"Why did I feel I was owed a stable wilderness, a certain snapshot of the earth? If I first believed it was a product of simple nostalgia, I now think it was a problem of visualizing time. As global warming warps what is familiar on our planet, we must confront not only immense ecological change, but the scales we have inherited to conceptualize it. So often I had looked to the natural world to measure my own life: Where was I when the daffodils bloomed last year? Who was I with during our last snow? The result was that I saw the earth only through the timescale of my own days. Now I wanted to peer beyond it. I had become skeptical of my desire for landscapes to change only in legible, routine ways. What did my body know about landscape time? Why did I let myself believe that the snapshot of ecosystem I had fallen in love with represented the land at its best?"

Emergence Magazine

The Fault of Time – Erica Berry

Grappling with the impermanence of landscape, made evident in Montana’s wildfires and the Cascadia earthquake, Erica Berry tries to hold the shif...

"Scientists design intelligence tests to compare other species to humans, but they tend to overlook alternative modes of knowing. For instance: could I, a human, survive for years in an urban woodlot with as few resources as a skunk? Could I travel many miles of unmarked forest and swamp to find the small hole that leads to my exact wintering den from the previous year? Are those not types of intelligence? While many things about our bodies and behaviors make us distinct from other species, it is unscientific hubris to build a hierarchy out of these traits. This hubris is what has thrust the planet and all its inhabitants into crisis." Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, #ForestEuphoria

"The idea that plants, in response to their mistreatment, can conspire against a human's eternal salvation is immensely powerful. In this worldview, the gates of heaven are not kept by humanlike angels but by pine trees and stink bugs--and not only are other species inherently valuable, but they also are capable of self-determination; they are peers, collaborators, companions on this planet. Not only do they have material needs for their lives on earth; they have moral agency." Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, #ForestEuphoria