journey to the short grass, and ghosts - and then back to the east

I went on a journey this autumn, through a real landscape, a metaphorical one, and a literary one. 

 

These four books (below) were parts of the third component. The physical landscape was shortgrass prairie in northeastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming, southwestern South Dakota, and northwestern Nebraska. There are a lot of missing pieces: one can cover many miles without encountering native people, or bison - and some native bird species are also less common and widespread than formerly. Parts of the landscape are altered in a very thorough sense. In other places, except for the lack of bison and native people, one can get at least a "feel" of the land.

Sandoz wrote Crazy Horse many years ago. But through her words, we can remember how things were. Nerburn's books - especially the trilogy below, bring us closer to present time, but with a hard look at how we have affected generations of native people in cruel and merciless ways.

And yet we're not done, it seems.  Nerburn's books will possibly make you uncomfortable if you're white - and most of us are sorely unaware of many of the things happening in "Indian country" over the past 80-90 years. If you're curious about these facts and the stories where they are embedded, please read one or two or more of them.

Then travel east to Maine, for the PBS production "Dawnland" - for an eye-opening hour:
 http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/videos/dawnland/

The Ashes of Autumn

A coat-of-many-colors
is the ash in autumn.
Will we treasure them 
When their numbers, now
are fewer?
I love their palette,
Ranging from still-green
shades, to gold, orange, and
Purple...exquisite hues.

Ecocentrism: what it is, why scientists & philosophers share in it

"The debate about why we ought to protect nature is much older than the field of conservation science." So say John J. Piccolo, Haydn Washington, Helen Kopnina, and Bron Taylor, in their paper: "Why conservation scientists should re‐embrace their ecocentric roots" in the journal Conservation Biology.

"Although ecosystem‐services arguments may play an important role in stemming the biodiversity crisis, a true transformation of humanity's relationship with nature ought to be based in part on ecocentric valuation. Conservation scientists have played a leading role in initiating this transformation, and they ought to continue to do so."


Read the paper at:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.13067

Nature and the Serious Business of Joy

USFWS photo via Wikimedia Commons

Read about Rachel Carson's eloquent look at how we perceive the natural world in this article:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/06/07/michael-mccarthy-the-moth-snowstorm-nature-joy/

"There can be occasions when we suddenly and involuntarily find ourselves loving the natural world with a startling intensity, in a burst of emotion which we may not fully understand, and the only word that seems to me to be appropriate for this feeling is joy."

We've never needed this realization more than we do now.

let it take hold of you: The Overstory, by Richard Powers

If you read the first 15 pages of Richard Power's novel, The Overstory, I'm betting you won't turn back.

Read about it:
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/19/602903697/novelist-richard-powers-finds-new-stories-deep-in-old-growth-forests

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/08/the-overstory-richard-powers-review