{"id":5187,"date":"2014-11-05T16:01:44","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T00:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/?p=5187"},"modified":"2024-03-13T12:15:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T19:15:59","slug":"reading-voting-williams-refuge-an-unnatural-history-of-family-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/2014\/11\/reading-voting-williams-refuge-an-unnatural-history-of-family-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading & voting: Williams’ “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family & Place”"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I write this I’ve just spent the past two or three hours sitting in the tire shop and waiting for a tire change. It was busy there; fortunately I knew it might take a while and planned ahead so I had my drink and one of my textbooks to read. The book’s cover is attractive: off in the distance you can dimly make out a rust-colored desert background with scudding dust-red clouds reflected on the red surface below — though it’s not clear whether that is a mirage or a lake. Up closer to the viewer, and strikingly precise in comparison to the soft, distance-faded edges of the background, flies an osprey. It is a curious choice of bird for the cover: distinctively marked, ospreys are renowned for being extremely poorly suited to captivity. To put it simply, they pine away. This one flies free on the cover, but I still find myself wondering: what is a fish-eating bird doing in a desert biome? [Later note: I was wrong — it’s one of the endangered peregrine falcons!<\/i>]<\/p>\n

\"Osprey<\/a>
Osprey in flight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cover suits the book, which is titled Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place<\/em>. The author is Terry Tempest Williams; I generally enjoy her writings for her ability to intriguingly weave together personal experience, a deeply compassionate emotion, and ecofeminist themes. This book is as excellent as I expect: she ties together the natural rising of Utah’s Great Salt Lake and the ensuing disastrous loss of viable living and nesting grounds for a huge variety of birds and other wildlife due to the pressures of human encroachment\u2026 with her mother’s — her entire matriline’s — doomed struggles with cancer, due to Utah and Nevada having been used as nuclear testing grounds.<\/p>\n

There is a rich sweetness sometimes to Williams’ writing, like too much chocolate on the tongue: it is a sensuous ecstasy which you know will lead invariably to a sort of painful regret. When I start the book I already know the most likely outcome of both her mother’s battle with cancer, and what happens to any biome — no matter how beautiful or thriving or unique — when it butts up against regular human greed. Still, I read. There is a sort of aching tenderness in respectfully witnessing the gift of another’s vulnerability and pain — it hurts, but I find myself hoping that pain shared is somehow lessened, despite my not being able to do anything about it. Williams lays bare her heart as she writes profoundly of emotion — guilt and shame, furious rage, frustration and helplessness — and more than once leaves me feeling the sting of sympathetic tears.<\/p>\n

I find myself wondering: why am I reading such a sad book? If it were not a class requirement, would I pick it up? I’ve not yet finished the book, but I have faith in the author’s ability to both help me face the unfaceable, and help me eventually feel emotionally uplifted so I can continue the struggle — whatever battle I may be facing. Right now, however\u2026 I sit at my kitchen table and feel emotionally wrung out from the book so far. Scattered in front of me are the three ballots I must fill out to vote — a civic duty I take seriously — and I’ve not yet taken the time to consider how I can vote most wisely. Is a vote just for the sake of voting better than not? Should I vote randomly and maybe help elect something I consider reprehensible, or by not voting fail to assist in electing something worthwhile?<\/p>\n

For a moment I feel bone-tired as I bleakly wonder: is there actually anyone in these ballots who can do what I truly want? Do I really think any of these candidates will actually make a difference or help bring about a world of peace, compassion, and generosity?<\/p>\n

Fortunately my housemates come to my rescue… with a hot drink, aspirin, and suggestions based on their previous research. I am well cherished, and that caring kindness gives me the internal reassurance of my convictions: I will vote to the best of my ability in order to help create the better world I want to see come about.<\/p>\n

I have discovered, over the years, that I am an ecofeminist: I recognize the historical, symbolic, and political relationship which exists within Western cultures between the denigration of nature — and the denigration of women, people of color, and the underclass. I further believe for our continued health, humanity must turn toward ecocommunity: the creation of vibrant and sustainable human communities, a way of being in this world that reflects a respect and love for all of life and has these sentiments as fundamental ethics: healthy diversity and difference, egalitarian interdependence which models power-with rather than power-over, and at its root a love for all the wondrous life on this planet. In such a situation, like Starhawk suggests<\/a>, I try to continuously work towards that goal\u2026 and I vote.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* The definitions of ecofeminism and ecocommunity which I present in the last paragraph are directly inspired by or quoted from the following brilliant authors: Charlene Spretnak’s “Critical and Constructive Contributions of Ecofeminism” in Worldviews and Ecology<\/em>, and Karen J. Warren’s “Introduction” and Judith Plant’s “Learning to Live with Differences: The Challenge of Ecofeminist Community,” both from the wonderful Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write this I’ve just spent the past two or three hours sitting in the tire shop and waiting for a tire change. It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,21,33,32,6,5,8,12,23,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-book-review","category-ecofeminism","category-education","category-environmental-thoughts","category-ethics-questions","category-feminism","category-library","category-ma-phd-programs","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5187"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6276,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions\/6276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}