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Terry Tempest Williams: Wildness, Ancestors, and the Holy Ordinary · The Wild Idea

• Hi. I'm Sam Evans from Asheville, North Carolina, and you're listening to the wild idea. Bill 0:01 Welcome to another conversation for a wild and connected world what we call the wild idea podcast. My name is Bill Hodge, and along with my friend and co host Andrews Reynolds, we have been digging into the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. Today's episode completes our first revolution around the sun. Kind of a big deal. This is our full circle. Come around to the end of the year on this endeavor, and we wrap the first year and leap into the next with the first guest I put on my list when we went about constructing this podcast, the writer and sage Terry Tempest Williams, someone that will bring the hope and the grounding for this interesting time for the natural world. I'm sure. Anders, you join me in being geeked out about having this conversation. Anders Reynolds 0:56 Oh, hi, Bill. Oh, Bill, for obvious reasons, I have fandom on the brain, and you already touched on this. Maybe I'll explain why in a moment. But before I do, let me just let me break the ice by asking you a question. I know that you're a fan of lots of things, the Tennessee Volunteers, IPAs and K Pop. But I'm curious, what fandom are you most embarrassed to be a member of? Bill 1:30 I think I'd have to say embarrassed is the wrong word, because I guess I'm both embarrassed and I'm going to stand by it. I'm a huge fan of Adam Sandler's movie, the water boy. Anders Reynolds 1:43 It's just, it's just, you just admit it. You admit it. Bill 1:49 Mamma said alligators are so mean because I got all them teeth and they ain't got no toothbrush. Anders Reynolds 1:54 We don't, we don't need any reenactments, please God. The only thing worse than that movie is hearing people quote that movie. Oh, Bill, that's terrible. I get points for answering honestly. I suppose Bill 2:07 it's an honest answer. Anders Reynolds 2:10 You didn't ask me, but I'll answer too, and it's somewhat related. Incredibly. We didn't plan this, but I think the fandom I'm most embarrassed to be a part of, I think this is the most redneck part of me is I love a good like water park. I think that they're amazing and not disgusting at all. I want to get all in that water and ride that wave pool and that lazy river and have my shorts come off going down the slide. I love that stuff. I'm a sucker for that thing, and I'm not, I'm not embarrassed to say it, but here's, here's why fandom is on my mind. First of all, as is, as you sort of alluded to, our guest today, has me very worried that I'm going to slip into deep fandom and show my ass. I am really nerding out right now. Terry has had such an outsized impact on the ways I think about ecology and writing and people, and I kind of can't believe she's here on the show today. I'm so excited. But secondly, there's, there's another reason fandoms my mind. I ran into a friend of the show last month, and she had a gift for me and for you. I'm sure folks know about the National Park Service passport books that you can buy, and then you can get a new stamp at each park service unit. And some of those stamps are really cool, like, if you go to Hawaii Volcanoes, it's like a volcano shape stamp and but less known is a passport book for the National Wildlife Refuge System. So this particular fan had purchased two passport books, one for me and one for you, and you should have gotten yours in the mail already by the time we're recording this. But the gift came with a request, and that request was to do more episodes on our refuge system. So I want to first give a shout out to this fan. Her name is Laura Neal. She listens to every episode of the podcast. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley, and she is a past president of the Virginia wilderness committee. And I speak from experience when I say she is just a lovely, lovely person to know. And so, you know, I want to say to Laura, your bribe worked Bill and I are already scheming on some episodes on our outstanding national Refuge System. And just in case, I'm not being clear and people aren't reading between the lines, I hope you're hearing me listeners when I say that your bribes will absolutely influence the direction of this project. Bill, I think we should leave my bank account number in the show now. Bill 5:00 On, yeah, probably a good idea. I don't know if you receiving the bona fides, if you will, will be enough, but I will say receiving this passport, I'm holding it up for Anders to see came at a time in which I've been sort of rediscovering my local, small National Wildlife Refuge, the Swan River National Wildlife Refuge in the Swan Valley here in Montana, and I've just been nerding out with some trumpeter swans over the last few nights, and it's been great. So mostly, because it's a good idea, we are going to to be diving in a little more into our wildlife refuge system. We had such a great visit with Martha Williams late last year on the podcast. So but I think we need to get to like this huge get for us, and that's having Terry Tempest Williams on the podcast today. Terry's latest book, The glorians visitations from the holy ordinary just hit the shelves last week, and in the days and weeks ahead, she will have a number of author events across the country, and we will link to that schedule in our show notes. So if you happen to be in the area of one of those, you can maybe find a chance to go see Terry in person, but do yourself a favor whether you get to go see her at one of those events, pick up a copy of the glorians. I absolutely, absolutely love the book. Here's, here's what some have said about Terry Williams is a master. She gives us a reason to follow her example, refusing to look away from the degradation in hopes of preserving the wild places we have left. If you're reading Terry Tempest Williams for the first time, you are meeting an impassioned conservationist who can take her place in the environmental Pantheon, along with Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and Rebecca Solnit, a talented writer who fuses soul to scholarship and with that, let's enjoy this conversation with Terry Tempest Williams. Terry first, welcome to the wild idea podcast. When, when we met a few years ago, somewhat randomly at a literary festival in Missoula, Montana, I was a bit awestruck. Honestly, I was a huge fan of your writing, you as a writer, but after spending that afternoon sitting with you and Doug Peacock, I became an even bigger fan of Terry, the person. And I just want to say it is such an honor to have you on the podcast. Terry Tempest Williams 7:19 Well, I can report back that I'm a fan of yours, and I'm so appreciative of your podcast. I think it's the smartest thing we have on going deep on our public lands, and as you remind us each week how threatened they are, and I'm so grateful for both of you for informing us and bringing us together in this medium. Anders Reynolds 7:46 Oh my gosh, Terry, what a generous thing to say that is very kind i I personally haven't the art to reckon my thanks to you for talking to us today. You have been such a critical voice in the growth of my own ecological consciousness. And having you on feels like a dream. And speaking of dreams, your new book, The glorians, starts with a dream, and for much of the remainder of the book, you write about hope, not as a mood, but as a practice rooted in attention to the natural world. And I loved reading it. And as I was reading it, it made me think of some other writers I admire who deal in hope. You know, I thought of Robert MacFarlane calling hope a discipline, and I thought about Barry Lopez, a dear friend of yours that you eulogized so well in this book, reminding us all that to love a place is not enough. So I guess I'm curious, what does hope demand of us right now, and how has the land itself tutored you in that discipline. Terry Tempest Williams 9:03 You know, Andrews, I'm rendered speechless because I don't use hope very much. And so the fact that you find the glorians visitations from the holy ordinary a hopeful book surprises me. It also makes me appreciate the nuances of hope. I'm more a fan of faith. You know, I come from a Mormon background, and even though I'm not active, it's still my culture. These are my people, my great grandmother, velitely, Romney, I must have been 12 or 13, you know, said, my darling, Faith without works is dead. And I think that would be my how I've wrestled with hope because there was a. Time where that's all I had was hope. You know, when my mother was dying, when my grandmothers were dying, you know, I made bargains with God at that time, my view of God was very different than it is now. But what I realized is that hope was attached to my own desires. And I think more interesting for me is the idea, or to think about, there's something deeper than hope. And for me, that would be engagement. What you're saying, that, what my great grandmother was saying, that faith or hope without works, is an exercise in solipsism. And, you know, my friend Rebecca solnette, who is constantly talking about hope, we have these conversations as as women, as friends, and I think we're both saying the same thing, that hope is not something that's passive. Hope is active. And I think that's what MacFarlane was talking about, you know, it's a discipline. And I think for all of us who love the land, who care so much about our public lands, these sacred lands, we know that hope is not enough. We have to be on the ground, as Abby would say, you know, holding up the the monkey wrench. I look at some of our heroes. Doug peacock is certainly one of mine, and his life is all about action. It is not a blind hope. It is not a selfish hope or what's attached to his desires. It's a radical hope. So I think we're talking semantics, but if my long pause was met by your kindness that this is a hopeful book, I think it's only because I struggle with it. Bill 11:54 You know, we seem to be facing some insurmountable challenges and well, it's like we live from one existential crisis to another. The first section of the glorians You write about your lived experiences through the pandemic. And to me, it's a master class, and not having a Pollyanna view of the world, but a view that what is around us is what grounds us. The presence around our lives keeps us connected. And I love this line from your grandmother that you shared that what is most personal is most universal. If I feel something, you might feel it too. Is this a lesson we can apply to what I'm going to call the crisis of the natural world? Terry Tempest Williams 12:39 Say more. Bill 12:41 Well, you know, it's almost so many of the glory and so many of those experiences that are around you in your book that you reference as your as your processing. What we were all going through during the pandemic was the natural world, but we also have a crisis of the natural world. I think I'm getting at that idea that when you love something like this, then you recognize you live in a world of wounds, but you can still use that world as a way to help you heal those wounds, as a way to motivate you to help you heal those wounds. I guess that's kind of maybe what I'm getting at. Terry Tempest Williams 13:15 I love that Bill and I love that world of wounds that Leopold gave us in the land ethic, and when we're local, we have authority, and especially at a time when we cannot count on the United States government. Right now, with this current administration, what we can do is work within our own towns, with our own communities, with our own counties, and I can tell you, I'm going to add our own states, but a state like Utah can be extremely challenging in terms of land, but I think it is the local embrace, loving where we are, knowing who we are because of The proximity with which we see the sunrise, sunset. We have had tremendous winds these last couple of days. It has just been like a cleansing of the soul. And it just made me laugh last night, both Brook and I thought, Oh, my God, the windows are going to blow out. And then we heard the coyotes singing, and I swear they were singing an octave higher. You know, it was like the wind had just blown all their bass notes out of the valley. But we know that they were an octave higher because we listened to them frequently. And, you know, I think in terms of conservation and what you're you're asking, if I understand you correctly, I think Bears Ears was a beautiful Case in point, because it was not only hyper local, but it was deeply spiritual to the tribes who live in close proximity, whether it was the Dine or the Hopi or the various pueblos or the mountain ute, these were tribes that have prayed to Bears Ears. Know those grounds as sacred grounds and have stories that illuminate them and what they did for the rest of the conservation community in Utah, whether it was Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance or the Nature Conservancy or the Grand Canyon trust is put on, put us on alert that it was our time to follow what the indigenous knowledge, which is the local knowledge of that place, had to say to us. And I think we were all changed by it. And living in a little town like Castle Valley. We have maybe 300 people here last summer. I guess it was two summers ago. In 2024 we had five flash floods in a matter of weeks, and it was very local, and we were able to go to our mayor, regardless of what our politics were to say it can no longer be about our own five acres. It has to be about our own community. And what are we going to do regarding climate and drought and land use? Bill 16:18 It is going to be obvious that I come to this conversation digging for hope. And Anders touched on hope in his first question, and and I hope to fan my own flames into more and more action. I love the non human world, and I love the humans that fight for that world. And when you were like right about your relationship with Barry Lopez and the glorians, you refer to his longing to believe in our species being rooted in his faith, and that both the human communities and the wild communities ignited his joy. And I'm wondering what your thoughts on how do we help more people find that longing and that ignition of joy? Because it seems like it's like it's hard today. Honestly, things seem so gloomy at times. Terry Tempest Williams 17:04 You know, I just keep thinking, in the midst of such despair and difficult times that we're seeing, whether it's in Minneapolis or Chicago or LA or in our own neighborhoods with ice, there's still so much beauty that remains. I think it's so important to get out, you know. As we're speaking, I'm looking out our window, and the light is electric. You can see it right here, you know. And I just think, How can we be how can we lose faith when we see light like this every day, sunrise, sunset. That's a practice for me. I want to see the sunrise. I want to see the sunset. To know that another day has arrived, another day has passed, and ravens are here. Constellations of Pinyon Jays are moving through in this crease of seasons, we heard the first Meadowlarks that came in with the winds. To me, that is the backdrop of the dynamic world that we're a part of that is both human and wild. And I think if we have our grounding, if we have our bearings, then we do have joy. And joy is a very different word than happy. You know, I grew up where the goal was to be happy. I think what a shallow mantra, but, but joy is very different. I think Joy involves suffering. Joy involves the capacity to not look away, but to embrace the full range of human emotion that we are certainly embracing now, Anders Reynolds 18:43 I really like that answer. I like the idea of joy also, including some form of resilience, right? Like, that's part of life, too. I'm curious, as you were talking, something came to mind, you're describing, looking at sunrises, sunsets, the return of the metal arc, seasonally. And a lot of what you describe is sort of the idea of ritual. But you know, in my head, when I think about just the text of the word ritual, it seems like an antonym for wild or wildness or wilderness. How do you marry the idea that those two things are so closely related? Terry Tempest Williams 19:21 I think it's wonderful that they are, you know, our family ritual was, you know, loading up our vehicles with four generations, great grandparents, grandparents, you know, parents and children for the ritual of hearing the alt bugle in Grand Teton National Park, you know, or the ritual of watching the bison in the Hayden Valley in Yellowstone, you know, to me, ritual is tied to the land on Anders. And I think that's such a beautiful recognition. Are you suggesting that ritual is tied to religion, and therefore it's. At in contrast with the natural world. Anders Reynolds 20:02 No, you know, I don't think I would use the word religion. I certainly think ritual is something that can give a life maybe more meaning than it would have without it, right? It's a certain form of meaning, and meaning can be found in religion and in spiritualness, even in the natural world. So, you know, as you're talking, I understand the synthesis, Terry Tempest Williams 20:25 because I think it's interesting is, are you thinking ritual is a positive gesture, or can Yes, pejorative. So you're saying that ritual is positive? Anders Reynolds 20:37 Yes, I view ritual as a gift. I think Terry Tempest Williams 20:40 I come from a family where, you know, I hope this will make you laugh. They'll go, oh no, Terry is engaged in another ritual. Even my grandchildren, you know, I said something, what was it? We went to the we went up to Maine to see the the solar eclipse a couple of years ago. Our grandchildren at that point, point were six and seven, and I had moonstones for them that I just wanted them to hold, you know, to keep their little hands focused, because it was cold outside, and they go, Oh, Tate Terry, is this another ritual of yours? So I come from a place where it can be viewed as excessive well. Anders Reynolds 21:26 And it also reminds me of the story of the star dance and the glorians, right? That was a new ritual for you, right? Terry Tempest Williams 21:35 That was, that was stupendous our neighbors, the headends, Bill and Eleanor and Sarah. It was on the winter solstice during the pandemic. We were our own pod. Their sister daughter Chloe, was was away, but Sarah brought us that ritual on a crystalline Night of Stars that were reflected on the ground in snow cover with lit candles, and the candles were placed in the exact configuration of the Big Dipper. And it was quite elaborate, and it's a Taoist practice, but it was a ritual I will never forget, and it lasted for a very long time. Each person walked that path of the stars in two different directions and then came back to the next person went. But it was so powerful and grounding at a time during the pandemic when we were all scared. We were losing people we loved. We were afraid of each other. And I think our rituals do tie us to the land, bind us to community, and remind us not only what is possible, but necessary. Anders Reynolds 22:59 I like that. Also shout out to Bill Hedden. Bill Hedden won't remember this, but he and I spent one night together in a hotel room before a trip down the San Juan River and sort of the early days of planning for the Bears Ears National Monument. It was he and I and some representatives from TWS and some Dene folks and some representatives from friends of cedar May a great group of of people who are sort of gathered together to talk about how to move forward. I'm talking a lot, but I have another question. Sorry. Bill Terry, I want to revisit the view you espoused earlier, that hope requires action, and I want to ask you about resistance last year on episode 34 if folks want to know Bill and I spoke with environmental historian Frank eucatar about how even well intentioned conservation groups can lose their bearings inside broken systems, and how, without the clarity of hindsight, compromise can slowly shade into collaboration. You know, it's hard to see the red lines while you're living inside the moment sometimes at the same time. You know, I would say fierce resistance carries real risks. You know, you make yourself a target. Your group can lose funding, it could lose credibility, it could even lose the ability to stay in the fight, but keeping your head down, on the other hand, carries its own danger, right that one day, the bedrock protections you depend on are all gone, and you're left wondering why you didn't speak up earlier. So I guess my question is, you know, how do you as a thinker about this sort of thing, discern when a moment calls for strategic patience and when it demands open resistance? I think Terry Tempest Williams 24:53 that's such a great question, and I think about it a lot. You know, we're in a different world right now. I. I remember when President Trump gutted Bears Ears in 2017 and I happened to be in Washington, DC at the time, and Suah had a rally. And if I remember correctly, there were two or three congressmen there, and they were congressmen, and Sua was there. There were maybe 200 people. It was across from the White House at Lafayette Square. Eric dashini, who was running for Congress in the state of Arizona, he has been in the legislature. He is Dene Hopi as he began to speak, and he's one of the most powerful orators I know, the police came into the rally with their cars and ordered everyone out. We had permits. Sua had permits. We had a reason and a purpose and legal standing in that moment, any one of those congressmen could have walked over and said, What's the problem? We have a right to gather. But they didn't. They fled before I could even turn around to see where they were. They were gone, and everyone was dispersed. Eric and I stayed I've not shared this story publicly, and I said to Eric, I will stay with you. He said, I'm not leaving this is my ground as a native person. And I said, I will stay with you within three minutes. Misdemeanor. Call it civil disobedience, resistance turned into a felony, and that changes things. And I remember, you know, we really struggled with that, and two of the police officers, one black officer and one Asian officer, said, Don't do this. And I said, Eric, I will stay with you, but I'm white and you're Native, and I'm going to get out and you may not. And he said, I'm still staying. And we agreed to stay. And again, the officer said, Don't do this. And at that point, we both agreed. And Eric, you know, said, I see the wisdom in this. I'm not happy about it. It's not what I would do. And I was talking to the police, trying to buy time. And quietly, Eric was getting help, backup help, because this was not a planned act of civil disobedience. He was on the phone. I was talking to the officers. It got more and more tense. And finally, the two gentlemen, the officers, walked us across Lafayette to the street. And I said to Eric, I'm just curious, who did you call? And he said, I called the Apaches. And I burst out laughing, and right around the corner came dozens and dozens, I swear, maybe 20 plus Apaches in full regalia. They had been lobbying on the hill. And I just I loved that so much. That's its own form of resistance, knowing who you can trust, knowing who you would call. I could only think of you know what attorney do we call? But to me that that says so much about what resistance and insistence looks like today, assessing the situation, knowing what your values are, having the courage to resist, but then also realizing we're in different territory now, and if we were both slapped with felonies, that doesn't do anyone any good, and it made no point. And Eric and I continue to talk about it. He's now running for Congress. I can't think of anyone more powerful and to have the backing of your own people matters. And I know, you know, living in Salt Lake City, what does in Utah Castle Valley? What does resistance look like for me, it was signing the Endangered Species Act the petition to say the Wilson's Phalarope is in danger as Great Salt Lake is retreating. That was an act of resistance. Even though it is a law, it's a small thing. What are the odds? We still have it. We were given a 90 day stay that no one thought we could. And I thought about Martha Williams, and you know, I loved your show with her, and we may disagree on certain things, but I have come to really respect her. And when she talked about, you know what delisting means, what petitioning for a species is, what's the best thing for the community, what's the best thing for the species at hand? That was very provocative to me, because I tend to be an extremist on those elements. And yet, when we see, you know what was, what happened in Wyoming with the sage grouse, I think that was a bow for what she was talking about. The other side, however, is now that's disappeared, and the sage grouse are at greater risk than they've ever been before. So I don't have an answer. I think we just have to be present. And if we're present in the moment, in the place where we call home, we will know what to do. And certainly, Montana is a great state, showing examples of that with the Endangered Species Act and wolves and grizzlies and how long that fight's been going on, and how long that fight will continue. Anders Reynolds 30:51 Terry, in the glorians, you write about attending a lecture at Harvard Divinity School where you are a writer in residence. The thesis you recognize in that lecture goes something like, what makes a place wild is not the absence of humans, but the presence of ancestors. The presence of humans and wild places is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. I've been struggling with it a lot. So I'm hoping you can unpack that thesis a little for us. And if it helps, I can offer a prompt, and that is that I, you know, I could add that I noticed, in addition to the hope, a fair amount of loss in your book, it touches on pandemic sized losses associated with covid 19, of course, but also touches on the losses of your brother and your friend Mary Lopez, who we've already mentioned to say nothing about the mighty Jade the cat and did did the sense of all those losses contribute to your understanding of the presence of ancestors in wild places? Terry Tempest Williams 32:01 Again, these are such great questions. You know, I remember my grandfather years ago. I was in college, and, you know, I just come back from a rally in Denver on behalf of the Alaska Lands Act. It was 1977 and I got a ride home with Dave Foreman and how he woke, you know, of Earth First organizing fame, but I just knew them as guys I'd met in Wyoming, you know. And I rode home with them with a detour through the red desert. They were looking for roadless areas, and they found a road. And I remember the rage, the grief, the sadness, but also the resolve. And I came home, and I was full of what wild lands means, what wildness means with a real assurance that it did not include people. And I was telling my grandfather, and he listened, and then he sat down and he said, Terry, and he was a man of very few words. He said, I want you to describe to me three of the most powerful experiences you've had in wilderness or in wild places. And I talked about backpacking with my father and brothers in the Tetons. I talked about being with a family trip down the Escalante. And then I remember talking about being, you know, how we went as a family up to Alaska, and Jack and my grandmother were with us, and he said, That's so interesting, Terry, you don't want your species in wild places, but all the places you talked about impacting you had family members or friends or even your trip to the red desert with these two unruly men. There's a disconnect there. I've never forgotten that. I've never forgotten that. And I think, you know, we are a wild species too, in our imagination, in our collaborations on behalf of justice for all species, our ancestors are on the land. Brooke and I, just yesterday went to natural bridges and we went to one of the sites of the pre Puebloan people. The wind was blowing, but if you could hear the voices of the ancestors, you could feel them. If you couldn't hear them, you could feel them. And even though they aren't ours, we are of. Same species, and I did feel a kinship there, you know, we just had a dear friend, Jeff Foote, a beautiful member of our community in Castle Valley, passed away a few months ago. I feel like he's an ancestor now here in the valley, you know, and we could go on and on about that. At the Divinity School, there's a lot of conversation about ancestors in the black community, a lot of talk about ancestors in the indigenous communities, and it's provoked a lot of discussion among students and faculty about our own ancestors. And in the glorians, I talk a lot about the Divinity tree, a 200 year old tree that Ralph Waldo Emerson knew that was cut down while I was there. I do believe that that tree is an ancestor to the Divinity School. And at one point, I made a decision to sleep with the tree my head on the tree's roots. And as a writer, I know my vocabulary. And as my hand was on the trunk of the Divinity tree, what I heard in my heart was I am fine. My absence will be my presence. And it's only now six years later that I understand what that meant, and and the book talks about the presence of the tree, the kinds of students that are coming to the Divinity School, and a man that called me and said, is Terry Tempest Williams there. I said, Is this she? And he said, my name is John monks. I'm a woodworker. I have the body of the tree. And what that meant that when the Divinity tree was cut, as we witnessed the murder of that tree, there was a man, part of the team that cut the tree down, branch by branch by branch, who picked up the biggest pieces of the body of the tree the trunk, hauled it in a huge truck, and we were told that it was going to Maine to be used for firewood. Talk about resistance. That driver did not go to Maine. He went to Vermont, and under the cover of darkness, unloaded the body of the Divinity tree that trunk on John monk's front lawn. When John monks woke up the next morning and he saw these huge, big pieces of of red oak, one of which was spray painted. Good luck. Humans are going to need it, he knew there was a story there, and he found a small piece of paper that said, this is the Harvard Divinity tree. Perhaps you can give it another life, resistance, insistence, ancestors, not just human, but the Divinity tree. Wow. Bill 38:24 I don't even know how to come out of that. I, I too, have struggled with this question about the place of ourselves in the wild world, and getting rid of this dichotomy of there's there's civilization and then there's wild places. Because, as we've explored with guests like Karina Newsome, the wildness is all around us all of the time. And when you guys were talking about ancestors, and you know, earlier, you're having conversations about ritual, I was thinking about rituals in my family, in the outdoors, you're talking about backpacking with your brothers like your your favorite times and in the wild were with other humans, including family, and the funny rituals that our family had. My I could count on my dad and my uncle. As we would get near the end of the day, get close to the trailhead, they would start their ritual of saying that they could hear Ed McMahon calling them. This was at a time when Ed McMahon was the spokesman for Budweiser, because there was a cooler full of Budweiser in the suburban waiting for us at that Trailhead. And that became a ritual for me. I knew, I mean, I continued that, that ritual of hearing the voice of Ed McMahon calling me, that's, that's not such a serious one, but it was a ritual in our family. Another for me that grabbed me was my my uncle, who is an ancestor, went to our art school in Indianapolis and ended up using his art degree professionally working for the Whirlpool Corporation, of all things, designing what the front front panels on washers and dryers look like, and what colors work together and. You know what you know, make it easy, but, but his real art was, he was an amazing photographer, and what he gave to me was a lesson that it's okay for a grown man to cry over a field of wildflowers in Glacier National Park. And inspired in me a willingness to open up and not have to be a certain, you know, stereotype of what I'm supposed to be as a man or whatever. And obviously he passed on a love for photography to me as well, and storytelling through that photography, and it's I guess, storytelling I want to come back to. And in your book, read you start out with a chapter titled homework. You talk about conservation being hard there in your homes, in your home country of the red rocks of Southern Utah, so many contentious debates around grazing on public lands, water rights, and as you've mentioned earlier, certainly we seem to be constantly in the news about national monuments. When you're talking about how to have an impact, you ask someone of yourself, how are we to find our way toward conversation? And you wrote after that, for me, the answer has always been through story. Story bypasses rhetoric and pierces the heart. Story offers a wash of images and emotion that returns us to our highest and deepest selves, where we remember what it means to be human, living in a place with our neighbors. And you have talked a lot about neighbors tonight, it's just it's just so wonderful. I'm curious, how do we navigate our times built around outrage and threat, and hang on to these opportunities for connection, for neighbors, for being in those relationships. Do you think, you know, Terry Tempest Williams 41:45 it was so moving when we had those five floods, how the neighbors came together? Because, you know, we're 45 minutes to an hour from Moab, an hour and a half from Grand Junction. We're a small town, you know, and we don't have a lot of resources, but we have each other, and we're a diverse community in terms of ideology. You know, our our neighbors, the Williams, our devout LDS members, the neighbors next to them are very strong Maga supporters. And yet, when we had that flood, it was the six of us that were really helping one another, and it was Charlene who said to the mayor, who was very conservative, just what I alluded to before, it can no longer be about protecting ourselves. It has to be about protecting each other. I didn't say that. Brooke didn't say that Bill hadden, you know, and the likes of Bill didn't say that. It was our most conservative neighbors. And so I think it is when you share an experience, you do come together. And I think we're seeing that now that it's it's less about politics and more about empathy and regard and common sense, and when things go too far, I think it's the conversations with neighbors that that come together. We had a hard dinner. I would call it a hard dinner period. We invited many of our neighbors. We did not agree politically. This was after the flood, but we had a new neighbor, new neighbors that came to town and moved in, and we thought, let's have a great dinner with all of us around the table, we could seat 12. I was nervous. The Mormon in me thought, let's have favors. I found some heart shaped rocks. We put them in a basket, and as people arrived, each person took a rock, and we sat in the living room and each person talked about one thing they loved about Castle valley, a night sky of stars, Coyote, uh, hells, um, isolation, solitude. Globe Mallow in the spring. An hour and a half later, we finally made it to the table. The conversation continued, origin stories. What brought us to Castle Valley. And then it was the patriarch Richard Williams who said, can we talk about the flood? Where does the water want to go? And that changed everything. The table was cleared. We got maps out, and we started looking at what is the historic range of the floods, where, where does placer Creek want to go? And that led to another conversation that night about, what if we had a community walk? What if we had a Saturday where we walked the path of water and just gathered as neighbors? That happened? We thought there'd be 20 people. We were well over 50, maybe 70, people, all ages. We had two walks, one a mile that was gentle, three mile walk that was not. Everyone went on the three mile walk and talked and discussed. And we had a hydrologist there talking about water. And when we finally got to the town hall potluck. Nobody wanted to leave. That's what I think conversation can do, not about politics, but about where does the water want to go? How do we even plan for a future with a mega drought, with where we live, and what might a community wide climate plan look like. So that's what it. Goes back to your question, Bill, about, I think local for like a better word love, you know, it's grief and it's love, and they are siblings. And you know, as you were saying, Anders, we can't have joy without grief. We can't know grief without love. And when we fall in love, we know that it will end in grief, you know. And I think a lot of the glorians is about love and grief and, most importantly, engagement. And I do believe that the glorians are reaching out to us, whether they're an ant, whether they're a congress of ravens, or whether it's our neighbors that engage us in a star dance. There is a reciprocity. There is a consciousness that is rising, and that's what I mean by something deeper than hope, that as our consciousness expands, as we remember what we have forgotten, that ancestors are part of a land ethic of all species. Then there becomes a fortitude, a courage of resistance and insistence that is both fierce and compassionate at once. Wow. Bill 47:19 My last question, Terry, and I hate to have a last question, because this could go on for hours, but I'm going to close by bringing us back to your relationship with Barry Lopez. And you brought up your fight for the Great Salt Lake. He exhorted you to write about what you know. And in that case, he was talking about the Great Salt Lake, I believe. I wonder if you would give our audience an exhortation, what should our audience take and go do? Terry Tempest Williams 47:48 I can only end with a story, and it has to do with Great Salt Lake. I think if we're present, we'll know what to do. And we took 20 students from Harvard Divinity School, not this last spring, but the spring before, to Great Salt Lake. As she was retreating, the students had asked after much heartbreak and tension at Harvard after October 7 with the issues of Gaza and Israel, and if we would have a if, if I would teach a class on grief. And so we team taught a class on grief with another faculty member named Stephanie pulsesell. The first semester was all about the lake, learning about Brian shrimp, having guest speakers, etc. And the second semester, we spent eight days at Great Salt Lake on Antelope Island. We were learning about the lake. I think the students thought it was going to be a very sad time, sad trip to see Great Salt Lake, as some would say, dying. But it was just the opposite. It was absolute joy. It was absolute freedom, being out in the wild together in community, we made a circumference out to Nancy Holt's Sun tunnels. And you know, if one were to just look at them, you'd think that they were cement, concrete conduit pipe, right? But they're absolute, exquisite land art that marks the turning of the seasons as we found our way there, I got a call from my father, who is now 92 at that time, he had just turned 90 and he said, Terry, there's 80 mile per hour winds coming your direction. You need to get everyone out. Of there, or it's going to be, you know, really, really dangerous. The winds were starting to blow. I was up on a knoll where I could get cell service. I called the state park rangers saying where we were that the winds were coming. They verified it, and I said, we will leave. We'll get out of here. Hang up. I look around. There are no students. How do 20 students disappear? Brooke wasn't there. Stephanie wasn't there. Everything was all I could see was sage and these conduits, you know, the sun tunnels. And I thought, oh my god, the wind was howling. I couldn't hear anything. And as I got closer to the Sun tunnels, I thought I heard singing. And when I went to the first Sun tunnel there, I saw 20 students, head feet, head feet, head feet, so that they could all fit in, and they were singing with the wind. It was the most beautiful moment of how presence instructs action. If we're present, we will know what to do. The students knew what to do. They gathered together in a safe space, and they sang with the wind. Bill 51:24 Wow, I love that story. And you're right. You had to end with the story. How else could we end the conversation with Terry then with a story? And that was such a perfect way to do that. I want to say, I wish you well, for those of you who are listening to this podcast, know that Terry will be on a book tour. The glorians came out last week on March 3 so it is out now. So I implore you to go pick it up. I implore you, I exhort you to go pick up the glorians. And if you have a chance, you can go to our show notes. You'll find a list of the locations where she's going to be doing some author events. So make sure you get a chance to get out if you live close to one of those locations, and visit with Terry. I'm sure you've enjoyed our visit with her, Terry, thank you so much for joining us today, Terry Tempest Williams 52:10 Bill and Enders, your brothers in wildness, and I'm so deeply grateful. And consider me your number one fan. Anders Reynolds 52:18 Oh my gosh, I'm your number one fan. We it can't work this way. I'm so grateful for you coming on the show today. Thank you so so so so much. Terry Tempest Williams 52:30 Well, we'll see you soon in Montana. Bill 52:32 Yes, coming up on the wild idea podcast. We celebrate St Patrick's Day by digging into the Irish wilderness of Missouri with Tim Mahoney, and if you've not registered yet, today, March 10, we are hosting a webinar on the past, present and future of the roadless rule. If you missed that already, that's okay. It will also be coming out as an episode in the weeks ahead. If you want to support what we are doing here with the wild idea, you can support us through buy me a coffee, which you can find on our website, at the wild idea.com while you are there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter, and don't forget to subscribe rate and review on the podcast player where you found us today, we look forward to seeing you on down the trail. Announcer 53:11 The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds, production and editing by Bren Russell at podlad Digital, support by Holly wilkeshevsky At day pack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skihan. Our executive producer and ring leader is Laura Hodge. You can find the wild idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating, and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai