Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing – faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.
I still have great faith in democracy. I have great belief in the power of community.
I have inherited a belief in community, the promise that a gathering of the spirit can both create and change culture. In the desert, change is nurtured even in stone by wind, by water, through time.
We write out of our humanity by writing through our direct experience. That which is most personal is most general, which becomes both our insight and protection as a writers. This is our authority as women, as human beings.
Agitation gives birth to creation.
I wonder how it is we have come to this place in our society where art and nature are spoke in terms of what is optional, the pastime and concern of the elite?
Choosing with integrity means finding ways to speak up that honor your reality, the reality of others, and your willingness to meet in the center of that large field. It’s hard sometimes.
I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the “I” it becomes an alchemical “we.” This is the sorcery of literature.
Blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives.
We find our voice, we lose our voice, we retrieve it, honor it, and hopefully, learn how to share it with others and stand in the center of our power. Translation is a theme. Fear and courage are a theme.
When you look at the Pueblo communities along the Rio Grande, when you talk to the Navajo people, the Ute people, and certainly the native peoples of California who still have their communities intact, it is what they have always known: that we are not apart from nature but a part of it.
We’re human, this is our world, and I think we learn that that which is most personal is most general. And so, in a sense, we disappear into this larger world.
The choices and decisions we make in terms of how we use the land ultimately affect our very DNA. Environmental issues are life issues.
Find something that matters deeply to you and pursue it. Question. Stand. Speak. Act. Make us uncomfortable. Make us think.
Democracy is an insecure landscape.
Shards of glass can cut and wound or magnify a vision.
I think that it’s too much to take on the world. It’s too much to take on Los Angeles. All I can do is to go back home to the canyon where we live and ask the kinds of questions that can make a difference in our neighborhoods.
There is something very sensual about a letter. The physical contact of pen to paper, the time set aside to focus thoughts, the folding of the paper into the envelope, licking it closed, addressing it, a chosen stamp, and then the release of the letter to the mailbox – are all acts of tenderness.
Our correspondences have wings – paper birds that fly from my house to yours – flocks of ideas crisscrossing the country. Once opened, a connection is made. We are not alone in the world.
If we fail in this country, it is because we are too timid. If we lose our way in America, it is because we are too complacent. We must become conscious to the real threats before us and act creatively, imaginatively, now. We can no longer look to leadership beyond ourselves.