a distant aunt. According to family history, six years later
(deafened by a careless doctor who accidentally poured acid in her ears), she
was married off to the 'black sheep' of two brothers who lived in the Los
Angeles basin. She found herself living as a young, deaf bride in one of the
most rural and isolated places in the West—California’s Mojave Desert."<o:p></o:p></div>
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My grandmother died before my daughter was born. Sarah has
no memories to call her own, but the young woman in the portrait, her great-grandmother, bears a
striking resemblance to Sarah's own daughter, my grandchild. When I was wrapping the portrait for
Sarah to take back to Oklahoma, I remembered the day when my mother had given
me the portrait, and the grape-patterned silver, to take with me to my new ranch home in Wyoming. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A few days after Sarah returned to Oklahoma, I sat down with
a copy of N. Scott Momaday’s classic book, <i><a href="https://unmpress.com/books/way-rainy-mountain/9780826361219" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Way to Rainy Mountain</span></b>.</a> </i>The
small family ranch in Wyoming where Sarah grew up is only 27 miles from Devils Tower National Monument, a place sacred to Dr. Momaday and his Kiowa people. In
the book, he refers to his ancestors’ migration (from the headwaters of the
Yellowstone River in Montana, to Wyoming and Devils Tower, and then eastward
through the Black Hills and eventually to Oklahoma), as a great “going forth into
the heart of the continent.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the Introduction of <i>The Way to Rainy Mountain</i>, Dr.
Momaday tells the story of being at his grandmother’s grave. “When she was
born,” he writes, “… the Kiowa and the Comanche ruled the southern Plains.” Their migration in
the late seventeenth century “was a journey toward the dawn.” But he also
writes of their decline, of his people’s fragile living memory.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrXmKHppgvcv4YzhFf1d3LJCU07xDQdDhEaKSjogGom4M0hv96F_x9WwKKjOAq0ylWplq9dkFGWCJ0pwUmueIM-E93s36In4ROixW3FmAf5wtk0PwiCYlmSG0-sMpaHkSQiWx7fswWJSjv/s1600/Jill+Momaday+Return+to+Rainy+Mountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="807" data-original-width="1600" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrXmKHppgvcv4YzhFf1d3LJCU07xDQdDhEaKSjogGom4M0hv96F_x9WwKKjOAq0ylWplq9dkFGWCJ0pwUmueIM-E93s36In4ROixW3FmAf5wtk0PwiCYlmSG0-sMpaHkSQiWx7fswWJSjv/s320/Jill+Momaday+Return+to+Rainy+Mountain.jpg" width="320" /></a>The last time my husband John and I saw Dr. Momaday, and his
daughter <a href="http://returntorainymountain.com/Jill_Momaday_Gray.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Jill Momaday Gray</span></b></a>, was last year during Indian Market in Santa Fe. They were
both featured speakers, the outdoor event was standing room only, and a storm
was brewing. Rain clouds passed overhead and when Dr. Momaday spoke, <a href="http://returntorainymountain.com/film.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>his sonorous voice</b></span></a> was thunderous and awe-inspiring. His daughter Jill was beautiful,
gracious and engaging. She spoke briefly about directing the feature length
documentary, <b><i><a href="http://returntorainymountain.com/film.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b45f06;">Return to Rainy Mountain</span></a></i>,</b> a film which tells about a
journey she and her father took to retrace the sacred journey of the Kiowa
people, and the 1500-mile pilgrimage her father had taken as a young man.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When Dr. Momaday arrived in Wyoming as their ancestors had more
than two hundred years earlier, he wrote, “A dark mist lay over the Black
Hills, and the land was like iron. At the top of a ridge I caught sight of Devil’s
Tower upthrust against the gray sky as if in the birth of time the core of the
earth had broken through its crust and the motion of the world was begun. There
are things in nature that engender an awful quiet in the heart of man; <a href="https://www.nps.gov/deto/index.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>Devil’sTower</b></span></a> is one of them.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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If you have ever been in the powerful presence of N. Scott
Momaday, then you understand that he also engenders an awe inspiring <i>quiet
in the heart</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Reading the stories of his grandmother cracked open my own
memories. His sonorous voice seemed to fill every page, and stories of my grandmother
came alive. I remembered her telling me that life in the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/moja/index.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>Mojave Desert</b> </span></a>where
she lived as a young deaf bride was not lonely because she had the company of a
few Mojave women, “those who had refused to go to the reservation.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I knew when I saw dust in the distance,” she wrote, “that
it was someone coming to our place, for there was no place else to go.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mr. Momaday tells us that his memories of his grandmother
are visual - he envisions her standing at the wood stove on a winter morning,
or he pictures her dark hands folded in prayer, or her long black hair at night,
“always drawn and braided in the day, laying upon her shoulders and against her
breasts like a shawl.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I remember my grandmother’s pewter broach laying on a mirrored
tray on her vanity. I remember the pewter handled, boar’s bristle hairbrush she
used every night, how she would undo the pins holding her coiled bun, and her
silver hair would cascade over her shoulders. I remember how she would kiss me goodnight
before laying her hearing aids on the tray next to the brush, retreating into
the silence of her world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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These stories—the stories of our ancestors—wait patiently
for us in their own silent realm. The veil that separates us is a thin one,
easily lifted away by our curious yearning to know more. Whenever I am tempted
to look elsewhere toward someone else's legends, I remember that the stories bequeathed to
me have their own sacred mythology. </div>
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I am grateful to Dr. Momaday and Jill for sharing
their own journeys, and for the wise reminder that all ancestors have journeys
to share. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>NOTES: </i> A few days ago, Jill Momaday emailed me with the news that this
August, during Indian Market in Santa Fe, the National Museum of the American
Indian will be hosting the film <i>N. Scott Momaday: <a href="https://www.visionmakermedia.org/films/words-bear" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Words from a Bear</span></b></a></i><a href="https://www.visionmakermedia.org/films/words-bear" target="_blank">. </a>In
October, Jill Momaday’s production <i><a href="http://returntorainymountain.com/film.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>Return to Rainy Mountain</b></span></a> </i>will be
featured during the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival. “I am so happy that
both films will be broadcast on PBS in November,” Jill said. <i>Click the link to watch the trailer. </i></div>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-64100790377852645742019-06-30T22:58:00.004-06:002019-07-01T08:35:06.769-06:00On the River with Joy Harjo, Our New U.S. Poet Laureate<br />
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When women gather at the river, something rather wonderful
happens. Like eagles, we have been gathering at the river for
thousands of years. To bathe our children. To wash our clothes. To gather water
for drinking, for ceremony, for cleansing. Even, like the eagles, to catch the
fish we will feed our families.<br />
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Six years ago, 18 of us gathered on the Colorado River with
Joy Harjo. We laughed. We bathed. We danced. We wrote in our journals. We
asked, "How do we know when a story ends?"<br />
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In "Eagle Poem," Joy writes about eagles that soar
over rivers, sweeping our hearts clean with sacred wings. She writes about the
eagles that "round out the morning" in each of us.<br />
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On Day 2 of the river trip, we hiked to the top of a steep
rim above the river. "Rocks calm me," I wrote in my journal,
"because of their stillness. The wind is speaking a gentle language,
whispers...." Joy sat on the edge of the rim with her flute, her notes rounding out the morning as they soared over the river.<br />
<br />
On Day 3, we watched an early morning wake of turkey
vultures perched atop old creosote poles ten feet in the air, their wings spread wide. Each, in identical fashion, faced east as if in prayer. A wildlife biologist would tell you that they were actually drying the damp morning dew from their sleek black feathers, but sometimes the truth reaches farther than we can see.<br />
<br />
After the vultures, we climbed out of our rafts and walked to a massive red rock grotto, where
we sat encased in silence within the curved walls. The clear notes of Joy's flute broke the silence, rising from the floor of the grotto more than a hundred feet up, over the rim and into the wide expanse of sky above us. A black raven answered and we listened for several minutes to a duet - Joy and her magical flute, the raven and her ancient song. As Joy's breath became the air in which
the raven flew, the raven's wings became the resounding beat of all our hearts.<br />
<br />
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In her memoir <i>Crazy Brave</i>, Joy writes, “Once I was so small I could
barely see over the top of the back seat of the black Cadillac my father bought
with his Indian oil money…This was about the time I acquired language, when
something happened that changed my relationship to the spin of the world.”<br />
<br />
Our first night on the river, Joy talked about the story
matrix and the idea that we are all living within a grand story. Later, we
asked ourselves, “What is our relationship to the spin of the world?”<br />
<br />
Eleven days ago, on a much grander scale, something else rather wonderful happened, and the literary world is spinning with the news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Library of Congress announced that the
next U.S. Poet Laureate would be a Native American woman, Joy Harjo, a member of the Mvskoki (Creek)
Nation.<br />
<br />
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It is not remarkable that a poet and musician who has risen
to such national acclaim would receive this honor, but it is a cause for
celebration to know that a Native voice such as Joy’s will be given this
elevated platform to share her stories and music.<br />
<br />
In "Eagle Poem," Joy also writes "That we
must take the utmost care/And kindness in all things."<br />
<br />
<i>How do we do this? </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
On the river, when we asked each other how we, as writers, know when a story ends, we spoke about the sacred moment that opens, allowing the space for a story to be told. We talked about the moment when that space closes and encircles us. "It's like sitting in
the beauty of that dark place, like being in God's eye. That's when you know."<br />
<br />
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Perhaps Joy's poetry, the music that she brings to the
world, the Native perspective that gives birth to her art, perhaps this will lead us
closer to understanding what it means to <i>take the utmost care, to have kindness
in all things.</i><br />
<br />
But the story has not ended. We are only circling back to its
beginning, which might be the path that will lead us to a more hopeful ending. Perhaps, in a hundred or a thousand years, we will better understand our relationship to the spin of the world.<br />
<br />
Notes: Read more about Joy Harjo <a href="http://joyharjo.com/" target="_blank">on her website. </a> Read about Joy Harjo's appointment as first Native U.S. Poet Laureate <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joy-harjo-named-poet-laureate_n_5d0a2b7ee4b06ad4d25940c0" target="_blank">on Huffington Post</a> and watch video. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joy-harjo-named-poet-laureate_n_5d0a2b7ee4b06ad4d25940c0?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGRlX00ZMlDcrasMmgrihJf4bQ8sqmNG-PnAcuXilh4VkurQayMDj-etrJMKO95V1NsVgHlRb6n1U-6Ya3-yvRJCC25Ka2Gwe0kfYI96nXRb3z8Dl9J_SBMpfQcks1sVoMeKnV2MYfWR4SkyavqIR0pSgeKX8uYFGnYFdIXNnJTj" target="_blank">Listen to Joy read "Eagle Poem.</a>"Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-90655573260603054552019-05-20T09:57:00.000-06:002019-05-20T11:13:04.584-06:00Breaking Bread: Sapiens and the Three Daughters of Eve <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrhnXBOQUCWP2C-NGPITQjfK9nYyxiQXt4invP2gzk8yIkLNysU6F_Zv8Skl-wqjaRi2yZM70_ZnH4avpd_lfaRdGjhXbsgypgj43aPEJtLhkR0-dzA9zBBMeI6eU7xmgV1ndAFo6vYRdN/s1600/Three+Daughters+of+Eve+Elif+Shafak+promo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="786" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrhnXBOQUCWP2C-NGPITQjfK9nYyxiQXt4invP2gzk8yIkLNysU6F_Zv8Skl-wqjaRi2yZM70_ZnH4avpd_lfaRdGjhXbsgypgj43aPEJtLhkR0-dzA9zBBMeI6eU7xmgV1ndAFo6vYRdN/s320/Three+Daughters+of+Eve+Elif+Shafak+promo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<b>Hidden beneath the enthusiasm most
writers profess for writing</b>, is an underlying belief that what we do does not
matter. Not really. Not in the larger scope of things. Think of what else we
could be doing with our time? Things with tangible results that others not only
appreciate, but <i>yea gads</i>, might even pay us to do!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
When I first encountered Yuval Noah
Harari’s book, <a href="https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens/" target="_blank">SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND</a>, it was obvious that the
Israel author and professor had hit the motherlode. By 2018, Sapiens had sold
over 10 million copies, and had been published in 50 different languages. His
agent has probably paid off his mortgage on speaking fees alone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRBjWoiILKM1NwvpVbVH_CT71uJDWK13HHSCTYlEi1jX4eAF80qHE7RLim3WyanMqhWEnGc-uGLydPdnXwoxjalmB1D5Pv_pz3ZApFPxiKOojGg8cRdx1SqjL25JM0ZSudmgbnyXYam6sB/s1600/Sapiens+by+Yuval+Noah+Harari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRBjWoiILKM1NwvpVbVH_CT71uJDWK13HHSCTYlEi1jX4eAF80qHE7RLim3WyanMqhWEnGc-uGLydPdnXwoxjalmB1D5Pv_pz3ZApFPxiKOojGg8cRdx1SqjL25JM0ZSudmgbnyXYam6sB/s320/Sapiens+by+Yuval+Noah+Harari.jpg" width="201" /></a>What was the draw? According to Harari, 70,000
years ago, our human ancestors were insignificant animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our impact on the world was not much greater
than jelly fish or woodpeckers. Yet modern human beings want to believe that we
are special—that our bodies, minds, and hearts are unique in the animal
kingdom. We want to believe that we do, indeed, have souls. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Is this the burning question that
keeps millions of readers turning the pages of this massive tomb?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Harari teaches that our abilities,
when considered in isolation compared to the abilities of other animals (a
chimpanzee for instance), are not that remarkable. Alone, on a deserted island,
the chimpanzee would fare much better than the solitary human. Yet somehow, we
have managed in the last 70,000 years to rule the world—or at least, to
dominate all other species.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Why? Because, according to Harari,
we learned to cooperate. But how did we learn to do this?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEp7Q50BppN-dheTSknNnqkEPTT9psuA4OFEs220ZllMcPja8FnEXw3CKw6wFSc-FzPcV-Mj3av_zoiSwjy5Jg8S4NAkhGEpNTjzl4UgvOd3a6_073ubpZY27Vgmad7xiNdP8l9p5ArP-A/s1600/Sapiens+Yuval+Noah+Harari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="1439" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEp7Q50BppN-dheTSknNnqkEPTT9psuA4OFEs220ZllMcPja8FnEXw3CKw6wFSc-FzPcV-Mj3av_zoiSwjy5Jg8S4NAkhGEpNTjzl4UgvOd3a6_073ubpZY27Vgmad7xiNdP8l9p5ArP-A/s320/Sapiens+Yuval+Noah+Harari.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“The answer is imagination,” writes
Harari. “We alone, of all the other animals on the planet, can cooperate
flexibly because, of all others, we alone can create and believe fictional
stories.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
I jumped when I read this.
<i>Affirmation! </i>What we writers do <i>does </i>matter! We create fiction for the world,
novels and poetry and memoirs! Language is our tool—our shining sword to wield,
the magic wand with which we transform the world! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Harari, who holds an Oxford
doctorate, is more professorial in his explanation. He tells us that language,
in partnership with our imagination, allows us to share information across vast
distances. We not only can create fictional stories, but these fictional
stories can become collective beliefs, uniting humans through myth though we may
be separated by thousands of miles. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
This works, of course, to our
advantage—and to our disadvantage. The power of myth is a double-edged sword.
Last night, over 10 million viewers, spread across vast distances, collectively
watched the final episode of Game of Thrones. I won’t tell you how many
millions, last night, bothered to read Trump’s tweets. Let’s not go there. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioytXkcvs5dY-b6CruAa1eKL41cokfS7yksSocRa9T3kySPmDn2NXRiFPtUHPtE8Agggn8fiyO6IfqboMpAqWlrOaIzHPZ8dpWzJFpVLkUFN7MNZNKW4GuK9sisfdkW-ePDPXekkE7_JJ4/s1600/Three+Daughters+of+Eve+Elif+Shafak.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioytXkcvs5dY-b6CruAa1eKL41cokfS7yksSocRa9T3kySPmDn2NXRiFPtUHPtE8Agggn8fiyO6IfqboMpAqWlrOaIzHPZ8dpWzJFpVLkUFN7MNZNKW4GuK9sisfdkW-ePDPXekkE7_JJ4/s320/Three+Daughters+of+Eve+Elif+Shafak.png" width="224" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Another Oxford writer has just come
to my attention. Turkish/British writer <a href="http://www.elifsafak.com.tr/home/" target="_blank">ELIF SHAFAK</a>. Penguin Random House
author of 17 books, represented globally by Curtis Brown, she is the most
widely read female author in Turkey. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Her newest novel, THREE DAUGHTERS OF
EVE, explores the concepts of women's identities, religion, politics, and God, through the viewpoint of Peri, a young Turkish woman (who,
coincidentally, receives a scholarship to Oxford). These are big MYTHIC topics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
In her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=jP4-9w5WiPQ" target="_blank">TED.com talk</a>, The Politics of
Fiction, Shafak tells the audience that she is a storyteller. It is what she
does. “Fiction became, for me, a transcendental journey into other lives, other
possibilities.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Listening to and reading stories
widens the imagination, she goes on to say. “Telling stories lets us leap over
cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
This then, is what we writers do.
And it does matter. It matters a lot. We serve up a meal and invite imagination
to the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Come,” we say to the
reader, “Come break bread with me. Quench your thirst. Eat your fill.”</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbmcqC_Cs2mhRs1bNApTbQKbGL5YM4-ffJc9hyphenhyphengu20-tzXWm0j7uoPI2bh3uxEyGXMQbxY4ENvATb8_m1WIVGV1CWAAEBaAk9WcGTTb-l0JZJ9zHeVxr3CZ8zPVXkoLNUwYcnJ7W2JdFc/s1600/Elif+Shafak+The+Art+of+Storytelling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbmcqC_Cs2mhRs1bNApTbQKbGL5YM4-ffJc9hyphenhyphengu20-tzXWm0j7uoPI2bh3uxEyGXMQbxY4ENvATb8_m1WIVGV1CWAAEBaAk9WcGTTb-l0JZJ9zHeVxr3CZ8zPVXkoLNUwYcnJ7W2JdFc/s320/Elif+Shafak+The+Art+of+Storytelling.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
But the larger question remains. Will our writing feed the next
generation? Will our stories help to grow wiser human beings? Will the souls of our
readers return to that great cauldron in the sky enlightened? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
When the gods
scoop a ladle of soul into that next newest baby, will that child
come to the land carrying with her a newer, better myth?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Perhaps that is the question we writers should ponder. Rather than fearing that our books do <i>not</i> matter, let's make sure that they do. </div>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-24236515268102196082019-04-30T15:09:00.000-06:002019-04-30T15:09:38.134-06:00WATER MASK, Alaskan Stories from the Heart<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaXvs7QyQqVW4Tao0_MJ5z4NTtJd6WlEaRKaDu4UOXaC4P9Lks7XcPnlAcmoRxuUp8bLmJBKDeFWeNO9QZtp5UQ502uSi7betmEC_0_iu3HS_weQUq8lsMyWO4ibCbiMjAG7HsCD0-uF_y/s1600/Monica+Devine+Water+Mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaXvs7QyQqVW4Tao0_MJ5z4NTtJd6WlEaRKaDu4UOXaC4P9Lks7XcPnlAcmoRxuUp8bLmJBKDeFWeNO9QZtp5UQ502uSi7betmEC_0_iu3HS_weQUq8lsMyWO4ibCbiMjAG7HsCD0-uF_y/s1600/Monica+Devine+Water+Mask.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Water Mask by Monica Devine</span></b></td></tr>
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THE DESIRE to hold a mirror up to one’s face and reflect
upon the past is uniquely human. We imagine the places we have lived, the
people we have known, and we create stories from these memories in order to
make sense of our lives. But we also write memoir in order to keep safe within
the pages of a book the places and people who have touched our souls.
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In 2012, Alaskan author, artist and photographer <a href="https://www.monicadevine.com/" target="_blank">MONICA DEVINE</a>
flew from the wilds of Alaska to the mountains of Wyoming to attend the
<i>Literature & Landscape of the Horse Retreat</i> that I co-lead with Sheri Griffith. I was excited to share Wyoming, a landscape that claimed my soul, with a woman who called Alaska home. I sensed we shared a common kinship.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhibGQpsBmo8IbkiKdbO2iDLwRmzlwFlLdfISX3_dklRmUVJEf83Lpp255qEEOiM0Fj1eL4FsE7dj81ny8NvLONDs5slEzcsKS5rbbe_7grj5McB6f52SHkfQRhz4jprtd-7qDiIhyX4q/s1600/HorseDrive+Carolyn+by+Monica+Devine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="473" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhibGQpsBmo8IbkiKdbO2iDLwRmzlwFlLdfISX3_dklRmUVJEf83Lpp255qEEOiM0Fj1eL4FsE7dj81ny8NvLONDs5slEzcsKS5rbbe_7grj5McB6f52SHkfQRhz4jprtd-7qDiIhyX4q/s320/HorseDrive+Carolyn+by+Monica+Devine.jpg" title="Carolyn at the Vee Bar by Monica Devine" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Carolyn at the Vee Bar, Monica Devine</span></td></tr>
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Monica was working on a collection of essays and, though she had ridden dogsleds across the frozen tundra of Alaska, the idea of riding Wyoming ranch horses across the open range still thrilled her. The photographs she took captured that thrill, such as this one of Carolyn, a born-and-bred Wyoming cowgirl, bringing 80 horses in at a run. <br />
<br />
This year, the University of Alaska Press published Monica's collection of essays. When she asked me if I would consider writing a blurb for WATER MASK, I was eager to dive into her stories. Here's what I wrote: <br />
<br />
"Picture Alaska—her braided rivers and arctic tundra, her
tidal shorelines and thrashing salmon. Imagine flying over the Yukon–Kuskokwim
Delta with an inexperienced pilot, charging into an ever-changing rodeo of sky,
clouds so thick it’s like flying through milk. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Imagine Yup’ik elders whose
humble behavior and reverence for their homeland teaches you more about living
with intention than formal education ever could. Imagine learning that to
practice deep listening is to practice silence. Imagine spending 21 days on a
42-foot trawler boating the Inside Passage. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Monica Devine’s new collection, <i>Water
Mask, </i>captures these experiences alongside stories of New Mexico deserts,
Wyoming horses, and family, making accessible through lyrical essays this
remarkable American landscape." </div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwTCj0doHcJT0oCZBYJLSUws1uQeRNYtTPS0EJmHVrQa4vCMLQgu0QhH7ALEgU87R2Gi9nbKgx6O1Lh5tf9UgkB6rS_Gl_YvescY0g9pl7uX84f7fp5SSGds7alq1UDeCOUD2sUSl9Zms3/s1600/Monica+Devine+-+Gastineau+Channel+Alaska+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwTCj0doHcJT0oCZBYJLSUws1uQeRNYtTPS0EJmHVrQa4vCMLQgu0QhH7ALEgU87R2Gi9nbKgx6O1Lh5tf9UgkB6rS_Gl_YvescY0g9pl7uX84f7fp5SSGds7alq1UDeCOUD2sUSl9Zms3/s400/Monica+Devine+-+Gastineau+Channel+Alaska+.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Gastineau Channel by Monica Devine</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Monica's Alaska is not the Alaska into which I disappeared when, as a young girl, I turned the pages of Jack
London's novels. <i>White Fang. The Call of the Wild. The Sea Wolf</i>. All of them.<br />
<br />
London's stories depicted man against nature, man wrestling
with the wild, the wild as a foe to be feared and conquered. I suspected, even
as a teenager, that Jack London’s Alaska wasn’t the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real </i>Alaska, or at least his stories were not the ones told around
the winter fire by the Yup’ik villagers. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In <i><a href="https://www.monicadevine.com/" target="_blank">WATER MASK</a></i>, Monica tells of a different Alaska, an Alaska as seen through a woman's eyes. She tells of carrying her own baby in a pack on her back "when I was young and lean, my arms and legs strong." She tells the tragic story, as told to her, of a young Athasbacan Indian woman who was dip-netting on the Copper River with her baby wrapped in warm sheepskin in a pack on her back, how the young mother leaned over in the water, how the baby slipped from the pack into the roaring current. <br />
<br />
This is not my story to tell. In the first few pages of <i>Water Mask</i>, Monica tells the story as it should be told, solemnly, respectfully, as it was told to her by Agnes at the Mendeltna Creek Lodge. Monica tells of a woman name Grace who ran a little bed and breakfast, the only such place along a 100-mile stretch of river.<br />
<br />
She tells of women who make dolls for their daughters with caribou hairs and birch bark wrap. She tells of women who sit around tables sewing, telling of their own grandmothers who sewed with sinew drawn from the backs of white whales. She tells of silver moonlight falling through cabin windows onto the rough-hewn wooden tables where the women sat.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2mcgJpbR93tgOTvBCl4o-aRkrjRoP8QRs-3OE6MoqYzLGJkPYEpKg7mRRg3ggbNNq9fere8ynn_32wmc6rSeMBqDSs8W3p6sVGOqJjdK2yw32RBH2unMRmOwLkq_cO0Rg9knCf7ejZ_z/s1600/Monica+Devine+-+Mt.+baldy+Alaska.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2mcgJpbR93tgOTvBCl4o-aRkrjRoP8QRs-3OE6MoqYzLGJkPYEpKg7mRRg3ggbNNq9fere8ynn_32wmc6rSeMBqDSs8W3p6sVGOqJjdK2yw32RBH2unMRmOwLkq_cO0Rg9knCf7ejZ_z/s400/Monica+Devine+-+Mt.+baldy+Alaska.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Monica Devine, Mt. Baldy, Alaska</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I am grateful to Monica for bringing this Alaska to me, for keeping this Alaska safe between the pages of a book.<br />
<br />
This wild landscape is changing, and the old traditions are being replaced by new traditions, but our stories keep the landscapes we love alive. As long as we can still turn the pages, silver moonlight will still fall through cabin windows and into our hearts. Snow will still fall on the highest peaks of our imaginations. Our souls will continue to be touched by the people who light the way for us.<br />
<br />
NOTES: <a href="https://www.monicadevine.com/images/" target="_blank">View more of Monica's photographs.</a> Read about more of <a href="https://www.monicadevine.com/books/" target="_blank">Monica's books</a>. </div>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-39588997546157849432019-03-20T16:45:00.002-06:002019-03-20T18:34:26.505-06:00THE SPRING EQUINOX, a RIVER, and a DAUGHTER'S GRIEF<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJ8FXLjtLyrjDAmCr8NBtIFxsW07fDWJeTF3q115q_xNsTDJosDIA4s8u_ZWB0tx356j-7g8bLLp1s-EQfgITNa8wjEB6N44z-k3VOrgThcOLxWyd8cdbYr2g_NLaGN5sx_jqawdfh0Li/s1600/Writing+Down+cropped+high+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="485" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJ8FXLjtLyrjDAmCr8NBtIFxsW07fDWJeTF3q115q_xNsTDJosDIA4s8u_ZWB0tx356j-7g8bLLp1s-EQfgITNa8wjEB6N44z-k3VOrgThcOLxWyd8cdbYr2g_NLaGN5sx_jqawdfh0Li/s320/Writing+Down+cropped+high+res.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Our father died on the Spring Equinox, twenty-two years ago. On my first trip to the Grand Canyon for the Writing Down the River book project, three months after his death, our raft flipped going into notorious
Lava Falls. A motor boat had taken up a rescue position downstream and a few
of its passengers pulled me out of the water.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A woman from the South Dakota Humanities Council was on the
rescue boat. She invited me to come to the capitol and give a program at the Cultural
Center. The following March, under a clear blue prairie sky, on the Equinox and
anniversary of my father’s death, I drove to Pierre. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The Missouri River flows along the outskirts of town. The
2300-mile river is the longest river in North America, flowing from its
headwaters in Montana where the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers merge. One-sixth
of the North American continent drains into the Missouri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4-5NJhhTZAjkrBjfS9CNXg3E6utHie2jg1Kecticeprh0kPOitb2uraqjJs8P4bgdGnBCS6VuhmDgti99mjwPKcnarTR3DOhTbvYDjURzgzo6eUAFIVc6c_chXUPr4JTWf25JQWcaWlE/s1600/Missouri+River+headwaters+-+Montana+State+Park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="934" data-original-width="1600" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4-5NJhhTZAjkrBjfS9CNXg3E6utHie2jg1Kecticeprh0kPOitb2uraqjJs8P4bgdGnBCS6VuhmDgti99mjwPKcnarTR3DOhTbvYDjURzgzo6eUAFIVc6c_chXUPr4JTWf25JQWcaWlE/s320/Missouri+River+headwaters+-+Montana+State+Park.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I had heard of it all my life. I grew up fly fishing with my
father on the Madison. But I had never before stood on the historic, bucolic
shores of the Missouri, nor seen its wide looping waters.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the outskirts of Pierre, I pulled off the highway and
drove to a wooded wildlife refuge along the river. I got out of the car and
walked among the cottonwood trees, along winding paths that bordered the shoreline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nearly noon, the sun had little warmth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A jet trail, one of my father’s favorite sights,
hung in a cold bright sky. A flock of geese, </div>
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vee’ing their way toward the
river, carved a path in front of the jet trail. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUoPUupGMxREb5VEuRKFpcZpwabGsEP_QLGwy0uH12GrfYQEyyAXC1uBlNxW7T9TZ7rPJlwnOEWD9UREfW5iLcDs4GHe7xSzwa6SxPAcyC6ZwxlwQ63QeH7qPS7iHYUD4k11hNhUNR7LY3/s1600/Equinox+-+Mallards+on+Lacreek_National_Wildlife_Refuge+-+wikipedia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1043" data-original-width="1600" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUoPUupGMxREb5VEuRKFpcZpwabGsEP_QLGwy0uH12GrfYQEyyAXC1uBlNxW7T9TZ7rPJlwnOEWD9UREfW5iLcDs4GHe7xSzwa6SxPAcyC6ZwxlwQ63QeH7qPS7iHYUD4k11hNhUNR7LY3/s320/Equinox+-+Mallards+on+Lacreek_National_Wildlife_Refuge+-+wikipedia.jpg" width="320" /></a>I watched as thousands of Canada geese flocked to the river. Impervious
to the frigid temperatures, the big birds made ungainly landings on the
rippling surface, drifted a hundred and fifty feet downriver, then paddled back
upstream. Again and again, they pushed their feathered chests against her southward flow, lifted
from the water, then flew a hundred feet upriver before dipping playfully back
onto the water again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My wings, for the first time in a year, itched to feel the
lift of a carefree updraft. I was emerging from the shadow of my father’s death
and grief had anchored me to his memory. His presence was palpable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
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<br /></div>
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Perhaps my grief was even anchoring him. Must I let go of the weight of my sorrow so that he could vee his
way into the great beyond?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I saw my father’s dark, bright eyes in the black eyes of the
geese, saw his salt and pepper beard in their black and white feathers,
remembered him feeding crusts of bread to the seagulls in San Francisco as they
swooped down onto the deck of the ferry. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A gull once drew blood from his finger
with its sharp beak. He held up his strong bent finger and laughed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No tears, Baby,</i> he
would have said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">See how the geese shake the river water from their feathers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shake off that sadness. Get on with things!</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>I knelt in the sand and etched “I love you.” I turned and walked to the car, waving at the river, at my
father, at the birds, at the noon sun high in the equinox sky.
</div>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-48770653970919228832019-02-26T17:12:00.002-07:002019-02-27T08:08:39.016-07:00THE RIVER by PETER HELLER: WALKING AN ADVENTURE TRAIL CUT BY THE MASTERS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoJVZBAu9niLAbxQAAHRPSGiKhmXmlgLRJVi9slT1N3L7tPw9GQ0HiKiSCLtLDrD0VPnc-zX2arhrGnRPfGbtBxO8dSPjk1vz9yDQOVQ6I6AnKmDQq8kJ9MLGkCyw-YKEs2zXpYgXpRii/s1600/The+River+-+The+Adventures+of+Huckleberry+Finn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="457" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoJVZBAu9niLAbxQAAHRPSGiKhmXmlgLRJVi9slT1N3L7tPw9GQ0HiKiSCLtLDrD0VPnc-zX2arhrGnRPfGbtBxO8dSPjk1vz9yDQOVQ6I6AnKmDQq8kJ9MLGkCyw-YKEs2zXpYgXpRii/s200/The+River+-+The+Adventures+of+Huckleberry+Finn.jpg" width="153" /></a></div>
Adventure novels, at least the memorable ones like Peter Heller's THE RIVER, Take up a permanent home in our imagination. <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br />
They rise up from a literary jungle of suspense, following a path cut by the best adventure books of all time.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
Some of my earliest
childhood friends helped to beat down this well-trodden path: Twain’s Huck Finn, Keene’s Nancy Drew, Crusoe’s Jim Hawkins,
Kipling’s Mowgli, Uncas, the last son of the Mohicans, Gibson’s Old Yeller.<br />
<br />
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9AmFPcC-NQzX9Rj5KkRzndedPxrPKWylsS-xJp7tp6UYPlUZ_LPicSh9YioV1hq82cQRdZSdzce1rj_yEEF-yaxJz_8a-RYolzowils5PtLwgCnrKm0iwDlUU2lf6dQeyjtGQxTOrHpXB/s1600/The+River+-+Call+of+the+Wild.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="274" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9AmFPcC-NQzX9Rj5KkRzndedPxrPKWylsS-xJp7tp6UYPlUZ_LPicSh9YioV1hq82cQRdZSdzce1rj_yEEF-yaxJz_8a-RYolzowils5PtLwgCnrKm0iwDlUU2lf6dQeyjtGQxTOrHpXB/s200/The+River+-+Call+of+the+Wild.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="120" /></a>These heroes didn’t have to be my
age or gender, or even human. I was as eager to sail across the ocean after a
whale with Ishmael, as I was to traipse across London’s harsh and bitter Yukon with
Buck, the regal sled dog.<br />
<br />
The imaginary worlds I inhabited with these characters left me breathless.
I slipped into their uncharted landscapes as easily as I slipped under my bed
covers, book in hand, each evening. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
The writing always spoke of darkness,
and water, and of the relentless grip of the unknown, like this passage from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Huck Finn</i>: </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCrxuMNwOSHAQsYyWmD8RH40iptj_5zvHlZGCWoQIjs9OQGbzGywPpdg4R8_sX43iOv0JffS7EIXkRCu1shpbMj8kWZ0KmMibMd6jtY_y8Eda_b6dimhYi-EGjbEauSL1sgbrrA79-sQUI/s1600/The+River+-+Huck+Finn+is+dead.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="958" data-original-width="1584" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCrxuMNwOSHAQsYyWmD8RH40iptj_5zvHlZGCWoQIjs9OQGbzGywPpdg4R8_sX43iOv0JffS7EIXkRCu1shpbMj8kWZ0KmMibMd6jtY_y8Eda_b6dimhYi-EGjbEauSL1sgbrrA79-sQUI/s200/The+River+-+Huck+Finn+is+dead.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i>“The boys huddled themselves
together and sought the friendly companionship of the fire... They sat still,
intent and waiting. The solemn hush continued. Beyond the light of the fire
everything was swallowed up in the blackness of darkness.”</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRtdftIgiirw7v9rn82tlVIIT-785AHcCP6JAQC5M6Olzmizd245bva11Otvimo51yROX4G9RB41Mfhg52lwS1luYG_jEaxSNIBoEtlSijPXis1Me9y7TQISS_hdfOg8C0DBOBxNoX6fym/s1600/The+River+-+The+Big+Sky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1199" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRtdftIgiirw7v9rn82tlVIIT-785AHcCP6JAQC5M6Olzmizd245bva11Otvimo51yROX4G9RB41Mfhg52lwS1luYG_jEaxSNIBoEtlSijPXis1Me9y7TQISS_hdfOg8C0DBOBxNoX6fym/s200/The+River+-+The+Big+Sky.jpg" width="148" /></a>Or this passage from A.B. Guthrie’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Big Sky. </i>Young Boone, to save
his life, had struck his drunken Pap with a stick from the woodpile and was launched from his family like a wild arrow:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<i>“It was like people and things were
all banded against him, the trail losing itself in the dark and the trees
hunched close around him and night dripping wet and maybe unfriendly eyes watching
from it, laughing when he stumbled. It was enough to put a onesome fright in
the heart and a lump in the throat.” </i></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzWuEgjNSPBX-ZhZCx8Sj6eI4NFzeweXt0IVF3yrOl8MJUGyrYlqRBfDIWmLU8-OiXRc7M_Bq165mnQG_Lndi_wW3aD_eQsWoG_fofOi4BAA2cVt6Tp80jm_ju-9bH3Wp1PHTRSqG-KE5H/s1600/The+River+-+Two+Old+Women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="266" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzWuEgjNSPBX-ZhZCx8Sj6eI4NFzeweXt0IVF3yrOl8MJUGyrYlqRBfDIWmLU8-OiXRc7M_Bq165mnQG_Lndi_wW3aD_eQsWoG_fofOi4BAA2cVt6Tp80jm_ju-9bH3Wp1PHTRSqG-KE5H/s200/The+River+-+Two+Old+Women.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Walking a lonesome trail
cut by Athabascan elders were Velma Wallis’s <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/author/cr-103097/velma-wallis/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Two Old Women</i></a>, abandoned by their tribe, surviving the winter of
hunger through wit and courage and companionship:</div>
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<i>“The moonlight shone silently upon
the frozen earth as life whispered throughout the land, broken now and then by
a lone wolf’s melancholy howl. The women’s eyes twitched in tired, troubled dreams, and soft helpless moans escaped from their lips. Then a cry rang out
somewhere in the night as the moon dipped low.” </i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxc2-QX1kXO_5D8wzal5ELymgw-_GWnu7nVHAdhEmljhUqOMrTW1IJ0ZvPCT_xuvGjKWsVhJXlBQg6cggs_7Eyxr3Uv-93tI5o0fz8yE_Dli9FkKsQwAS48qGkLpUc5ZhFi2T4t1FVHxu/s1600/The+River+-+Out+Stealing+Horses+by+Per+Petterson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="307" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxc2-QX1kXO_5D8wzal5ELymgw-_GWnu7nVHAdhEmljhUqOMrTW1IJ0ZvPCT_xuvGjKWsVhJXlBQg6cggs_7Eyxr3Uv-93tI5o0fz8yE_Dli9FkKsQwAS48qGkLpUc5ZhFi2T4t1FVHxu/s200/The+River+-+Out+Stealing+Horses+by+Per+Petterson.jpg" width="127" /></a></div>
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Norwegian author Per Petterson led us into this same literary jungle with his novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/out-stealing-horses" target="_blank">Out Stealing Horses</a>. </i>An older narrator remembering his haunting younger
days with his best friend along the river—the perfect read.<br />
<br />
<i>“Between the spruce stumps the grass
was growing green and lush and thick, and behind some bushes further on we saw
the horses, only their rumps visible, tails swishing horse flies. We smelled
horse droppings and the wet boggy moss and the sweet, sharp, all-pervading
odour of something greater than ourselves and beyond our comprehension; of the
forest, which just went on and on to the north and into Sweden and over Finland
and further on the whole way to Siberia, and you could lost in this forest
without a chance of anyone finding you…”</i></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1gaS4GoJdSwAUuckKG7AeSCuVAy8DeptRnZzKQvwmXq7XDJYD-Ux_1HxbMMS0SSTpFTEv2bKweqB7O_RKQEadJEQMdIudycDxrjNQFUE-ezz8LvVlqUnOLaRtHGpfI2V-OeQUT8jQqxJ/s1600/Peter+Heller+-+author+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1gaS4GoJdSwAUuckKG7AeSCuVAy8DeptRnZzKQvwmXq7XDJYD-Ux_1HxbMMS0SSTpFTEv2bKweqB7O_RKQEadJEQMdIudycDxrjNQFUE-ezz8LvVlqUnOLaRtHGpfI2V-OeQUT8jQqxJ/s320/Peter+Heller+-+author+photo.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Author Peter Heller</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Imagine getting lost in a literary jungle inhabited
by such authors. Imagine them reaching out to greet authors like <a href="http://www.peterheller.net/" target="_blank">Peter Heller</a> and Rick Bass, Leif Unger and David Guterson. Imagine them exclaiming, machetes in one hand, pens in the other, <i>“Come
this way! We’ve cut the trail for you!” </i>
<br />
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I could sense these eternal characters looking over my shoulder as I read Peter Heller's new novel, <i>The River. </i>I could sense them cheering on Jack and Wynn, the brave and tragic young men who live between its pages. </div>
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Peter Heller explored this literary jungle
with his first novel, the apocalyptic and riveting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.peterheller.net/book/the-dog-stars/" target="_blank">Dog Stars</a>. </i>But long before he began writing novels, he was a contributor to <i>Outdoor Magazine. </i>In 2002, he<i> </i>joined and chronicled an elite kayaking team's heroic conquest of the world's last great river in Tibet. Read more about <i>Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River</i><i> </i>on <a href="http://www.peterheller.net/book/hell-or-high-water/" target="_blank">Heller's website</a>. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKkOtrEdnOe8sP9q4chSX3o9binNO1X1JzOjqjO9yJ8VKBeDeV1oslaJzDfSuKGuG7J8-mFnOTL6YDkFOtvZ6TSKD4huFxFOrQM2F0lgxjFXbS-kvPHnTe5Wb41HawimtR2s_6AihnIpH/s1600/The+River+-+cover+image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKkOtrEdnOe8sP9q4chSX3o9binNO1X1JzOjqjO9yJ8VKBeDeV1oslaJzDfSuKGuG7J8-mFnOTL6YDkFOtvZ6TSKD4huFxFOrQM2F0lgxjFXbS-kvPHnTe5Wb41HawimtR2s_6AihnIpH/s320/The+River+-+cover+image.jpg" width="216" /></a>It isn't surprising that Heller's newest novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.peterheller.net/book/the-river/" target="_blank">THE RIVER</a>, </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a gripping tale of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence),</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">captures the same thrilling sense of adventure and suspense. What might be surprising is that any single author could navigate the waters between what's real and what's imaginary so expertly. Heller knows how to read the current. He takes the reader to the edge, time and time again. Sometimes we come back from it. Sometimes we don't.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When you travel the sleek and brilliantly faceted pages of <i>THE RIVER</i></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> (Knopf, available March 5, 2019 or <a href="http://www.peterheller.net/book/the-river/" target="_blank">pre-order now</a>) you will make friends with its characters Jack and Wynn. You will slip into Jack's more suspicious view of the world as readily as into Wynn's all-too trusting outlook. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You will <i>like </i>spending time with these two young men. You will be glad to live in a world where young men like this exist - adept in the wilderness, thoughtful, loyal, cut from a moral cloth with a strongly hued pattern.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Often, the narrative voice is synchronized, as smooth as two paddlers in perfect rhythm:<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i>"It occurred to them, though neither of them spoke it, that with the fire coming the safest thing would be to catch a flight out of Blueberries Lake... They had paddled many rivers together in the two years they'd known each other, and climbed a lot of peaks. Sometimes one had more appetite for danger, sometimes the other. There was a delicate but strong balance of risk versus caution in their team thinking, with the roles often fluid, and it's what made them such good partners..." </i> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost in the beauty of Heller's prose, you might forget that the mammoth forest fire bearing down on them is only <i>one </i>of the dangers they face. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i>"On the right bank the
burn ended. Or paused. It was like the border of another country. There
was black wasteland and then there was green--willows, alders, the
boisterous fireweed flushing pink. And woods--the green-black of the
spruce and fir, the rusty tamarack and yellowing birch. It was a
miracle..."</i></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Like Dickens, it was the best of times, and it
was the worst of times. They had every thing before them. They had
nothing before them. The balance was delicate. The tables could turn as unpredictably as the wind . . . . </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NOTE: Peter Heller will be at the Denver Tattered Cover Monday, March 5. <a href="https://www.tatteredcover.com/event/peter-heller-river" target="_blank">Order your book now.</a> Check out the rest of <a href="http://www.peterheller.net/book-tour/" target="_blank">Heller's book tour here</a>. <a href="http://www.peterheller.net/book/the-river/" target="_blank">Pre-order from Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, or an Independent Bookstore.</a></span></span></div>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-6504312546561208022019-01-04T11:06:00.001-07:002019-01-04T15:30:23.648-07:00New Literary Voices: The Storytelling of Tommy Orange and Kali Fajardo-Anstine<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cbU9CfDygVTRwbzdiryWVZbxtUsqUdmZSdEtlx3isspdPsdtADuBmqbylYlAF3H6O3CzYXfn3mTWGtbYf-Ms77XF2JYuL3kKqiJCeafIpOHLOI8pimxUZ6GPDURR7MmAJOIiKxVrVWJi/s1600/There+There+Tommy+Orange+YouTube.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6cbU9CfDygVTRwbzdiryWVZbxtUsqUdmZSdEtlx3isspdPsdtADuBmqbylYlAF3H6O3CzYXfn3mTWGtbYf-Ms77XF2JYuL3kKqiJCeafIpOHLOI8pimxUZ6GPDURR7MmAJOIiKxVrVWJi/s320/There+There+Tommy+Orange+YouTube.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsHNaoJbMlg" target="_blank">Tommy Orange, Politics and Prose, July 25, 2018</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">WHAT IF the stories others tell about the land where you live don’t reflect your
experience of that place? What if you are told, from the time you are a
toddler, that home is faraway and that this place where you live will never be your true home?
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
if Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield’s mother is correct, “the
world is made of stories, nothing else, just stories, and stories about
stories”? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
if, like Sierra’s mother tells her, the land really does “swallow us whole, wrapping
its beauty around us so tight it’s like being in a rattlesnake’s mouth”?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
if <a href="https://sacredinstructions.life/" target="_blank">Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset</a> is correct when she tells us that the land’s
relationship with language, with storytelling, is about the sound that travels
across it, and about how new stories keep the ancient wisdom alive because the
<a href="http://www.brainfacts.org/Archives/2008/Mirror-Neurons" target="_blank">mirror neurons</a> firing in our brains allow us to live these stories? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Science,
it seems, is finally catching up to what storytellers have always known. We live in a responsive world. To hear a story, is to <i>experience</i> a story. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcw1pJqUHZvD5M1OBCH8D99LcMb-7O07tov7s3JcI97ac6OHqERn6-NIsCwy0Z7z-zobSdd_gDXOvjGDpkHZ9M5hfAeDNOd5dO-3ihpEX9iXVS6eWMfQn4Obj0JpIdxIFEfVk2P_DN4dG2/s1600/Sabrina+and+Corina+-+Kali+Fajardo-Anstine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcw1pJqUHZvD5M1OBCH8D99LcMb-7O07tov7s3JcI97ac6OHqERn6-NIsCwy0Z7z-zobSdd_gDXOvjGDpkHZ9M5hfAeDNOd5dO-3ihpEX9iXVS6eWMfQn4Obj0JpIdxIFEfVk2P_DN4dG2/s320/Sabrina+and+Corina+-+Kali+Fajardo-Anstine.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To
speak a word is to vibrate a thought. Writers speak of narrative voice, but we
often forget the power of the voice. Sound carries vibrational frequencies that
can heal body and spirit. Even written language, black words on white pages,
vibrate into existence new, multi-colored ways of seeing and experiencing the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sierra
is a character in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s forthcoming collection of stories,
<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576721/sabrina-and-corina-by-kali-fajardo-anstine/9780525511298/" target="_blank"><i>Sabrina & Corina</i></a>. She lives within the pages of a story set in the southern
Colorado town of Saguarita, “a place where the land with its silken fibers of
swaying grass resembles a sleeping woman with her face pressed firmly to the
pillow, a golden blonde by day, a raven-haired beauty by night.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sierra
lives within this world of raven-haired Latinas in the shadows of the Native
world of her ancestors—all the while straddling the ragged golden edges of that
<i>other</i> untouchable world. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSK42WCMlaMMB1GTUmeqZ4GXRGOB4j6K5S3d9ExOSRPuxUxRBwWN7LJNL2-3sqN4QOz7RPdO62S-Z78maMozEqenlnGZ0W53glSgGdNXfBAZ86fH5b38Zu6ryRkC7J2jXIDmYGnb5_5TFD/s1600/Alcatraz+Indians+Welcome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="1024" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSK42WCMlaMMB1GTUmeqZ4GXRGOB4j6K5S3d9ExOSRPuxUxRBwWN7LJNL2-3sqN4QOz7RPdO62S-Z78maMozEqenlnGZ0W53glSgGdNXfBAZ86fH5b38Zu6ryRkC7J2jXIDmYGnb5_5TFD/s320/Alcatraz+Indians+Welcome.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Opal
Viola Victoria Bear Shield lives between the pages of Tommy Orange’s
award-winning novel <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563403/there-there-by-tommy-orange/9780525520375/" target="_blank"><i>There There</i></a>. She also straddles worlds—the child’s and the
adult’s, the Indian’s and the non-Indian's.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One day, Opal’s mother tells her to pack her things because they’re
leaving East Oakland and heading to Alcatraz. It is 1970. Opal leaves home
carrying two sets of clothes, and a teddy bear named Two Shoes who speaks to
her as if channeling the voice of her Indian ancestors. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Decades
later, Opal utters a prayer to save the lives of those she loves. The prayer is
coming from, "The place where her old teddy bear, Two Shoes, used to speak from."
She recognizes that to have power, the prayer must be said out loud. The prayer
must vibrate with belief. The belief she once had when she was a young girl on
the island of Alcatraz, before hope died, while the future was before them, a
thing of beauty wrapping itself tight around the world. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Opal
shares these pages with twelve other main characters. Through their eyes, the
cadence of their speech, and the intimate corners of their lives, <a href="https://www.prhspeakers.com/speaker/tommy-orange" target="_blank">Tommy Orange</a>
brings alive for us what it means to be an urban Indian living far from any
ancestral home, yet in a place where old stories become new stories. A new
relationship rises from the land even when what was <i>there</i>, is no longer <i>there</i>. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.kalifajardoanstine.com/" target="_blank">KaliFajardo-Anstine</a> brings alive on the page what it means to be a Latina woman in
a land whose stories have only been half told. These new voices remind us that
there are millions of untold stories. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Stories
can wrap us in their beauty, swallowing us whole. We discover the inside of the rattlesnake's mouth, and like Sierra's mother, we discover it is both our salvation and our cross. We can live other lives, shed
the old skin and come to the land with a new awareness of the multitude of
stories lying in wait. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrCX3q5r5C15PmTsRPyRG6dtZDSW17Jv24Dt4MV-BQOhR445KPZiVnVBNIWnmnEe-Y12xC5s5-mgnmMlCtcJ0dL0p4bJjrvtFBA8k3v68lqZ0Sb01KPfz1gN0HF_9QfGVTFARCmohMXs6/s1600/Sabrina+and+Corina+-+cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="298" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrCX3q5r5C15PmTsRPyRG6dtZDSW17Jv24Dt4MV-BQOhR445KPZiVnVBNIWnmnEe-Y12xC5s5-mgnmMlCtcJ0dL0p4bJjrvtFBA8k3v68lqZ0Sb01KPfz1gN0HF_9QfGVTFARCmohMXs6/s320/Sabrina+and+Corina+-+cover.png" width="211" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Read
<i>There There</i> and you will feel the firing of mirror neurons as you discover the
many layers of truth to the Native American experience. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Read <i>Sabrina & Corina</i> and the stories will twist and turn, leading you away from what you
thought you knew about the West and her cities, and back to the truths that have
always been self-evident.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">NOTES:
Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset, is an Indigenous rights activist,
spiritual teacher, and transformational change maker. To read her complete essay on the land's relationship with language, "Hearing the Waters," go to <a href="https://orionmagazine.org/issue/summer-2018/" target="_blank">Orion Magazine</a>. </span></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Kali
Fajardo-Anstine’s story collection will be released this April. In the words of her publisher, she "breathes life into her Indigenous
Latina characters and the land they inhabit. Set against the remarkable
backdrop of Denver, Colorado–a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite–these
women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace,
and quiet force." You may <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576721/sabrina-and-corina-by-kali-fajardo-anstine/9780525511298/" target="_blank">pre-order from Penguin Random House</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Considered one of the best novels of 2018, Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange's debut novel <i>There There </i>has garnered high praise from literary corners near and far. The web is overflowing with interviews, reviews, articles and videos about this breakout book and the man who wrote it. I especially enjoyed this video where he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsHNaoJbMlg" target="_blank">reads and talks</a> about the novel on 6/25/18 at </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Politics and Prose at the Wharf. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: "&quot" , serif;"></span></div>
Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0