Homeplaces, Nature, Wonder & Joy
Cherríe Moraga's Native Country of the Heart and Michael McCarthy's The Moth Snowstorm
What Places are “Native” to Us?
In November, I shared my 2021 reading list (scroll about half way down to see it) and mentioned that I was still reading Native Country of the Heart, a memoir by Cherríe Moraga. I’ve since finished (and really enjoyed!) the book and wanted to share a few thoughts about it. While Moraga focuses the book primarily on her mother’s life and legacy, she also explores her family’s Mexican and indigenous origins as well as how we relate to place across generations.
My notes upon finishing the book: “How much of our heart lies in a place: a city, a home, a kitchen? How much in an object: a rolling pin or a cutting board? Are these places and things ‘native’ to us?” It’s easy to make leap between the physical space and items to the people and traditions connected to them.
Moraga refers to her childhood home as “the location of the heart I knew as my mother’s home,” wondering what of her mother’s spirit remained there after her passing. She called the home her mother’s “earthbound site of remembrance,” a “patch of earth where she had always offered her best self.” This conjured many good thoughts in thinking about family members who have done their best to steward a little plot of land and leave a home better than how they found it. Not to mention the many memories shared across generations.
Cycle Forward is as much (or more) about our relationships to place as it is about trails and the outdoors. I enjoyed Moraga’s insightful take on place (including the most intimate of places…one’s home). I hope sharing this sparks some new exploration for you and would love to hear about it in the comments.
Nature Sparks Joy. Is this Reason Enough to Protect it?
My ears always perk up when either nature or joy is the topic at hand. How could I resist a book about nature and joy when someone handed me a copy of Michael McCarthy’s book, The Moth Snowstorm?
McCarthy makes an impassioned case for connecting with nature and all its wonders. Subtitled “Nature and Joy,” the main consideration is whether joy itself can become a formal defense of the environment. Basically, if other approaches haven’t resulted in sweeping environmental protections, why not make the case that we should preserve nature because it’s a source of joy?
The book is part memoir, part examination of our evolving relationship with the natural world. The title is taken from McCarthy’s childhood experiences of being in a car after dark. With the headlights on, a flurry of moths and other bugs would fill the night air and look like a “moth snowstorm.” But McCarthy sees fewer and fewer moths these days. That’s because there are fewer insects, part of the “great thinning” of wildlife (fewer moths, fewer songbirds, fewer of a lot of things).
Getting through certain sections of the book required a bit of patience, but overall I took a bunch of notes and have thought about it many times since reading. While experiencing joy in nature is a central theme of the book, the chapter I keep thinking back to is the one focused on wonder.
Wonder is defined as “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.” It’s a somewhat dry explanation for such an incredible emotion. McCarthy calls wonder “a sort of astonished cherishing or veneration.” He breaks down different triggers for wonder: mystery, abundance, and rarity among them.
Reading about wonder lights up of my heart and brain with memories and bucket list items:
Synchronous fireflies glowing like a string of lights (mystery)
Bioluminescent ocean water (mystery)
Spending half an hour watching a murder of crows fly overheard (abundance)
Seeing a field full of sunflowers, so many that you couldn’t possibly count them (abundance)
Spotting an eagle’s nest - or the eagle! (rarity)
Seeing a total solar eclipse or the Northern Lights (rarity/mystery).
This is all subjective, of course. I might see a bald eagle once a year, but someone on a weeklong canoe trip can see two or three a day. Even when something isn’t “rare” someone’s opportunity to observe it might be. And what’s a mystery to me might be understood by others.
Simply put, there are moments in nature that stop us in our tracks, inducing feelings of wonder and awe. I am grateful for this.
I don’t have the answers on climate change or the great thinning but do know the planet needs our defending. Could framing the "why” around the joy we derive be a successful approach? McCarthy says joy is open to every one of us. Let’s do the work so that we may continue to enjoy our own personal moments in nature (and for plenty of other reasons).
Current Cycle Forward Projects
Central Ohio Greenways Trail Town Framework development. I’m excited to be working in central Ohio to explore how a trail town program can be implemented there. More on this soon!
United States Forest Service 10-Year Trail Shared Stewardship Challenge. I’ve been partnering with American Trails to help the Eastern Region implement the challenge. The Forest Service has the largest trail system in the U.S. and finding ways to effectively steward it is important.
Gravel riding research for a Pennsylvania client. If you are aware of any recent articles or research on the gravel market, please let me know.
Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition midway assessment. This multi-state trail coalition formalized in 2013. I actually staffed the effort at the time and occasionally provide consulting services to the group. I’m currently assessing the effort’s success to date.
Thanks for this post Amy. The idea of "Home" is so rich and interesting. I still default to "home" being where I spent a good deal of my young adult life and built lifetime relationships in a community, time and place that almost doesn't exist anymore. Home to me is the magical mixture of place, relationships and experiences that created a time in my life that molded me. For me this was 2000-2007 in the community surrounding Denali National Park. So many reasons I still call it home, even though it is not at all where I was raised, it is not where any blood family lives but it will always be home.