00:01:46.600where her husband, Brooke, is field coordinator
00:01:48.620for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
00:01:51.760Wow, goodness. Thank you so much, Terri, for joining us today.
00:01:56.000It's a pleasure, Ayanna. Thank you so much for having me.
00:01:59.640Terri, I wanted to start off by again thanking you, but specifically for your work as an artist, a writer, and an activist, and how you have taken political measures personally to protect public wildlands.
00:02:13.800And I think it's absolutely critical right now that we all learn from each other about how to stand up for these public lands and to think up to, I think, 21 national monuments are a threat right now.
00:02:28.400And Trump appears hellbent on dismantling public lands to the full extent as he is able.
00:02:34.860The largest among the monuments under threat is Bare Ears, which many predict will be the next Standing Rock if this goes forward.
00:02:42.340So I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about this latest chapter of the assault on public lands and why this has got to be stopped and how we can find those fissures of opportunity to creatively resist and safeguard these last intact treasures.
00:03:01.920It renders me speechless because I still can't wrap my arms around what's happening.
00:03:07.200But I think it's important to take a long view, both backwards and forwards.
00:03:13.360You know, in a sense, this is nothing new.
00:03:17.140For the past three decades, we've been fighting for our public lands, especially in the interior
00:03:22.860west, in Utah, particularly, whether it's the Sagebrush Rebellion that we saw in the
00:03:30.68070s and 80s, whether it was the forest wars that we saw in the 90s, this is just a reoccurring
00:03:40.740theme and incarnation of the desire for the extractive industry to privatize our public
00:03:49.620lands. And the thing that makes this incarnation so frightening is we have a president who not
00:03:57.620only doesn't care about these public lands, I doubt he's ever set foot in them. And in that
00:04:03.420sense, people like Orrin Hatch and Rob Bishop and Chaffetz, who are Utah's delegation, have
00:04:11.780exorbitant sway. And then you have someone as weak as Interior Secretary Zinke, who pretends that
00:04:18.620he's in the likelihood or in the same fabric as Theodore Roosevelt, and nothing could be farther
00:04:24.960from the truth. He rides in on his first day in Washington on a horse. In fact, he lives in a
00:04:31.860gated community in Santa Barbara. So I think we have to put things in perspective. In terms of
00:04:37.760the monuments, again, this is tailored for Utah. The parameters of these 27 monuments that are under
00:04:46.200review begin in 1996, and they end in 2016. This was tailored and fashioned by Orrin Hatch.
00:04:56.080It begins with Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in 1996, and it ends with
00:05:01.680Bears Ears. He's never gotten over the fact that these lands were protected. And, you know,
00:05:06.380these are acts of revenge and pettiness and nastiness, all at the pleasure and profit of
00:05:14.820the oil and gas industries. So that's sort of my take on the background. I also think it's really
00:05:22.100important for our listeners to actually hear these names, because there's power in names.
00:05:29.200And just to contemplate where these are, and what states they belong to. And in fact,
00:05:36.900they belong to all of us. Our public lands are our public commons. So these are monuments with
00:05:44.600over 100,000 acres, and in many cases, several million. Basement Range, Nevada, Bears Ears, Utah,
00:05:55.440Berryessa Snow Mountain, California, Canyons of the Ancients, Colorado, Carrizo Plain, California,
00:06:04.480Cascade Siskiyou, Oregon, Craters of the Moon, Idaho. That was established in 1924. It's just
00:06:13.640hard to imagine. Giant Sequoia, California. Gold Butte, Nevada. Grand Canyon Parishant, Arizona.
00:06:31.180Trails, California. Oregon Mountains Desert Peaks, New Mexico. Rio Grande del Norte, New Mexico.
00:06:39.240Santa Snow, California, San Gabriel Mountains, California, Sonoran Desert, Arizona, Upper Missouri River Breaks, Montana, Vermilion Cliffs, Arizona, and we can add Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine.
00:06:55.800So that's the list. And for those of us who know and love these places, it's more than a heartbreak. It's a tragedy.
00:07:06.520But what's interesting to note is that over a million citizens have sent in their comments already and have said, we do not want these monuments rescinded or reduced. We want them protected.
00:07:18.480So the question remains, will these open spaces of democracy remain open?
00:07:25.940that was so powerful terry to hear you speak the names and the locations of the monuments thank you
00:07:35.240for speaking the names aloud and i just felt chills all over my body imagining i've been to
00:07:43.180many of those incredible gifts that i feel that they are on this planet for us to care for and
00:07:50.200steward and be inspired by and be fed by so thank you again for that and i want to also question
00:07:58.180how can we find those fissures of opportunity to creatively resist and safeguard these last
00:08:05.380intact treasures and i know that you and tim to christopher and many others have found those
00:08:11.660fissures and i'd like to speak on that for a bit and any ideas that are swirling in your head for
00:08:17.300those people in the audience who want to take a grandstand. You know, I'm not sure the grandstand
00:08:24.780is what is needed. I think that small, deliberate, focused acts within our own communities and the
00:08:31.680places we call home, in many ways, are the most powerful, Ayanna. And, you know, going back to
00:08:37.720Bear's years, it's been such a potent experience for conservationists in Utah and really around
00:08:45.160the country because what we've been able to witness and learn from and be inspired by
00:08:51.080have been the tribes and the tribal leadership that has come forward through the five intertribal
00:08:59.880commissions that has led the way for Bears Ears National Monument and that President Obama responded
00:09:06.700to, as did Sally Jewell in 2016. You have the Navajo, you have the Hopi, Zuni, and the two
00:09:15.340Ute nations who have come together and said, you know, these lands are sacred. These are the lands
00:09:21.780of our homecoming. These are the lands where the bones of our ancestors are buried. And in those
00:09:28.400canyons that rise upward like praying hands, we can still hear the voices of our ancestors
00:13:32.480You know, it was a terrible situation.
00:13:34.440And we all were very aware of the injustices.
00:13:37.120I mean, we're talking cowboys. And I mean that in the most rogue sense. And, you know, if those had been Native people, if those had been environmentalists, if those had been Black people, Brown people, we know that it would have a very different outcome. So there's that. And I think they're on the extreme.
00:13:54.480I know so many ranchers and farmers who love public lands, who pay their fees, who are really trying to work with land trusts and easements to be good stewards.
00:14:18.140I think what we have to do in our communities is work together.
00:14:21.940I think environmentalists, conservationists, ranchers, farmers, and I would even argue developers and the different agencies, the Park Service, the BLM, the Forest Service, we all have to come together and really say, what is a sustainable vision?
00:15:16.560So I think it's this mosaic. And how do we really look at all the pieces and create a whole? That's, to me, the real issue, especially as you suggest, with climate change, with drought, with all of the compounding issues that are facing us at this moment in time.
00:15:34.820Yes, I think coming together and this mosaic framework that you speak about is really the only way forward in so many ways.
00:15:46.040And I absolutely agree that there's no simple way forward, but many voices need to be at the table and not just the people in power and the government, but local people, tribes, ranchers, environmentalists.
00:16:04.440so that there can be face-to-face conversations to bring everybody's gifts and understandings
00:16:10.920and experiences so that we can move forward. Because with climate change and industrial
00:16:18.380tourism and the list goes on and on, we are losing the resilience of these places that we love.
00:16:25.200And I'm wondering, speaking of that, how has the ecological health of the Great Basin fared
00:16:32.160within the web of extraction and development.
00:16:35.960And where does her resilience lie that we can get behind
00:16:40.520as we face climate extremes and other stressors brought on by humanity?
00:16:47.520And, you know, I'm not a biologist and I'm not a scientist.
00:16:51.140You know, when I think about the Great Basin,
00:16:54.540you know, what I really think about are all of the nerve gas that's buried out there.
00:16:59.540I think about the munitions that are buried out of there and the kind of surreal tanks that are out there in army maneuvers.
00:17:09.160You know, certainly in Utah, we're facing drought. Great Salt Lake is at its all time low.
00:17:13.760The birds are not there in the numbers that they used to be.
00:17:16.500Pelicans are taking a huge hit because of predation that hasn't been there for decades because Gunnison Island, which is their nesting area, has been an island.
00:17:27.640It's not an island anymore. So you've got coyotes, you know, crossing the lake bed and ravaging the
00:17:35.000nests. And then you have the juvenile pelicans that are then flying prematurely, but can't make
00:17:40.180it to freshwater where their parents are. And so last time I was out at Great Salt Lake, I counted
00:17:45.780over 60 dead juvenile pelicans. And I couldn't imagine what had happened. And talking to the
00:17:51.560Division of Wildlife Resources learned this is the situation. So stress is the right word.
00:17:57.640The Colorado Plateau, that's another story.
00:18:00.720You know, if we had a raven's point of view, an aerial view, it looks like an exposed nervous system with all the infrastructure, the roads, the pads, the oil and gas rigs, the flares at night.
00:20:17.480The American Southwest has inspired and moved many people
00:20:31.980as it's home to the pinyon pine and the juniper forest
00:20:36.660that have inched their way to old growth almost in slow motion.
00:20:43.060You know, a 60-foot juniper can be hundreds of years old
00:20:45.760and support an ensemble of over 450 plant species and i believe that the first wholesale assault on
00:20:54.680the great basin ecosystems was by the charcoal industry which peaked in the late 1800s forests
00:21:00.760were gobbled up whole clear cut and since the land has been slowly healing and regrowing
00:21:07.180till more recently than the blm and the forest service made the claim that this new growth is
00:21:12.480invading greater sage grass habitat and wetlands and thus a new wave of destruction has come into
00:21:18.300the basin you know in the meantime the lowly handsaw has been trumped by more imaginative
00:21:24.240means of destruction and i am horrified and was horrified to learn that the most common way these
00:21:32.840ecosystems are clear today is by stretching a battleship anchor chain between two enormous
00:21:39.480earth movers and tearing up anything that protrudes from the earth's surface so i'm wondering how is
00:21:45.740this abomination justified and are you aware of any other strokes of brilliance in this field of
00:21:53.180ecocide you know i remember it must have been in the late 80s early 90s in moab when ken slight
00:22:02.000alias seldom seen of edward abbey's monkey wrench gang where many of us stood in front of those bold
00:22:09.400dozers that were going to do exactly what you're speaking of that chaining and you know again I
00:22:14.960just am rendered speechless it's it's the flavor of the day in terms of management and I think
00:22:22.240you know what concerns me most is I just again I can't even find the words it's it's not one thing
00:22:30.700but it's all of the things and I just keep thinking as a child there was so much sage
00:22:38.020it put me to sleep you know you drive and you drive and you drive and the tallest you know
00:22:43.320tree or plant on the horizon was sage you know and then you'd see the magnificent juniper twisted
00:22:49.600and gnarled shaped by the wind or the beautiful pinions that would yield those wonderful nuts
00:22:54.820that we would gather as children and now just what you're saying the sagebrush steps is an
00:23:01.420endangered ecosystem and here we have an administration that wants to undo the protections
00:23:07.480that were a collaborative means of conservation management, you know, through the state government,
00:23:14.420through the federal government, through conservation, the tribes, and local communities
00:23:19.680to protect the sage-grouse. Now they want to undo all of that. Why? A few years ago, someone in
00:23:25.220Washington, D.C., a ludicrous question, but they said, who do you think is the most powerful person
00:23:30.040in the West right now who has the most influence? And I said, the sage-grouse. And they laughed and
00:23:37.160they said, no, no, I'm serious. And I said, so am I, because the sage grass has been the only
00:23:41.920species, the only individual between the health of the land and the absolute abject rapacious
00:23:50.060appetite of the fossil fuel industry. You take out the sage grass and it's open field development.
00:23:58.240So those are some of my concerns. And again, just what you're saying, you know, add drought to that,
00:24:03.060add development to that, add climate to that, add cows to that, alongside, you know, these kind of
00:24:09.860antiquated practices of chaining. And, you know, you've really got an abused landscape.
00:24:16.200When I think about the abused landscape that you're speaking of, and I connect it to the
00:24:21.880abused landscapes of the Pacific Northwest forest, the temperate rainforest, the old growth that's
00:24:28.420being slaughtered there down to the amazon up to the boreal we are in a time of mass extinctions
00:24:37.000and in your talk of bioneers you spoke of the need for connectivity of wildness for evolution
00:24:45.560and resilience to continue and you said this quote that has chilled me since i heard it
00:24:53.260And it was that, quote, death is one thing, but an end to birth is something else, end quote.
00:25:01.520So can you speak of the end of biological evolution and how deep into the unraveling process do you believe we're in?
00:25:14.160And I mean, can we even know from our vantage?
00:25:16.420you know that quote is from the great conservation biologist michael suway and that was a revelation
00:25:24.620to me too we talk about the end of species but rarely do we talk about the beginning of new
00:25:29.380species or the evolutionary process and that's what he's talking about and you know i want to
00:25:35.100say to you ayana um how much i appreciate your courage because we're talking about really hard
00:25:41.740things and you know i think it's in our nature to want to be hopeful to want to be optimistic
00:25:47.860but i think unless we really face the reality of where we are at this moment in time in call it
00:25:55.020the anthropocene where human beings do have this extraordinary press on the planet right now
00:26:00.220then we really can't go forward with the courage and the open eyes and open heart that is going to
00:26:08.220be required to make the necessary changes. Honestly, I've taken hope out of my vocabulary.
00:26:16.900It's not that I'm not hopeful. It's that I don't think it's helpful. And rather than hope, I choose
00:26:22.440to think about faith. I have tremendous faith in our capacity to change. I have tremendous faith
00:26:28.360in the power of consciousness. I have tremendous faith in the works of people to make very quick
00:26:36.280changes. But we're up against a capitalistic society, not just the United States, but China
00:26:45.880and every other country that wants the same kind of lifestyle that we have. So when Donald Trump
00:26:52.320says that the G20 gathering, you know, Western civilization is at risk, he's right, but not in
00:26:59.220a way that he thinks, you know, and he said our lifestyle is at risk. He's right, but not for the
00:27:05.260reasons. If we want to survive as a species in fellowship with other species, we are going to
00:27:12.120have to shift our point of view and become more empathetic, become more unselfish. Think about
00:27:20.500what sacrifice means in a spiritual sense and what the spiritual implications are of climate
00:27:27.280change. But we're still in the stage of denial. We're in denial of death. We're in denial of
00:27:33.680where we find ourselves now and that there is a real world and it is really
00:27:37.900dying right now. And what concerns me most are those that have no voice.
00:27:42.440And those are the birds. Those are the plants. Those are the
00:27:45.840moths. Those are the elephants. All of the creatures among us who are
00:27:49.980struggling. And that's what I'm concerned about.
00:27:53.880So how do we come together? You know, how do we take
00:27:58.040on one hand all that modernity has given us?
00:28:01.920And how do we take, on the other hand, a spiritual reality that we must begin to embrace, that we are not the only species that lives and breathes and loves and grieves on this planet?
00:28:15.100And how do we bring these two hands together in prayer?
00:28:18.340I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about a spiritual consciousness that I think we are going to have to embrace if we are going to evolve to a species that dares to love, even in the face of death, even in the face of mass extinction, even in the face of our own complicity.
00:28:38.000that was so beautiful terry and it has been feelings that i have felt so many times whether
00:28:45.500it's seeing this collective denial that i myself was grown and conditioned into breaking away from
00:28:53.720that and then learning how to not shy away from the truth because i felt very early on when i
00:29:01.800started to awaken to the realities of the world that for me to love the world that meant i had
00:29:07.000to understand what was happening and not shy away from the pain because the earth and the all
00:29:13.980creatures are feeling this pain at least I believe that and I wanted to actually show up in a
00:29:18.800relationship that I could hold not just my own pain but the pain of the other species as well
00:29:25.780and so I think it's almost this intense gift to learn to love in the face of collapse and how
00:29:34.680passionate and alive I believe humans can feel when we start really awakening to these realities
00:29:42.620and being present with them and I think about this biological cessation that you were mentioning
00:29:51.820earlier and the end of birth is something else and I certainly think that this cast a new light
00:30:00.240on the human experiment and now you know not only have we seen a slowing or a ceasing of biological
00:30:08.020evolution but a deep regression in cultural evolution and so i'm wondering how are wild
00:30:16.660spaces and wilderness fundamental to our creativity as a species and to our sense of
00:30:24.780direction amid the confusion? It's such a great question. You know, I think of a story
00:30:31.520not long ago. I was talking with a young woman who grew up in the Western Everglades in Florida,
00:30:38.700and she said, you know, we used to have two seasons in the Everglades. And as a child,
00:30:44.540I looked forward to both. We had the dry season and we had the rainy season. And in both,
00:30:49.620you know there were gifts now we have only the wet season and she said what am i supposed to do
00:30:58.240terry as i watch my own home ground flood and i know that in the not so distant future the
00:31:06.580everglades which is my identity with these long-legged birds you know how am i to grieve
00:31:13.920you know how am i to move forward knowing what is going to be lost and i really didn't have an
00:31:19.060answer for her. All I could say was to bear witness is not a passive act, but an act of
00:31:26.400conscience and consequence. And to have the strength not to avert our gaze, as you said,
00:31:34.680to not look away. In the same way when those of us who have been with loved ones who are in the
00:31:40.500process of dying. We don't walk away and we stay and we hold them and we listen to them and we cry
00:31:49.340with them. And we know this is the process of life that we are in. Half of my family is gone
00:31:55.540and I've had the privilege of being with them in those dying moments. It's not easy, but it is
00:32:01.860about being present and the gift of the consciousness of knowing we are finite. I have no
00:32:09.800doubt that the earth will survive us but it will be a changed earth and it's not without its sorrow
00:32:16.720you know i'm reading this terrific book maybe you've read it staying with the trouble by donna
00:32:22.520harroway and she talks about the importance of multi-species justice and how our task as human
00:32:28.740beings right now is to make trouble and i love that you know whether it's direct action whether
00:32:35.160it's buying oil and gas leases, whether it's committing civil disobedience, whether it's
00:32:40.740holding prayers, as so many did, and also offer support and presence at Standing Rock,
00:32:49.840you know, what may be asked of us with bear's ears, to really look at this kinship that
00:32:55.900is ours and how we are redefining family.
00:32:58.440And I know for me, my sense of family is not just exclusive to my own species, not at all. You know, when I hear the hermit thrush singing in the morning and at night, even between intervals of thunder, that is my kin, that is my voice too.
00:33:17.920i just imagined thunder being kin and my heart picked up a beat i wanted to read a quote that
00:33:28.300i had written down from you quote cynicism thrives in air-conditioned rooms like any true place the
00:33:36.140desert is a risk end quote and elsewhere you write quote desert strategies are useful in times of
00:33:45.140drought, pull your resources inward. When water is scarce, find moisture and seeds. To stay strong
00:33:53.660and supple, send a taproot down deep. Run when required, hide when necessary. When hot,
00:34:01.840go underground. Do not fear darkness. It's where one comes alive." And it's just reminding me of
00:34:12.040what we were talking about with not shying away from the darkness and this fear of death and as
00:34:21.240desertification is becoming an undeniable pattern of civilization this advice if taken literally
00:34:28.340could be life-saving for a lot of people you know i do suspect however that there is a more
00:34:35.020metaphorical layer under these words like most of us do fear darkness and the end of cheap energy
00:34:42.940and life as we know it our screens going dark and civilization gives us the option to
00:34:49.420burrow in our comfort zones but in the wild fear and risk make you think fast and act fast and
00:34:59.200with courage. So what would be the upshot if we all learned to embrace risk-taking and fear as
00:35:09.540creative forces? I love that. You know, who knows? I mean, that's the thing. You know, each landscape,
00:35:17.420each ecotone, each ecosystem, you know, I view them as our teachers. And the key word for me is
00:35:26.820is being humble which has its root in hummus earth and being teachable you know we think we
00:35:35.240know so much we think we we have these brains and it's true we do but I think more than that
00:35:43.480we're still animals and we still are part of something so much larger than ourselves and to
00:35:49.380remember that you know the desert is not a void it is my unknowing and I think it's that unknowing
00:35:56.560that puts us on equal ground with other species, and that's a beautiful thing, and the world is so
00:36:03.740beautiful, and every day I set for myself some encounter with wildness, whether it's a praying
00:36:10.960mantis in Manhattan, whether it's, you know, hearing the wingbeats of ravens in Castle Valley
00:36:17.000where we live, or, you know, watching bison in the Lamar Valley, or the grunion rum, you know,
00:36:24.020those flashing scales coming up with the tide on the pacific coast i mean it's just it's endless
00:36:31.120spring peepers you know in the northeast i mean the indiana dunes i mean we are so blessed by
00:36:38.200these wild spaces and i've come to really cherish how beauty is its own form of resistance to have
00:36:46.780a living knowledge of beauty and wildness and that sense of humility that sense of fear that
00:36:52.680you speak of and darkness, where we're on our edge and we can use our night vision.
00:40:08.360well personally i am married to the temperate rainforests and my vision is to serve
00:40:19.360the land in whatever way they direct me and so far that direction has been in the form of a
00:40:28.660native species nursery to enhance biodiversity to sequester carbon and help with climate mitigation
00:40:35.960So I see this interplay between the philosophical wanderings and this cultural shift that can happen in meetings and celebrations in combination with tangible restoration of land, in combination with tangible conservation of land.
00:40:56.620And I think that I am very lucky, very privileged to even be able to consider these things because I think a lot of people, whether they don't have the privilege or they're just stuck in the conditioning of this dominant lie of abundance that isn't true abundance or these choices, if you do these choices, this will bring you fulfillment.
00:41:23.720but the fulfillment that the dominant culture is selling us is all about really narcissism
00:41:31.540and i have never found that just serving the self is fulfilling at all and so i think that
00:41:37.200is this large lie held over many people's heads to just focus on the self or the nuclear family
00:41:45.180and to have these certain steps certain chapters in your life that you get to this whether it's
00:41:51.040the white picket fence and the two kids or whatever it is but it doesn't make sense in the
00:41:56.720reality that we're facing and not to say that we can't have families but it's more than that and
00:42:02.820what we're facing is monumental and so it's this monumental challenge of creativity at the same
00:42:09.840time how are we going to step up to the task that we are being handed in a way that is in love and
00:42:17.100in rapture and in passion and focused and clear and intelligent and you know one thing that i've
00:42:24.780really been learning a lot lately with building this native species nursery is even if you do
00:42:30.280have good intentions even if you want to make all of the best choices and the most integrity
00:42:35.860the system that we are in does not make eco quote eco-friendly choices affordable convenient easy
00:42:44.720it's just amazing even just to grow trees how challenging it is to make decisions that are not
00:42:51.000hurting another land somewhere else so I've been thinking about this question a lot just
00:42:57.080what are our choices at this point and how do we not get stuck and so how I move through the
00:43:04.720Anthropocene is falling more deeply in love every day with what is still here and with what I can
00:43:13.640imagine coming back if we support and tenderly care for the land and I think about the word
00:43:22.680wildness and I know it's come up a lot you know in your writing and I think I mean it's for the
00:43:27.760wild so I very much connected to that word but I've heard from some people the word wildness
00:43:35.100can be construed into a lot of different meanings I've heard from some other people I've had in the
00:43:40.980podcast like oh well the wildness is this term used from colonialist or people that aren't
00:43:48.860familiar with the land and so it's separating if something's wild that means we're not wild and
00:43:53.660and wild is something that you don't touch or humans don't touch but then i think about tending
00:43:58.900the wild there's a book about california native people and how they were able to steward the land
00:44:29.400And I just so honor what you're doing.
00:44:32.040And this is what I'm talking about. I think what you know we need to hear. And I will talk about wildness and wilderness. But, you know, I have a question just to follow up after listening to what you have just so beautifully articulated in terms of your own life's work. Do you feel angry?
00:44:51.720i call it sacred rage and yes i feel angry i feel i my blood boils but i take that anger and it it
00:45:06.100honestly just turns into this passionate love because it i don't know if this is what a mother
00:45:13.380bear feels like but but yeah I feel angry and but the anger is so much energy and that energy
00:45:20.840can be used to just push something forward so I'm not upset when I feel that well I don't know
00:45:27.740if upset's the correct word but it doesn't get me down it just fuels my fire I feel the same way
00:45:34.600and I too call it sacred rage you know how many times as women have we been told calm down you
00:45:41.940know, you're irrational, you're angry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I just want to, I am
00:45:46.340angry. I'm furious, you know, and over the winter, especially with the election and knowing what was
00:45:52.900coming down, I thought, okay, I've got to get a grip. Everyone says I'm just, I've got too much
00:45:57.480fire. I'm too angry. And then I thought with a name like Tempest, I'm hopeless. So I went and
00:46:01.500ordered, I swear, 12 books on anger, you know, dance of anger, anger and compassion, love your
00:46:07.380enemies. I mean, you should see my library. And I started reading them with my red pencil and
00:46:13.140really being studious about it. I got so angry at what I was reading. I just thought, okay, stop.
00:46:18.460And I do think anger is a focused force. And I do think if we can take our anger and channel it
00:46:25.440into something powerful and direct, it does, and it can become sacred rage and sacred acts
00:46:32.620of resistance. And I also feel that, you know, there is fire in the wild, in forests, you know,
00:46:40.440in the desert, it's a hot fire that roars and it's fast, you know, in grasslands. And I think
00:46:46.460there's a real purpose for that in the same way that there's a purpose for water. It's all elemental,
00:46:51.000you know, water seeping into every crack and cranny, you know, to where it has the power to
00:46:57.980cracked stone. So again, all these elements around us that give us clues. You know, you asked me,
00:47:05.820what is my definition of wilderness or wildness? And it's Thoreau's 200th anniversary this year.
00:47:13.360And of course, in Wildness is the preservation of the world, he writes. And I understand,
00:47:18.800you know, the critics who say that, you know, wilderness has become irrelevant before it's
00:47:23.560become resolved. And wilderness is a political term, a colonial term. But I also think it's a
00:47:28.960limitation of language. And when I think about wild country, big country, the country that we
00:47:35.060still have in the West and in our forests and deserts and mountains and meadows and wetlands
00:47:41.800and oceans and seashores and rivers, to me, this is the taproot of consciousness. It is where we
00:47:49.360have evolved and it is where we are continuing to evolve and we cannot separate ourselves from it
00:47:55.720and i think that's the key it isn't something outside of of human beings it's inside us as well
00:48:03.460and i think it's this convergence of the inner and outer wilderness that that is so crucial right now
00:48:09.940to make peace with and yes there's the protected wilderness and yes we can find wildness everywhere
00:48:18.160But I think it's seeing the world whole, even wholly, and fighting for the remaining land that is there and the animals and the ecosystems that are, as you said, stressed and suffering in the same way that we are.
00:48:32.700I heard the most beautiful story. May I share it?
00:50:34.480What could alleviate the suffering of these giant trees, these elders?
00:50:40.660She thought, what if this sacred grove of trees thousands of years old, what if it no longer was a place of entertainment, but a place of contemplation?
00:50:59.500what if it was no longer about recreation but restoration and so with the superintendent
00:51:10.380and with supporters of the mariposa grove it was agreed that over time the asphalt would be removed
00:51:20.580There would no longer be the buses, the trolleys, entertainment, noise, unconscious, walking, but rather soft earth would be reinstated, the roots would be freed, new paths would be made, and it would become a place of solitude, contemplation, restoration, reverence.
00:51:46.160and that is what is happening so that now the mariposa grove is a breathing space
00:51:53.920and that the trees will be able to heal don't you love that i do love that and i think it's
00:52:03.540such an important understanding that land is not there just for our recreation or for our
00:52:14.020resource extraction as humans or for anything but it's also a relationship and when you kept saying
00:52:20.300that the trees were elders I thought about grandparents and you know an elder needs a
00:52:27.280rest every now and then and if an elder was being chatted with 24 hours a day and questions and
00:52:32.860made to do this that and the other they would get exhausted and maybe ill even from that so
00:52:38.280being able to put this kinship this well this relational understanding of land and how we can
00:52:47.680interact in a way that is loving and considerate and respectful and not just about our needs but
00:52:55.580about the land's needs is such a huge shift exactly and you know we keep thinking what can
00:53:03.960one person do? Well, Sue Beatty did a lot. And it goes back to that idea. Again, what do we do?
00:53:11.460What's our gift? What's my gift? What's your gift? How do we deepen it? How do we listen?
00:53:17.080How do we take it to the next level? Sue Beatty, a botanist, listened. She listened to the trees
00:53:23.600and it made all the difference. And she shifted. I mean, it's like a chiropractic shift.
00:53:59.860It goes back to what you were saying, acts of the imagination that loom large as we make these shifts, recognizing, as you said, that our institutions are no longer working for us.
00:54:14.420The notion of the nuclear family is a myth, but how do we expand our sense of family, expand our sense of community to both human and wild?
00:54:24.700And if we take care of that in our own sphere and circle of reference, then the earth will be held.
00:54:32.420And we will be transformed in the process.
00:54:52.980Thank you, Terry. Thank you for your exquisite words and walking your prayer and leading by example and courageously using your knowledge and privilege and your gifts to protect these places that hold us all. Thank you.
00:55:18.100and thank you for your wisdom and happy birthday you know and i just i remember um doug peacock at
00:55:26.620a low moment i i just love him so much he's you know george washington hey duke the inspiration
00:55:33.220for at abby's monkey wrench game the the character who blew up glenn canyon dam i asked him how do
00:55:39.460you stave off despair and he said surround yourself with people you love and seek out
00:55:47.340wild places. And then he turned to me and said, we lose nothing by loving. I believe that.
00:56:00.780Thank you for listening to For the Wild podcast. The music you heard today was by Buffalo Rose,
00:56:06.760Kendra Swanson, and Aviva LaFey. This episode of For the Wild was created by Ayanna Young,
00:56:12.700reach out Madison Migulski and Molly Lebov.