Although
nature
is
often
referred
to
as
"mother,"
paradoxically
it
has
long
been
trapped
in
the
traditionally
patriarchal
realm
of
science.
And
so
it
follows
that
most
famous
American
nature
writers
are
men:
Henry
David
Thoreau,
John
Muir,
Aldo
Leopold,
Edward
Abbey,
John
McPhee,
and
Barry
Lopez,
to
name
a
few.
These
writers
did
(and
do)
a
great
service
by
exposing
another
side
of
nature--revealing
her
mysterious,
sensuous,
and
clearly
unscientific
attributes,
which
had
been
buried
since
before
the
industrial
revolution.
For
a
long
time
nature
was
a
writing
genre
in
which
women's
voices
were
seldom
heard.
Over
the
past
20
years
or
so,
this
has
changed,
and
more
and
more
women
writers
are
offering
their
insights
into
nature's
truer
nature.
Terry
Tempest
Williams,
Brenda
Peterson,
and
Gretel
Ehrlich
each
use
place
and
spirit
to
passionately
explore
a
common
theme:
the
belief
that
human
connection
to
the
earth
is
soul
food--essential
to
the
development
and
enrichment
of
our
inner
lives.
The
Solace
of
Open
Spaces
Gretel
Ehrlich's
life
was
at
a
turning
point
when
she
took
a
filming
assignment
in
Wyoming.
When
the
job
was
over,
she
found
she
could
not
bring
herself
to
return
to
her
home
in
the
city.
As
she
explains
it,
"The
vitality
of
the
people
I
was
working
with
flushed
out
what
had
become
a
hallucinatory
rawness
inside
me....
The
arid
country
was
a
clean
slate.
Its
absolute
indifference
steadied
me."
With
the
quiet
vastness
of
the
Wyoming
landscape
as
her
muse,
Ehrlich
explores
the
ways
our
culture
separates
us
from
ourselves:
"From
the
clayey
soil
of
northern
Wyoming
is
mined
bentonite,
which
is
used
as
a
filler
in
candy,
gum,
and
lipstick.
We
Americans
are
great
on
fillers,
as
if
what
we
have,
what
we
are,
is
not
enough.
We
have
a
cultural
tendency
toward
denial,
but,
being
affluent,
we
strangle
ourselves
with
what
we
can
buy.
We
have
only
to
look
at
the
houses
we
build
to
see
how
we
build
against
space,
the
way
we
drink
against
pain
and
loneliness.
We
fill
up
space
as
if
it
were
a
pie
shell,
with
things
whose
opacity
further
obstructs
our
ability
to
see
what
is
already
there."
She
writes
of
the
people,
animals,
landscape,
hardships,
and
weather
with
a
singing
clarity:
"Thoughts,
bright
as
frostfall,
skate
through
our
brains.
In
winter,
consciousness
looks
like
an
etching."
Nature
and
Other
Mothers
Brenda
Peterson's
book,
Nature
and
Other
Mothers
,
uses
moving
personal
stories
to
illustrate
how
"Direct
experience
of
the
natural
world
reminds
us
that
we
are
literally
made
of
Earth--that
she
is
our
skin,
our
body."
Peterson
writes,
"The
daily
bonding
with
Puget
Sound,
my
chosen
natural
mother,
is
also
an
apprenticeship
to
the
water,
the
animals,
and
the
forest
there.
It
is
from
them
that
I
learn
how
to
be
more
human.
This
book
explores
many
natural
teachers
who
can
mother
our
minds
and
bodies--both
human
and
nonhuman."
Whether
she's
discussing
acting
on
her
environmental
ideals,
fishing
and
friendship,
swimming
with
dolphins,
or
old-growth
forests,
Peterson's
storytelling
helps
us
see
things
through
new
eyes:
"A
Nez
Percé
Indian
woman
from
Oregon
recently
told
me
that
in
her
tradition
there
was
a
time
when
the
ancient
trees
were
living
burial
tombs
for
her
people.
Upon
the
death
of
a
trial
elder,
a
great
tree
was
scooped
out
enough
to
hold
the
folded,
fetuslike
body.
Then
the
bark
was
laid
back
to
grow
over
the
small
bones
like
a
rough-hewn
skin
graft."
An
Unspoken
Hunger
Terry
Tempest
Williams's
An
Unspoken
Hunger
teaches
that
"each
of
us
harbors
a
homeland,
a
landscape
we
naturally
comprehend.
By
understanding
the
dependability
of
place,
we
can
anchor
ourselves
as
trees."
Williams
has
a
way
of
enfolding
readers,
of
making
them
feel
like
they're
sitting
across
the
table
looking
her
in
the
eye,
whether
she's
writing
of
war,
a
good-bye
to
Edward
Abbey,
the
myth
of
the
bear,
or
lunching
on
avocado
in
the
short
title
essay,
"An
Unspoken
Hunger":
"It
is
an
unspoken
hunger
we
deflect
with
knives--one
avocado
between
us,
cut
neatly
in
half,
twisted
then
separated
from
the
large
wooden
pit.
With
the
green
fleshy
boats
in
hand,
we
slice
vertical
strips
from
one
end
to
the
other.
Vegetable
planks.
We
smother
the
avocado
with
salsa,
hot
chilies
at
noon
in
the
desert.
We
look
at
each
other
and
smile,
eating
avocados
with
sharp
silver
blades,
risking
the
blood
of
our
tongues
repeatedly."
A
more
dangerous
risk
is
outlined
in
Williams's
essay
"Winter
Solstice
at
the
Moab
Slough":
"The
land
is
love.
Love
is
what
we
fear.
To
disengage
from
the
earth
is
our
own
oppression.
I
stand
on
the
edge
of
these
wetlands,
a
place
of
renewal,
an
oasis
in
the
desert,
as
an
act
of
faith,
believing
the
sun
has
completed
the
southern
end
of
its
journey
and
is
now
contemplating
its
return
toward
light."
In
the
end,
we
are
left
with
the
choice,
to
engage
or
disengage.
And
with
their
startling
metaphors,
poetic
composition,
and
illuminating
humor,
these
authors
help
us
understand
what
we
stand
to
lose
if
we
choose
unwisely.
