Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Summer 8-10-2019 Listen for the Desert: An Ecopsychological Autoethnography Dorothy Cashore Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Part of the Clinical Psychology Commons, and the Other Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Cashore, D. (2019). Listen for the Desert: An Ecopsychological Autoethnography (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1801 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. LISTEN FOR THE DESERT: AN ECOPSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOETHNOGRAPHY A Dissertation Submitted to McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Dorothy Cashore August 2019 Copyright by Dorothy Cashore 2019 LISTEN FOR THE DESERT: AN ECOPSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOETHNOGRAPHY By Dorothy Cashore Approved March 22, 2019 ________________________________ ________________________________ Will W. Adams, Ph.D. Suzanne Barnard, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology Associate Professor of Psychology (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ Elizabeth Fein, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Psychology (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ James Swindal, Ph.D. Leswin Laubscher, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, Psychology Department School of Liberal Arts Associate Professor of Psychology Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT LISTEN FOR THE DESERT: AN ECOPSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOETHNOGRAPHY By Dorothy Cashore August 2019 Dissertation supervised by Will W. Adams, Ph.D. What does it mean for human beings to be part of nature – not just as a conceptual justification for doing right by the planet, but actually as an embodied, emotional, and sensuous experience? What happens to the experience of being human when notions as fundamental as voice, absence, suffering, and psyche are re-encountered from a perspective rooted within, rather than apart from, the natural world? While this dissertation responds to these questions, it initially took shape in response to something that felt less like a research question and more like a summons. Following a startling experience of feeling called and claimed by a part of California’s Mojave Desert known as Jawbone, the author returned to Jawbone to camp without human company for a month. Interweaving ecopsychological perspectives with autoethnographic methodology allowed the author to share the story of her fieldwork in ways that disturb the expectation iv of an individualized, separate, and anthropocentric “auto,” or self. The experience of being with Jawbone, as well as the aftermath of that experience, prompted the author to explore what it means for humans to engage with the other-than-human natural world as a relational partner, as well as how an understanding that human beings are a part of the natural world invites those working in mental health fields to consider how their work can be of service to nature. The project that resulted is in part a love letter to a place, in part an ecopsychological exploration of the experience of relationship, and in part one human animal’s story about the grief and the joy of belonging deeply to ecology in an ecocidal time. v DEDICATION For Rattlesnake, coming closer vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This project grew up in the shelter of many, only a few of whom are named here. My gratitude goes out to: My desert rat, Darren, whose love started everything. The three members of my committee: my reader Elizabeth, for coaxing my voice back when I lost it, my reader Suzanne, for being a place art loves to live, and my research director, Will, for teaching what I most needed to learn and for trusting my vision, my process, and my grief. My parents and sisters, who were teaching me, long before Jawbone, that the whole world is alive and speaking. Thank you especially to my sister Kristin for being the first to read my stories and suggest edits. My friend and mentor Mark, who has been right there with me. My Daniel. Mo sheasamh ort lá na choise tinne. The other-than-human beings and presences of Jawbone and Pittsburgh. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... vii Epigraph ...............................................................................................................................x Introduction: Locating the project .......................................................................................1 I. The voice ........................................................................................................................43 Interlude: Listen my heart ..................................................................................................45 II. The first storm ...............................................................................................................48 Interlude: The beauty of no exit .........................................................................................55 III. The Datura flower ........................................................................................................58 Interlude: The council of perspectives ...............................................................................62 IV. The desert horned lizard ..............................................................................................66 Interlude: A lonely species .................................................................................................69 V. The swarms, the sand, and the rock ..............................................................................72 Interlude: Grounding ..........................................................................................................78 VI. The tortoise gods..........................................................................................................82 Interlude: Holes ..................................................................................................................87 VII. The Joshua trees .........................................................................................................90 Interlude: Home is where the broken heart is ....................................................................99 VIII. The ravens ...............................................................................................................105 Interlude: Appetites ..........................................................................................................109 viii IX. Milk............................................................................................................................114 Interlude: The right to depend ..........................................................................................119 X. A Nights Inn ................................................................................................................123 Interlude: Lost and found .................................................................................................127 XI. The El Pasos ..............................................................................................................131 Interlude: Passing through ...............................................................................................134 XII. Bird Spring Pass .......................................................................................................138 Interlude: Terra nullius ....................................................................................................145 XIII. Snakes .....................................................................................................................151 Interlude: The real snake ..................................................................................................161 XIV. Wind........................................................................................................................165 Interlude: Psyche ..............................................................................................................170 XV. The return .................................................................................................................173 Afterword: Three griefs and an opening ..........................................................................179 Poems quoted in the dissertation......................................................................................193 References ........................................................................................................................195 Endnotes ...........................................................................................................................205 ix It is not for me to say what is this wind or how it came to blow through the rooms of my heart. – from “The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart,” by Deborah Digges x Introduction: Locating the project