This is a very moving piece of writing. Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you, la gobenadora. In this time of breaking, may we be healed and deeply, may we be re-membered by the land.
Very beautiful. I only recently have fallen upon your work and am glad I have. Back from New Mexico after a truly magical month there, I'm heartened to read you. Thank you.
Beautifully written. Like you and so many others, I had to leave a land I loved, a place where the trees and the wind and the wildflowers spoke to me, and let me, for a while, believe I'd come home. This writing speaks for all of us who've been torn loose from a patch of deeply loved earth and have learned that there are songs and scents and spirit guides everywhere on earth. Thank you.
Deeply moving. Thank you for sharing your experience of being cast out from a place you love, and about bitterness. Also, thank you for helping people in distress, and being a friend to the wild plants.
I love the resonance of ‘ancestor’ in this recollection Charlotte. And I relate deeply to the feeling of connection, even as a mere youngster, to the Earth. Thank you for putting these feelings into words, offering a vocabulary that acknowledges these realities
Deeply moving and resonant. Thirty seven years ago I lived on the edge of the same desert in AZ, an alien writer and illustrator there on a B1 visa. My sudden leaving was for different reasons but came about unexpectedly and I never said a proper goodbye to the place and my friends.
The return to my homeland slowly and steadily rekindled a deep, forgotten relationship with damp earth and the rich, diverse presence of ancient forests, downlands, meadows and chalk streams. In quietness, here too nature heals and communicates the same ancient wisdom.
Residing here - Mesa - the edge of Apache Junction bleeding into what wilderness we have left here - 7 years and our neighborhoods have changed drastically - while the desert remains where we 'decide' to leave it be. I only wish that your Creosote grandmother still resides.
I long to hear more about this place that has called me home - born and raised - I know this is where I have been called to be - and the more I read about this place of my birthed 'belonging' - the more I feel the roots deepen. The more haboob dust I breathe and mother/father rains soak into my skin - tracing the sun-cracked flesh of both my own and the land - it seems ever more present what life I am supposed to 'learn' while I am here (on this alienized Earth).
While most would say "the desert has nothing to give" - I hear socially "there's not much *to do* here in AZ." I do feel sorry for those individuals - for this essay here exemplifies that there is so much more to be experienced.
This is a very moving piece of writing. Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you, la gobenadora. In this time of breaking, may we be healed and deeply, may we be re-membered by the land.
Chaparral, Coyote Brush, Ceanothus…as an old biologist/ranger, I resonate.
I have your book and I have read it fully; it is beautiful, moving and wise. Thank you for the chance to re-read this particular chapter! 💖
Very beautiful. I only recently have fallen upon your work and am glad I have. Back from New Mexico after a truly magical month there, I'm heartened to read you. Thank you.
Beautifully written. Like you and so many others, I had to leave a land I loved, a place where the trees and the wind and the wildflowers spoke to me, and let me, for a while, believe I'd come home. This writing speaks for all of us who've been torn loose from a patch of deeply loved earth and have learned that there are songs and scents and spirit guides everywhere on earth. Thank you.
Deeply moving. Thank you for sharing your experience of being cast out from a place you love, and about bitterness. Also, thank you for helping people in distress, and being a friend to the wild plants.
I love the resonance of ‘ancestor’ in this recollection Charlotte. And I relate deeply to the feeling of connection, even as a mere youngster, to the Earth. Thank you for putting these feelings into words, offering a vocabulary that acknowledges these realities
Deeply moving and resonant. Thirty seven years ago I lived on the edge of the same desert in AZ, an alien writer and illustrator there on a B1 visa. My sudden leaving was for different reasons but came about unexpectedly and I never said a proper goodbye to the place and my friends.
The return to my homeland slowly and steadily rekindled a deep, forgotten relationship with damp earth and the rich, diverse presence of ancient forests, downlands, meadows and chalk streams. In quietness, here too nature heals and communicates the same ancient wisdom.
Residing here - Mesa - the edge of Apache Junction bleeding into what wilderness we have left here - 7 years and our neighborhoods have changed drastically - while the desert remains where we 'decide' to leave it be. I only wish that your Creosote grandmother still resides.
I long to hear more about this place that has called me home - born and raised - I know this is where I have been called to be - and the more I read about this place of my birthed 'belonging' - the more I feel the roots deepen. The more haboob dust I breathe and mother/father rains soak into my skin - tracing the sun-cracked flesh of both my own and the land - it seems ever more present what life I am supposed to 'learn' while I am here (on this alienized Earth).
While most would say "the desert has nothing to give" - I hear socially "there's not much *to do* here in AZ." I do feel sorry for those individuals - for this essay here exemplifies that there is so much more to be experienced.
Thank you. I just needed this right now.