Now comes Eileen Crist, whose writings we consider of paramount importance during these times of environmental polycrisis, with “life’s incalculable extravaganza” crushed beneath the iron boot of human supremacism. Excerpts from a recent post on Earth Tongues:
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Now comes Earthjustice with an urgent appeal, relayed below:
A dunlin searches for food among short green grasses in the Western Arctic, in the area close to Lake Teshekpuk. (Kiliii Yuyan for Earthjustice)
Every spring, birds from every corner of the globe make their way to Alaska’s Western Arctic, the largest tract of public land in the United States. Some travel from South America, others from New Zealand or Southeast Asia, all converging on one of the most ecologically rich and remote nesting grounds in the world.
In the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area, yellow-billed loons glide across still waters. Long-tailed ducks, red phalaropes, and king eiders feed and breed in its wetlands. Shorebirds like dunlins and semipalmated sandpipers raise their young in the expansive tundra, while brant geese and snow geese gather in molting flocks along the lake’s edge.
On this last day of a crazy month, we relay a keynote address delivered by Chief Oren Lyons to the Bioneers Conference, held this past April; Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, reminding us who is in control and who must learn to be humble. Listen & repeat.
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Now comes the voice of writer Lydia Millet, from within the flow of a recent Orion conversation, well worth reading in toto; excerpts below.
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No, we are not referencing the village of cannibals among The Walking Dead, but rather the world’s most recent spasm of human supremacist oblivion, being a bloated vessel christened by “iconic” genius of global footie Leo Messi, here transmuted into a feckless shill for commercial whatevs; a megametamaxi casserole of kitsch launched (perversely) as “Icon of the Seas.” Below, a few images from the promo video; captions added by DP.
MOTHER OCEAN NOT WELCOME INSIDE THIS STORY
ICON OF THE ME, ME & ME: STICK A FORK IN IT
PASSENGER PREPARES TO BE FLUSHED
SO MUCH PASTA REQUIRES A LENGTHY DIGESTIVE TRACT
BAKE FOR TWO WEEKS AT 350 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT AND THEN PROCEED TO THE VOMITORIUM
APPARENT SIMULACRUM OF A GHOST MALL IN PARAMUS NEW JERSEY INVADED BY A HOVERCRAFT IN THE SHAPE OF A SUPPOSITORY.
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Courtesy of a faithful DP correspondent aware of our keen interest in abandoning an entrenched ethos of Human Supremacism, now comes Geneen Marie Haugen, a guide to the experiential, intertwined mysteries of nature and psyche with the Animas Valley Institute.
ENTWINED MYSTERIES
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Now comes the voice of novelist Lauren Groff, excerpted from an excellent recent Orion interview regarding her novel, The Vaster Wilds; immediately after reading her remarks, we placed an order for the book.
At the base of the story, even in its incredibly rudimentary earliest forms, there was always this push to slowly unveil the truth (one that we, in our hubris, tend to ignore) that humankind is a very short, bright thread in the enormous weave of the history of earthly life. It was urgent in this book to decenter human dominance and allow the rest of nature to take its proper place as equal to the human experience. As the girl in her flight goes deeper into her experience of being alone in the woods, as her body begins to suffer from the cold and exertion and hunger, the forest itself becomes a companion that allows her to see past the received ideas of civilization that had held her captive to that point, and in some ways becomes her solace.
One of the texts that I read while thinking through this book was Emerson’s essay, “Nature,” especially this part, which reverberates through my book:
“In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period so ever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent Eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”
To which we respond: hear! hear!
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As longtime readers know, and are likely tired of reading, we strongly believe (a belief grounded in mountains of scientific evidence) that our acute environmental crisis has evolved over hundreds of years through an entrenched, dominant ethos of human supremacism, an ethos in which we treat the world as our oyster, to be extracted, cracked, garnished and consumed.
Thus we close this eleventh DP navigation through the riptides of our present moment with the voice of the peerless Ed Yong, whose deeply exploratory An Immense World is our DP Book of the Year by a considerable margin. In this extraordinary and gracefully written treatise, Yong brilliantly drags us out of our own human sensory bubbles, and into the thrilling lifeworlds of other creatures, whose skills, intelligence and, yes — wisdom — are humbling, to say the least.
Below, excerpts from a recent interview.
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This week, we listen once again to strong, uncompromising truth-speaking from Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee and a relentless advocate for her home ground.
In September 2021, Bernadette won the Sierra Club’s Changemaker Award. They wrote, “The Gwich’in Steering Committee is largely responsible for convincing every major US Bank to pledge not to fund projects that drill for oil and gas in the Arctic Refuge, making this a day-one issue for President Biden.”
Yet challenges in the region remain acute, as the climate crisis deepens and accelerates. Excerpts from a recent dialogue below, with images added by DP.
DP verdict on COP27: an echo of COP26.
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Now comes The Emergence Network (TEN), asking a question that has been rattling through the editorial corridors of DP for many years: What if the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis? TEN proposes a research inquiry into the otherwise.
Excerpts from their manifesto, together with an emblematic image, as relayed from their website:
To subscribe to TEN’s informative and provocative newsletter, click below:
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Desperado Philosophy 