Tag: Community

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Out of the Depths: Introducing Far Country

Here I am, friends, like an underground river rising to the surface once again. The occasion is a celebration: my new poetry collection, Far Country, arrives into the world March 4th thanks to University of Nevada Press. Oh, happy day!

(Cover art Bardsey Boats, from the beautiful series of “Soul Boats” by Jake Lever. )

Please join me in person or virtually for the official book launch at Collected Works Bookstore Wednesday, March 12 at 6pm. The event will include a reading from Far Country followed by a conversation with the wonderful poet and friend to the earth, Anne Haven McDonnell. I am so excited to see where we go together…

Well, what can I tell you about this newborn book?

Five years in the making, these poems are my attempt to explore the unknowable–a landscape transformed by climate change, motherhood turned into crucible, and the unmapped territory in which loss becomes a medium of deepening connection and love.  

There are poems about herb lore, the imaginal realm, the flourishing earth. It’s filled with signs from the stars and the moon, and a new relationship to faith taking shape quietly in the background. There is a midwife, a daughter in trouble, and other wounded healers. There are deer. Springtime, for sure. There is drought and dry rivers, and moths. There is heartbreak and mercy. There are loads of keys.

“Far Country” refers to the world we have left behind, the future we are hurtling towards, and the foreign, disoriented present. It is the ground we stand upon when we have lost our bearings. It is a place of spiritual exile, longing, and return. To reach there, these poems traverse worlds both seen and unseen, fusing them into a rich tapestry of lyric exploration and wonder.

I invite you to travel to those lands and walk alongside me for a bit. Far Country is available from your favorite independent bookseller.

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Given the long lapses I’ve had writing here, I have come to see this space, once so wide ranging and free flowing, as an ephemeral river. Perhaps it flows under the surface during dry years, or gets diverted to other channels, or drops into other dimensions entirely, like the rio abajo rio that lies out of sight even as it waters our souls from the depths.

But now, to honor the arrival of this new book, I have in mind a brief season of posting a companion guide to the poems. Things like the practice of poetry as numinous art, what it means to write “ecologically,” the crucial role of imagination in these times, and other landmarks I used to navigate into and out of Far Country. Oh, and I can’t wait to tell you more about those beautiful boats on the cover.

I hope you’ll join me. Subscribe for best coverage! We’ll see what the river picks up in its meandering, and what it has to carry up from the silence underground.

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Community Garden

Happy Earth Day weekend, month, year, life!

The randomly selected winner of How-to is Becca T. Thank you to all of you for your kind words and support of poetry! I am grateful to be a part of this project that honors the work of nurturing–be it a garden, a community, a life–in such a lyrical way. If you really had your heart set on it, do consider purchasing a copy from the publisher, Old School Books. For the rest of you curious readers, here is one of my poems that appears in the book. It’s about how I have to teach myself how to make zucchini fritters each year as if for the first time. And other things. Like an afternoon in a community garden. Enjoy and be well!

Community Garden

Summer opens in these moments,

wide mouthed and generous as a squash blossom

promising ample fruit to slice and grate,

to bake and fry in those dozen lost recipes reclaimed

come harvest time. The garden sits on a knoll,

blue mountains layered off in the distance,

blue sky raucous with clouds and shadows

and waves of shifting evening light. My child pacing

mulched paths, taking hold of the wheelbarrow,

screeching with something like exhilaration,

but is unnamable, unspoken. We gather

in a garden made with tools and water,

the unyielding soil softened with manure

and persistent grace. Fellowship.

It is a feast tasted with every turning of the wheel

towards warmth, a recipe calling for sun and rain,

forgotten in due course, but recovered

as we set the table together once more. This smell

of fertile earth. This sound of unnamable delight.

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Celebrating a Historic Moment

History was made in Santa Fe, tonight.

I’m fresh from City Hall, where our city council unanimously (and astonishingly) voted in favor of an ordinance guaranteeing water for the Santa Fe River. This makes Santa Fe the first city in New Mexico to make environmental flow in a river law.

To say that this is huge would be an understatement.

At a time when ecological devastation is the norm, this was an act of healing and hope.

It was made possible by a movement that began twenty years ago as a small trickle, and grew into a flash flood of love and support for a dry river that was in 2007 named most endangered river in America. Tonight, City Hall overflowed with citizens, activists, clergy, students, hydrologists, lawyers, ecologists, and yes, the politicians who proved that even against tremendous odds, miraculous things are possible.

Our river was first dammed in the 1880s, and again in the early 20th century. For decades its waters have been held in vast reservoirs and used to supply a growing city. Meanwhile, the river disappeared. It turned into an ugly gash, eroded and trash riddled. A living river was for decades considered folly, a waste of our drinking water. It has been a long road to bring the river back to life, first in our hearts and spirits, (which this little project of mine was dedicated to) and now, in reality.

The vision and activism of our community has worked miracles. It is in many ways a small step–just the beginning, really, of what is truly needed for the river to thrive. But in the face of drought and an uncertain climate future, this is a revolution. It is a step towards recognizing that the rivers future and our own are one and the same.

The Santa Fe River is the thread that stitches us back into the tapestry of the wild, pointing us gently away from destruction and towards conservation.  It is the place where nature, myth, history, and spirit enter our bodies and minds. It carries us now, as it always has. And now we will begin to carry it once again. To take our rightful place as stewards of its well being.

Thank you, Santa Fe. I can smell that wet willow bosque already.

¡Que Viva el Rio!

¡Que Viva Santa Fe!

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You can read more of the story here.

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Welcome to Old Recipe for a New World

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Thanks for dropping by.

The recipe we’re cooking these days is simple: less waste, more joy. Will it help to create a new world? At our house, maybe.

We’re gearing up (down?) for a four month fast from buying plastic. It’s a symbolic action, a way for us to live more in line with our principles. A show of solidarity with an increasingly troubled planet, if you will.

I’ll be posting our discoveries of how to get by in a post-plastic world (well, almost – we get to keep the plastic we already have, and cherish those bottles and baggies like they deserve to be cherished). Eventually I’ll be taking hard looks at the facts of consumption and waste, and sharing some of our reasons for making what amounts to a pretty big lifestyle change.

But know that the roots of this journal are planted in the soil of simplicity, wonder, and love. It’s a fertile ground, that. Already I’ve found much to celebrate in the handmade, the natural world, the kitchen, and the goat barn. As we close the doors on old patterns, they open to the surprising abundance of a life lived more carefully.

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Commencing to Feast

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Speaking of abundance, we’ve signed up for a winter share with a local CSA, Beneficial Farms. This week, the first in November, we brought home hefty bags loaded with apples, kale, collards, onions, baby beets, scallions, salad greens, arugula, and persimmons.

While our decision to go plastic free is a very personal, symbolic action, joining a CSA offers immediate and significant results. Our carbon footprint from importing food from out of state/country is vastly reduced, while our money goes directly towards strengthening local food systems. It helps create the world we want to live in.

Seasonal food from within our foodshed. You bet it tastes better.

Psst. It’s cheaper, too.