🌱 Finding our niche
A neighborhood for nature writers in the greater Substack metropolis
Hello from Maryland. I’m inspired by all the niche communities sprouting up around here. If you think of Substack like the five boroughs of New York City, these are the neighborhoods—the Park Slopes, the West Villages, the Tottenvilles. even made an atlas to help us explore this rich terrain and discover new places.1 And she recently launched the HOME directory for nature writers.2
Writing is a solitary practice, but it doesn’t have to be lonely. We already know that from our many interactions on comments and Notes. The great thing about neighborhoods in a virtual world is that you’re not limited to living in just one. (Building Hope is listed in and will be on when it launches in September.) SmallStack’s neighborhood has reached 1300 listings, according to ’s delightfully amusing FAQs. By my estimation, that’s enough to support a small shopping street, a library, some ball fields, and a community pool.3
Today I was excited to learn about , which will feature the work of BIPOC writers who hang out in the neighborhood.4
“After launching our BIPOC writing community a couple of months ago and receiving such an outpouring of support, we realized how impactful a community like this can be. So, we’re creating the next step ourselves — a publication that highlights the voices of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color on Substack.”
And ’ opening parade is this Saturday, June 1, so grab your lawn chairs, sunglasses, and a cooler to join the festivities!5
Big news!
You’re all invited to the (virtual) Summer Solstice nature writers housewarming party on Thursday, June 20! Details forthcoming. And starting in July, a bunch of my favorite nature writers will be participating in an interview series. If you’re interested in being interviewed in what will become a monthly series, DM me. If you’re not yet a subscriber and would like future posts to come right to your inbox, you know what to do.
In this spirit of community, I’ve been envisioning a nature-writing neighborhood.6 The plan is to refocus my newsletter to offer nature writers a place to recharge, share, and discover each other. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even find a better word for what we do, besides “nature writing.” After all, we’re dreamers, gardeners, rewilders, biologists, birders, trekkers, habitat restorers, voyagers, artists, walkers, photographers, poets, ancestor-whisperers, guides, ecologists, soil-makers, mythologists, storytellers, and so much more.
Every month, I will publish a journal of nature-inspired poetry, art, and essays from our fellow writers on Substack. We’ll have ways to share our favorite places, anxieties, questions, inspirations. We’ll have opportunities to convene on some regular basis to talk nature and writing and writing nature.
As nuts as the world is right now, it’s also an exciting time for nature writing. The recent titles in my inbox speak to a rich variety of voices: “Be Famous for 15 Miles” (channeling Gary Snyder), a Wendell Berry reading group, “Singing Out of His Tail Feathers,” “Life Changing Morning Walks,” “Dandelions and Plant Sleeping,” a retrospective on “Silent Spring,” and “Un-earthed subversive.” I imagine that each of their author’s inboxes are equally flourishing.
Nature is speaking, but not like that
About ten years ago, Conservation International made a video series that I think about still.7 Well-known celebrities speak as and for “nature.” They each voice a character, such as Ocean, Redwood, or Soil. The sad thing is, there isn’t a speck of love here, and even the films’ stunning cinematography does nothing to draw you in or elicit any emotion besides dismay and possibly guilt.
At the end of each spot comes the tagline, “Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature.” It’s the meanest sort of message, casting Nature as the all-powerful, disapproving parent who indulged us for too long and is now cracking down. Taking back her power, or at least throwing it around to scare us straight.
Harrison Ford’s Ocean is a thuggish intimidator intoning vague threats in a gravelly voice. He and Ed Norton’s Soil convey the attitude, “we don’t give a shit about you,” and say things like, “I suppose you still want to eat, right?” and “I covered this entire planet once. I can always cover it again.”
To be fair, the Redwoods one is a bit gentler. But even there, humans are portrayed as the way-errant loser neighbor who inherited a nice house from his grandma and now hosts twenty-four-hour, weeklong parties with plenty of meth smoking and booze, loud music and seizure-inducing video games. The human race as Jesse in Season 4 of “Breaking Bad.”
I’ve thought a lot about this message, that humans are an aberration, even a blight on the planet. An experiment in consciousness and manual dexterity that has gone horribly wrong. As tempting as this is—and as true, in many ways— it’s not close to being the full story.
It’s as misguided as it is counterproductive for conservationists to project their rage and fear onto “Nature,” to presume to speak through a thoroughly human voice, and to package it in these beautiful and depressing film spots. This campaign cannot advance the shift to a new story, because it is made entirely from the perspective of the old stories of separation, power-over, good-versus-evil, control and hierarchy.
What a missed opportunity! It’s understandable that all those clever people in conference rooms thought this would be a kick-ass campaign. But had they actually spent time with Ocean or Soil or Redwood, had they set aside agendas and listened with ears of the heart, with sincerity and humility, they would have heard an entirely different message. Not a projection of their own shame, fear, guilt and anger about the way humans (all of us, including the creative team behind this project) are treating the planet.
The message would be one of love and welcome. A reminder of our kinship and reciprocity with the natural world. And guidance for finding our way back from separation to the belonging that is our birthright. This may sound like rainbows-and-unicorns wishful thinking, but these are messages I’ve heard when I take the time to pay attenion. Yes, I am a rank novice at it, but I can say this for sure:
Nature might be alarmed by our ego-saturated ignorance and our destructive actions. She is trying all sorts of ways to beguile and engage us, to pull us out of our materialistic stupor, but she is not petty and vindictive. She would never say, “You need me, but I don’t need you.” What kind of power-over dysfunction is that? It’s an abusive parent, a marriage doomed to fail. This message certainly doesn’t inspire me to humble myself and try to repair the relationship.
It strikes me as oddly appropriate that Conservation International used major celebrities for this campaign, because they cast nature herself as a celebrity: unreachable, out there—just as Julia Roberts and Penelope Cruz and Liam Neeson are unattainable icons, larger than life. They’re better than us. They know it and we know it. They can take us or leave us. Whatever.
It’s this superiority and indifference that are so troubling. On one level, they have a point, but where’s the compassion? Yes, nature can seem vengeful and that is the stuff of mythic stories. But she is also a mysterious, all-loving and infinitely creative force and, as part of nature ourselves, we too have that potential and that capacity. Speaking to us as errant children in need of a Time Out only perpetuates the stories that brought us factory farming, deep ocean oil wells, tar sands, mountaintop removal coal mining, and massive extinctions. The stories that brought us to this point cannot deliver us from those outcomes.
I choose to align with the story that we belong here, we have a purpose, and we are loved. We are here to bear witness to the miracle of creation: to revel in joy, to sing, dance, paint, write, teach, tell stories. As Mary Oliver puts it:
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.8
Yes, we have lost sight of those truths and have caused great damage. It’s equally true that we cannot be intimidated into doing the “right thing.” When was the last time that worked for you?
Maybe this campaign was meant to be the first step in a 12-step addiction recovery. It’s the Intervention. We’ve all been gathered in a living room, surrounded by concerned friends and affected family members. Nature speaks first, ideally with more compassion than these mean-spirited videos.
Now it’s our turn. Will we get defensive, or will we put ourselves in our victims’ shoes and acknowledge the damage we have done? Is there hope for us to move from abusive codependence to healthy interdependence? For me, writing is one way to step out of the center, to explore the edges, and to share my profound gratitude, awe, and wonder at being alive on this amazing planet.
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What are your impressions of Conservation International’s approach to voicing nature’s disappointment disgust with us? Is nature an unapproachable celebrity? Or more of a cool cousin?
For the kids, an atlas is a book of maps we used before smartphones. You can find Rebecca’s “Substack Directory of Directories” on Fearless Green, here.
Trying out the name, Homecoming. What do you think?
You can find Nature Is Speaking on their website, here, though the Kevin Spacey one has been removed. Make of that what you will.
From her poem, “Sometimes,” in Red Bird, published by Beacon Press, 2008.
Really appreciating your take on "Nature is Speaking" Julie - being the child of a scolding parent, I don't see much benefit to that approach. In my imagination, Nature is forgiving, compassionate and hopeful - there are so many people doing good work, and more all the time. :) And thank you for the mention of Qstack. ::))
I think casting anyone/ anything in the role of the disapproving, authoritarian other robs us of agency. I’m looking forward to reading!