Ferne Mizell of Austin TX sent me this lovely photo of a black swallowtail, the butterfly that is the next step in the lifecycle that begins with the caterpillar on the fennel. Ferne says that this butterfly was moving slowly and seemed reluctant to fly, so was perhaps just newly hatched; a neighbor, though, thought that she was perhaps laying eggs. Either way--just starting out or beginning the end--it's another important step in life's ceaseless journey.
The conference is finished and I'm recovering. It was an exciting, joyful two days (three, for those of us who participated in the field-writing workshops) of discovery. I think we all came away with the idea that knowing our places, learning this earth, becoming conscious of our connections--these are the most important things our species can do. This is our responsibility. Kathleen Dean Moore gave our keynote address, and (in part) read from her book Holdfast. Here is some of what she read:
"You can put down roots by staying in one place. But my hope for my daughter [who had just gone away to college] is that there is another way to be deeply and joyously connected to the land even while she's on the move, a way for Erin to feel at home in the natural world, no matter where she is. It's a kind of rootedness that has to do with noticing, with caring, with remembering, with embracing, with rejoicing in the breadth of the horizon and taking comfor in the family smell of rain. In the sliding, shifting world my daughter lives in, this may be the closest thing to bedrock."
I think I speak for all those who were at the conference this weekend when I say that we know we must take this as our task: to notice, to care, to remember, embrace, rejoice. And to love, protect, and speak for, to hold the land's stories as dear and as important and tragic and hopeful as our own.
Today, answering emails, cleaning house, doing laundry, restoring the refrigerator to some sort of order. Tomorrow, if I'm lucky, back to writing. If I'm luckier, I'll see a black swallowtail in the garden.
Reading note. How can I understand that what is absent is not gone, that what has ended is not finished, that what is taken is returned as more than memory?--Susan Hanson, "Why Write About Nature?"