TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS Major Themes

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION:  formerly held job as environmental educator  involved with environmental education with Navajo and Hopi  children’s book: The Secret Language of Snow (1984) & Between Cattails (1985)

NATURE APPRECIATION & PRESERVATION  love of birds  wilderness areas (especially local desert)  Refuge on birds (1991)  All her books

ENGAGE NATURE ACTIVELY AND INTIMATELY  “erotics of place”  “How do we make love to the land?”  especially in Red (2001)

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE  native sense of family and community  native relation to the earth  native imagination, myth, creativity  heir to Mary Austin  Pieces of White Shell (1984)  element: cultural ecology

FAMILY  her relation to land in interwoven with relation to family  the experience of loss of family (Refuge)  tension with those involved in development (various essays)  element: social-family

ENGAGE POLITICS  preservation laws & Congress  nuclear issues (atomic fallout and nuclear waste)  peace  open democracy  element: ecosocial critique and ideal

SPIRITUALITY  earth-centered  informed by Native American  still connected with Mormon  element: spirituality ART, IMAGINATION, MYSTICISM, CREATIVITY • artistic/mystical imagination embodied • artistic/mystical imagination and the earth • artistic/mystical imagination and spirituality (Native American, Mormon, the sacred land) • Leap (2000)

ECOFEMINISM • Rage about patriarchy’s oppression of women and nature, in society and religion • The power and value of women • Earth as feminine? • Centrality of feelings & the body • Interaction and intimacy, rather than distant contemplation • Rejection of call for obedience; affirmation of the wild in individuals