Finding Resilience in Nature: A Reflection on the Geography of Hope

In a small clearing on the bank of the river, under a stand of alders just beginning to bud, the people gather (right). They form a circle around a thin wisp of smoke rising from the center. Using only a traditional hand drill, several volunteers help breathe fire onto collected tinder. Native American leaders Caleen Sisk and Sky Road Webb offer a blessing, invoking earth, air, water, and fire, along with the surrounding trees that shelter us. The last cool tendrils of morning fog evaporate as the sun rises over the eastern ridgeline, bathing the congregation in warm light.
For me that moment illuminated the geography of hope.

The moment occurred on the second day of a conference entitled “Geography of Hope” (hosted by Black Mountain Circle and co-sponsored by the Center for Humans and Nature), which is held in Point Reyes Station, California. Though the conference was a long way from my home in Wisconsin, I had been intrigued and enticed by the theme: “Finding Resilience in Nature in Perilous Times.” Like so many of the other participants, I felt an urgent need to nurture resilience within, if not outright resistance to, our current cultural and political climate. And while the conference was as inspiring as I had hoped, what I didn’t anticipate was how much larger its message would prove to be.
It is easy and predictable, after all, for a lifelong nature lover to seek comfort in wondrous places. Spending a few days at beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore, which literally surrounded the conference site (top and below), may in itself have sufficed—especially for a Midwesterner hungry for an elusive spring. But, I felt there had to be more to the conference than lovely scenery, and there was.

This essay was published in City Creatures Blog by the Center for Humans and Nature.
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To see a complete set of photos from Point Reyes and the Geography of Hope go to my Flickr album.