Terry Tempest Williams:
An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the field
"It is this tenderness born out of our connection to place that fuels my writing"
(57)
the Serengeti Plains | Alaska | Pelham Bay | Bears | Erotics of Place
In the Country of Grasses
Serengeti plains
clutching a handful of grass as a sign of humility grasses as "where the source
of his power lies."
12
The Architecture of a Soul 15
"They remind me of my natural history, that I was tutored by a woman who courted
solitude and made pilgrimages to the edges of our continentŠthat beauty,
awe and curiosity were values illuminated in our own home."
In Cahoots with Coyote (Georgia Okeefe painted like one)
"She transformed desert landscapes into emotional ones." 20
"The art of perception
is deception‹a lesson Coyote knows well" 21
Hopi and others refer to the Coyote as a trickster.
1916 Palo Duro Canyon, west Texas
"O'keefe saw this cut in the earth a a burning seething cauldron, almost like
a blast furnace full of dramatic light and color."
Deep Woods of Sitka,
Alaska, 
"Wolf Pole is the totem with a village watchman atop of a wolfs head, holding the tail of a salmon in his feet, - a sockeye salmon poised to swim "downriver" (?)
Uncle was born (breech) feet first, but deprived of sufficient oxygen at birth to leave him with seizures throughout his life.
Normal is a motif here as she uses two cultures juxtaposed to ask what is normal? (Norma Jean)
Latin: normalis, norma, a rule; conforming with or constituting an accepted standard, model, or pattern, especially corresponding to the median or average of a large group in type, appearance, achievement, function, or development." 29
Water Songs
American Museum of Natural
History, NYC 39
Black Crowned night Heron, red winged blackbirds, cattails,
"brought together by birds." 40
"the beauty inherent in marshes as systems of regeneration" 43
"Pelham Bay is her home, the landscape she naturally comprehends, a sanctuary
she holds inside her unguarded heart." 48
Bear stories bear becomes a woman, dream of embracing the beast 52
"For me, it has everything
to do with undressing, exposing, and embracing the Feminine." 53
"a commitment to the wildness within" "our hunger for connection..."
We are taught not to trust our own experience."
Paradox preserves mystery, and mystery inspires belief."
Ancient association of female qualities, "the Feminine, and Bears, ursus
arctos. Artemis, Callisto 53
Artemis is Ursa Major, Pole star the axis mundi of the heavens 54
"we commit our vulnerabilities not to fear but to courage--the courage that allows us to write on behalf of the earth, on behalf of ourselves." 59
"Echos are real, not imaginary." 81
