#barry lopez

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

Only the misled can insist that heaven awaits the righteous while they watch the fires on Earth consume the only heaven we have ever known.

Barry Lopez, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

'The Little Stars of Gold ' illustration by Artus Scheiner, 1921.

* * * *

Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.

-Barry Lopez

[nobrashfestivity]

Barry Lopez, from Apologia 1997 woodblock prints

[1introvertedsage]

The land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate consideration of human life.

~Barry Lopez~

[forbidden-sorcery]

Because mankind can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon him, say evolutionary biologists, to develop another law to abide by if he wishes to survive, to not outstrip his food base. He must learn restraint. He must derive some other, wiser way of behaving toward the land. He must be more attentive to the biological imperatives of the system of sun-driven protoplasm upon which he, too, is still dependent. Not because he must, because he lacks inventiveness, but because herein is the accomplishment of the wisdom that for centuries he has aspired to. Having taken on his own destiny, he must now think with critical intelligence about where to defer. A Yup'ik hunter on Saint Lawrence Island once told me that what traditional Eskimos fear most about us is the extent of our power to alter the land, the scale of that power, and the fact that we can easily effect some of these changes electronically, from a distant city. Eskimos, who sometimes see themselves as still not quite separate from the animal world, regard us as a kind of people whose separation may have been too complete. They call us, with a mixture of incredulity and apprehension, "the people who change nature."

Barry Lopez - Arctic Dreams

[gustaving]

From Wind, Trees by John Freeman

[dk-thrive]

In this moment, is it still possible to face the gathering darkness, and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world? 

— Barry Lopez, “Love in a Time of Terror” in Literary Hub, August 7, 2020. (via Alive on All Channels)

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

The determination to know a particular place, in my experience, is consistently rewarded. And every natural place, to my mind, is open to being known. And somewhere in this process a person begins to sense that they themselves are becoming known, so that when they are absent from that place they know that place misses them. And this reciprocity, to know and be known, reinforces a sense that one is necessary in the world.

Barry Lopez, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World