Earth Week

Gratitude for time on a horse, announcing the Terraphilia Book Club

Grand Mesa from the dust-dry high desert

Hello Friends,

How did you celebrate Earth Day? I played hooky, something I try to do once a month, and rode the rim of the Gunnison Gorge with a friend who is generous enough to share their horses.

The weather was gloriously warm, with just enough breeze to keep the high-desert sun from feeling hot. The sere landscape spreads to the far horizon, revealing the very bones that shape canyon and mesa, cliff and wash. The snow-capped peaks in the distance were crisp against a bluebird-blue sky.

It was heaven. That is, if heaven was in a drought so deep that the soil was dusty as finely-milled flour. The pointillist dotting of desert wildflowers that normally populate the bare soil during our short-lived spring was absent.

In six miles of riding, I did spot a dozen species of spring wildflowers, but only one here, two a long distance away, a third over the little ridge…. I admire these plants’ resilience in being able to produce flowers at all in this dusty time. And where there were blooms, somehow the native bees found them and were buzzing around in apparent delight.

The only shrub in bloom: cliff fendlerbush (Fendlera rupicola) or false mock-orange for those mock-orange-shaped flowers. This shrub grows with its roots fingering into joints in the sandstone layers where water hides even in deep droughts.

Despite deepening drought and national politics and the general insanity in the world, to be out on a horse in a wide and wild landscape restored me.

I got my dose of Vitamin N and then some, strengthened my terraphilia muscles, played “we have no reins so you have to listen to my leg movements” with a lively foxtrotter who is responsive to that kind of communication, and just gave in to the joy of being part of the life of this land.

We finished the ride dusty and a little sunburned, and then my friend and I shared a very late lunch at Sumo Sushi, a hole-in-the wall sushi joint with excellent food in the little farm town of Delta, Colorado. (How the family from Myanmar who own and run it got to Delta must be quite a story.)

Ending a halcyon outdoors day supporting a family business of immigrants forging a good life for themselves seemed very terraphilic: a testament to how small the world is, and how we really are all connected—humans, oceans, deserts, rivers, jungles, snow-blanketed mountains and all the lives with whom we share this planet. And how crucial it is in these times to uplift and support each other, whether on a horse in the high desert or sharing a meal.

The rim of the Gunnison Gorge over horse ears; me reminding said horse to quit backing up because we are at the edge; the Gunnison River and its ribbon of green far below; the snowy West Elk Mountains in the far distance.

---

The Terraphilia Book Club

As I was bringing the Year of Spiritual Thinking Project to a close a couple of months ago, I asked if you all were interested in a book club that would continue exploring spirituality from a terraphilic perspective, and if you had suggestions of books to read and discuss here. You were, and you did.

And then came the chaos that has marked the new US presidential administration, and I got distracted. Until Diamond-Michael Scott’s excellent post this week on reading as a radical act motivated me to pick a book and get organized.

Reading is an act of courage—and faith in better days to come.

—Diamond-Michael Scott

I’ve picked four books from four very different viewpoints that all deal with our relationship to this earth and each other. Each will stretch our understanding, of nature, of humanity and of spirituality.

My plan is to introduce one book each quarter to give us plenty of time to read and discuss, and I’m sticking with books that should be available in libraries or used bookstores if buying them new is not an option.

I’ll introduce that quarter’s book in one post, and then give us a month to read it before opening the discussion, which will take place in the comments here. We’ll have two months for discussion: once a month I’ll prompt you in a post with a few questions about the book, and then we’ll talk about those questions and anything else related to the book in the comments for that post. How does that sound?

The first book is Terry Tempest Williams’ Finding Beauty in a Broken World, a visceral, sometimes disturbing and deeply moving look at how we live through the most brutal of times. Finding Beauty in a Broken World was published in 2008, growing out of Tempest Williams’ search for meaning and beauty in the world after 9/11, and is (sadly) more than ever relevant today.

The story weaves the art of mosaic-making with observations of the behavior and personalities of a community of endangered prairie dogs and trips to Rwanda to help a reconciliation village build a memorial to the thousands of Tutsis killed in the genocide of 1994. Out of those disparate elements, Terry Tempest Williams weaves a lyrical and ultimately hopeful story that can help us find our own beauty in this world where so much is broken.

As Diamond-Michael Scott reminds us, reading is a radical act. And one that can heal our hearts, expand our spirits and open our minds—perfect for these times.

Join us in reading Finding Beauty in a Broken World. I’ll prepare more thoughts on the book and some questions for a post late in May. I look forward to our conversation!

Blessings, Susan

Thanks to Beth Spencer of Introvert Drawing Club, for making this sticker available. I write these posts, and the photos are mine. No AI involved!