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FINDING HOPE AND BEAUTY IN THE DARK PLACES
Guest: Terry Tempest Williams Program 3294
Host: Michael Toms Interview Date: 12/7/2008 Program Length: 1 Hour
Media:
MP3 Download
Price: $1.99
Program Description: Terry Tempest Williams has long been a beloved scribe for the timeless beauty of the world we live in, and the tribulations of the humans who too often fail to value it. In this deeply moving interview she speaks out for some of most disavowed individuals on the planet-prairie dogs threatened with extinction and Rwandan refugees. What could the two possibly have in common? She explains, "The plight of the prairie dog, the extermination of a species, and the extermination of a people are predicated on the same impulse: prejudice, cruelty, ignorance and arrogance, circling around issues of power and justice. Until we can begin to see the world whole, even holy, we are destined to this fractured, fragmented, disconnected world that literally creates the seabed of war." Ms. Tempest Williams deftly draws meaning out of the darkest moments of fear and devastation with inspiring stories of rodents who pray at sunrise and sunset, and a mother who, after losing her child to the ravages of war, creates a mosaic sunflower out of the rubble.
Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist, environmentalist, and writer. She is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Fellowship in creative nonfiction and the 1997 Guggenheim Fellowship, and served as naturalist-in-residence at the Utah Museum of Natural History. She is currently the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanites at the University of Utah. Her books include Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Pantheon 1991), Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002), and Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Pantheon 2008). To learn more about the work of Terry Tempest Williams go to www.coyoteclan.com
Topics explored in this dialogue:
Why rodents matter
Why a mosaic is like a community
How many words there are in the vocabulary of a prairie dog
How art can help to heal the ravages of war
Why it is so important for you to witness both beauty and sorrow
