Quoting Good Words

The capacity to weep and to feel the pain of sorrow does not weaken a soldier; if the Iliad shows us anything, it surely shows us this. Jonathan Shay Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

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Tag Archives: Environment

Madison Reads Leopold, 2010

"Yearly, the feathered tempest roared up, down, and across the continent, sucking up the laden fruits of forest and prairie, burning them in a traveling blast of life....Today the oaks still flaunt their burden at the sky, but the feathered lightning is no more."
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Everything to Gain

What if you could right a wrong from your parents generation, and pass on a blessing to your children? What if you could build businesses in the community, cut crime, pollution, and disease, and make a profit doing it?
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Spring is here!

photo credit: tanakawho No more snow! Mayor Dave says it’s spring, so by golly, it is spring! (Even at the beginning of March.) Franklin the Turtle agrees!
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Protected by a Child

How many times do my children protect me from harm? How does their innocence move me to seek innocence? Their natural desire to explore, learn, grow and create often protects me from losing context.
Posted in Having Faith, Reading Circles, Science & Technology | Also tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sacrifices and Community

Do we even know how much we've lost, how poisoned we are, how far away we've been driven from the land? By connecting the science of toxic materials with our human knowledge of childbirth in Having Faith, Steingraber gives us new knowledge; what would it mean for us to inhabit it?
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Family, Heroes, and History

One thing that Aldo Leopold did to become great was find, and use, his voice. His family was in many ways similar to mine and to thousands of others here in Wisconsin; his famous shack seemed completely familiar to us--just like Grandad's place up north. But he made a difference in the world by figuring out what he had to say that was worth saying, and saying it wisely and well.
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Do you breathe the water?

During my first pregnancy, I lived on a truck route. My pregnancy manual, the ubiquitous and sometimes disturbing What to Expect When You’re Expecting, said that unless I was living in a bus terminal or a tollbooth, “breathing in the big city…isn’t as risky as you might think…. Even in the 1960s, when pollution was [...]
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Sap Moon: Truth and Autobiography

So how can I feel hopeful? I am hopeful because there are those who strive to know, who don't give up in the face of adversity, but continue to ask questions and take hold of lessons learned in history in order to take action and move forward. I am hopeful because the power of one person may have a decisive impact, and because more than ever before in history, we are able to link these individual voices together, and really hear what they have to say, if only we will listen.
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A Good Day for the Beginnings of Journeys

I must admit that I think it a bit ironic that the maiden book discussion here at RCB is about a journey to birth. This has been a dream of my husband’s for a while, but I never thought I would be leading the first discussion! I first began reading Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey [...]
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Our first Reading Circle!

Kriss over at Circle M Farm suggested Having Faith after reading author Sandra Steingraber’s earlier book, Living Downstream. We’ll be reading it together beginning in January, 2008, with Nicole Five Pennies as our host. So go look up Kris’ wonderful invitation to read together, get your copy (the little blue box by the title will [...]
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