🍃 04 | NatureStack: shared wonder
September 2024: Swinging on the equinox edition
Intense energies are swirling here in the northern hemisphere. Last week brought the full supermoon partial lunar eclipse. Asteroid PT5 hitching a ride on earth’s gravitational pull has been called an “mini-moon.” I love that it detoured here from an asteroid belt named after Arjuna1—yes, that Arjuna. From the Mahabharata. One of Indra’s sons, the magical ambidextrous archer.
The tide in Annapolis has been super high all week. Multiple times a day, my phone’s weather app pushes its notification of a coastal flood warning. Yeah, I know, I see it, thanks. Back Creek threatens to submerge the dock across the way. Should I worry how the great blue heron can fish in the mud flat shallows that’s no longer shallow? She has long legs, but not that long!
North Americans just passed the Autumnal Equinox, Latin for equal night. My favorite symbol of the equinox is the swing. For one thing, it evokes the dynamic of inner and outer balance, yin and yang. For another, swings are FUN! The other day, I found myself watching a video of a grown-up revving a huge swing to the inevitable giant full-circle that we all fantasized about as kids. I can’t remember when I was last on a swing. I should do something about that.
In further service to nature writers here, Rebecca Wisent curates this lovely directory of nature-focused writers. It’s organized by region and topic and, if you’re a nature writer yourself, easy to get listed.
Now let’s swing into autumn (or spring, in the southern hemisphere).
🍃 Wonder
Bethany Edgoose, Trees are People
In a tone both edifying and amusing,
explores the hopeful idea of legal personhood for non-human beings—trees, mountains, rivers, etc. Yes, this is a real thing in many parts of the world, including Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, and others.“Reader, it seems this post is now a tour of legal concepts I find absolutely thrilling. I’m not being sarcastic, this is exciting stuff because it shows the power of language to define reality.”
No more lawyer jokes, I promise! We need smart jurists to write the legislation and bring the cases. After all:
“Enshrining inalienable rights for nature would challenge post-enlightenment western capitalist anthropocentrism that frames nature as a set of discrete resources to be used for human benefit.”
Sam Matey, The Weekly Anthropocene, September 25 2024
Let’s face it: the media’s good news to bad news ratio is far too low.
does his part to help re-balance the ratio. I always appreciate his meticulous research and upbeat presentations of good news sourced from all over.“A big relief at the Thwaites Glacier, the ozone layer's continued recovery, agrivoltaic wines in Italy, a restored Finnish wetland, the Biden-Harris battery boom, speed dating for shellfish, and more!”
Diane Porter, Gray Treefrog
Be still my heart! This post opens with the most adorable image:
Antonia Malchick, To trust the land, know the land
This piece came out today. It’s such a beautiful encapsulation of
’s philosophy, I had to include it. Following a harrowing story about being caught in a fierce summer storm, she raises the question of trust. Our culture’s story of separation wants me not to trust, to stay stuck in fear. To that, Antonia says:"There would be no need for so much control if the culture trusted nature’s intelligence and knowledge."
Trust follows intimacy, the intimacy of relationship. Antonia writes thoughtfully about the free access to land, and the many ways that its lack impoverishes us. Here, she reminds us, “You can’t develop relationship with land you’re forbidden to enter.”
🍃 Going places
’s photographs bring me joy, like this one from her recent Detail Diary:
🍃 Kinship
recommended , to which I immediately subscribed. Who doesn’t want “a bird sound in your inbox every weekend”? Publisher , hails from the UK. Where else but on Substack can I listen to a Wood Sandpiper on my laptop while the Crows caw to each other outside my window?
🍃 Entanglement
In her interview for our Reciprocity series,
invites readers to try a bit of nature journaling.I hope that my writing, and specifically my Substack Cricklewood Nature Journal, inspires others to take a small notebook and pencil outside and feel the wonder of discovery.
She gives simple guidance for a quiet encounter with the wonders of nature. Follow this link for her prompt and a downloadable PDF on making a “sound circle.”
🍃 Immersion
I’ve been saving this one ever since reading a note about it by
. Enjoy this “album of Irish wild soundscapes, recorded in a variety of habitats, free from sources of anthropogenic noise (hence the title Wild Silence).”🍃 Story
Henry Hoke, Open Throat
OMG, people! I just finished the most amazing book. I’m always on the lookout for stories that nudge humans to the edges and center more-than-human POVs. (I’ve been experimenting myself, most recently with a heron).2 Hoke’s narrator is a queer, lonely, and very hungry mountain lion roaming the hills of L.A.
It’s a triumph of the imagination that reverses our objective gaze on the natural world by instead casting people as the objects of a wild lion’s gaze, senses, curiosity, and opinions. This is defamiliarization at its best, laced with pathos and humor. It’s heartbreaking and weird in all the best ways. The writing is spare, self-effacing, poetic, and never contrived or showy. I can’t possibly love this lion—or this wildly inventive novel—more.
🍃 Hope
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, A Note on Hope
I was psyched when, in late August,
started publishing here. Her book, What If We Get It Right? is a follow-up to the brilliant and super-hopeful collection of essays (all by women!), All We Can Save. So, I was intrigued reading her critique hope. As she says, hope “feels flimsy as motivation for climate action.”“My concern is that hope is insufficient. So, I encourage you to, in the words of Terry Tempest Williams, ‘make vows to something deeper than hope.’ If not hope, then what? Truth, courage, and solutions. Love. Collaboration and community. And all the sweetness along the way. That’s what can get us there. Possibility. That’s a word I can wholeheartedly race toward.”
I’m so curious—what’s your relationship with hope?
🍃 housekeeping
What did you enjoy most about this edition of NatureStack? I love to hear from readers. If you have any suggestions or requests for next month, do let me know in the comments.
If you enjoyed this post, a lovely ❤️ keeps me going. Another way to help others find great nature writing on Substack is to share this post by restacking it on Notes, via the Substack app. Thanks!
Read about more marvelous nature writers in the Reciprocity interview series, which so far has featured Antonia Malchik, Katharine Beckett Winship, Jessica Becker, Hadden Turner, Nan Seymour, Kate Bown, Sydney Michalski,
, and . Next up: .In case you missed the August issue of NatureStack, it’s here:
That story, “Shapeshifting,” is here
Thank you so much for dedicating the time to put this beautiful visual gathering of nature writers. It's given me so many fabulous posts to enjoy this week.
I love Shriek of the Week - isn't it brilliant? Informative, entertaining, and you learn something each time too - what's not to like?! 💚🌱
What a great round up - I love the Nature Stack issue (just found a few more "neighbors" on our tree lined street to subscribe to...) And thank you so much for the mention! xo