Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments : www.terrain.org Issue No. 23 : Winter/Spring 2008 : Symbiosis PDF Version. Contents Columns • Guest Editorial : “Cycling Toward Sustainable Community” by Mandy Creighton, Within Reach • The Literal Landscape: “Flare: An Online Photo Gallery of Cranes and Geese at Bosque del Apache” by Simmons B. Buntin, Editor/Publisher, Terrain.org • Plein Air: “The Language of Give and Take” by Deborah Fries, Editorial Board Member, Terrain.org • Bull Hill: “Does Nature Need Us? Symbiosis as One Way to Survive” by David Rothenberg, Editor, Terra Nova (with audio online) • A Stone’s Throw: “Placing Washington, D.C., before the Inauguration” by Lauret Savoy, Editorial Board Member, Terrain.org Interview • “Our Wisest and Surest Way” : Terrain.org interviews author Scott Russell Sanders UnSprawl Case Study • Plum Creek in Kyle, Texas ARTerrain Gallery • Ten photographs by Ben Krall Poetry • Aleria Jensen : One Poem • Janet Smith : One Poem with Audio • Lauren Eggert-Crowe : Two Poems with Audio • Greg McBride : Two Poems with Audio • Dorine Jennette : One Poem with Audio • Wally Smith : Three Poems • Lori Anderson Moseman : One Poem with Audio • John Hildebidle : One Poem • Beth Paulson : Two Poems with Audio • Andrew C. Gottlieb : Three Poems with Audio • Joy Ladin : Two Poems • Dan Stryk : One Poem with Image • Mary Cisper : Two Poems with Audio • Suzanne Roberts : Two Poems with Audio • Cynthia Belmont : Two Poems with Audio • Rachel Dacus : Two Poems with Audio • Jared Pearce : One Poem with Audio • Pianta : One Poem with Audio • C.E. Chaffin : One Poem with Audio • Michael Vaughn : Two Shape Poems with Audio Issue No. 23 : Winter/Spring 2009 : Symbiosis 1 Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments : www.terrain.org Contents Essays • “Letter to My Father Concerning the State of the World” by Sharman Apt Russell • “Devil’s Bargains” with Online Slideshow by Stephen Trimble • “Educating the Body” by Katherine Jamieson • “Report from Monona County: Mysterious Work” with Audio by Kelly Madigan Erlandson • “The Unaccountable Stupidity of Living Things” by Anca Vlasopolos • “Horse Latitudes” by Deanne Stillman Fiction • “The Berrigans of Butte, Montana” with Audio by Patrick Burns • “The Return of Migrating Birds” by Ron Rindo • “Drinking Hurricanes” by Jonathan Dozier-Ezell Articles • “One Green Thing Leads to Another: Sustainability at Pringle Creek Community” by Jim Fitzsimons • “Saving Coral Reefs: Darwin’s Second Obsession Needs to be Our First” by Rick MacPherson • “Building and Dwelling in the Mountains: The Sage Mountain Center Story” by Kathryn Bundy • “Muir Woods National Monument: William Kent’s Progressive Vision” by Tom Butler, with photographs by Antonio Vizcaino Reviews • “One Fish, Two Fish, Sick Fish, Bad Fish” : Stephanie Eve Boone reviews Lake Effect: Two Sisters and a Town's Toxic Legacy, by Nancy A. Nichols • “In Bloom” : Simmons B. Buntin reviews Lit Windowpane, poems by Suzanne Frischkorn Issue No. 23 : Winter/Spring 2009 : Symbiosis 2 Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments : www.terrain.org Guest Editorial by Mandy Creighton, Within Reach Cycling Toward Sustainable Community What do you really want to do with your life? When my partner and Within Reach co-biker Ryan Mlynarczyk was asked that question last year, his simple response was “to live more sustainably on the land and in community.” Most of us spend a majority of our lives walking in and out of boxes: from the bedroom to the garage to the office and back again. We scarcely find time to be outdoors, other than planned activities, kids’ sports games, and the like. Why is it that our bodies, which are born of nature, Ryan Mlynarczyk and Mandy Creighton of Within Reach as they pedal down a rainy Tucson, Ariz. street. feel so drawn to the great indoors? Is it Photo by Ryan Mlynarczyk. possible to have the best of both worlds? Only when I began questioning did I find another way. Indeed, when you really want something, for the right reasons, it does seem as though the “entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it,” as Paulo Coelho writes in The Alchemist. There is a certain connection to the land that one can only experience in the open air. No windows glaringly reflecting the outside world back to you. No barrier lending its seemingly protective wall keeping “strangers” away. Nothing shielding you from the elements of nature, be it wind, rain, or blazing sun. In the summer of 2007, the dream of bicycling 12,000 miles across the U.S. to visit and document sustainable communities was born, and manifested as the project called Within Reach. In February 2008, I jumped on board, realizing that this could help me find a way to live outside the box—to learn about, serve, and grow sustainable communities. I sold my car and moved to California to join the Within Reach tour. Since our tour began in San Francisco in September, we have bicycled over 1,400 miles, visiting more than forty sustainable communities in California, Arizona, and New Mexico as we journey to the East Coast and back again. Issue No. 23 : Winter/Spring 2009 : Symbiosis 3 Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments : www.terrain.org We characterize “sustainable community” as a localized group of people working together to create a regenerative lifestyle, one that provides for the needs of today’s generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable communities include ecovillages, cohousing communities, coops, spiritual communities, live/work neighborhoods, non-residential communities, integrated Camping along the way: Ryan and Mandy of Within Reach prepare for another day of riding across the desert. inner-city communities, and our newest Photo by Ryan Mlynarczyk. addition, transition towns. The mission of the project is to create a documentary film and website, as well as to encourage everyone to consider living sustainably in community. There is an outward focus to this mission—to encourage others to discover that sustainable community is within reach for all of us. But there is also a deeply internal process as we reach within each day and find sustainable community to be something that we’re already creating! As I transition to a bicycle-oriented lifestyle, I notice how an increased connection to the Earth is not only possible, but essential. To accomplish a ride of fifty miles, for example, I must focus on terrain, weather, road, traffic, and the care of my own body. I no longer take good health, physical fitness, protection from sun and biting insects, and the Cobb dragon sculpted into the wall of a cobb home at availability of water for granted. As a the Emerald Earth community in Boonville, California. chronic allergy and asthma sufferer, I The community is not only unique in its cobb and strawbale construction, it also serves as the inspiration feared riding in the wide open would only for the Within Reach tour across the U.S. aggravate these ills. Instead, as I breathe Photo by Ryan Mlynarczyk. in the open air—roadside or otherwise—I find myself healthier now than ever before. Riding a bike as a primary means of transportation allows for a deepening connection not only with the natural landscape, but also with intentional communities. I have had the rare opportunity of staying in many alternative dwellings, ranging from domes at Hummingbird Ranch to a state-of-the- art ecohome in the community of Civano. Each of these residences offers the opportunity to live a Issue No. 23 : Winter/Spring 2009 : Symbiosis 4 Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments : www.terrain.org bit closer to nature than the average house in America. They are often built of energy-efficient natural materials, many featuring environmental approaches such as composting toilets, rainwater- collecting cisterns, and permaculture gardens. The most surprising and rewarding element of cycling toward sustainable community, however, has been the opportunity to deepen my connections with other people. As we stop at a rest area, or as we pedal at eight miles per hour down a street, we are regularly approached by inquisitive souls. Simple questions of where we’re headed and how comfortable our bicycles are lead to deeper discussions about the state of our world and the positive hope that sustainable communities provide for our future. In effect, we’ve exchanged superficial water cooler chats for a chance to truly get to know the nature of humanity and what we want for ourselves, our communities, and the world beyond. So ask yourself: What do you really want to do with your life? You may be surprised at where the response takes you. Mandy Creighton is currently bicycling 12,000 miles around the U.S. with her partner Ryan Mlynarczyk in exploration of sustainable communities. She is helping produce a feature-length documentary film titled Within Reach, and is actively biographing this epic journey on www.withinreachmovie.com. Issue No. 23 : Winter/Spring 2009 : Symbiosis 5 Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments : www.terrain.org Column: The Literal Landscape by Simmons B. Buntin, Editor/Publisher, Terrain.org Flare: An Online Photo Gallery of Cranes and Geese at the Bosque del Apache The image of winter in the desert Southwest varies greatly: striations of snow on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, for example, or silver rain clouds settling low over a forest of saguaros. In those rare dryland areas where water collects, winter also means wildlife, and few visual (or aural) experiences surpass the congregation of Sandhill cranes and snow geese at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Nestled along the Rio Grande in south-central New Mexico, the refuge straddles the northern edge of the Chihuahua desert.