“For all my love of rivers, ‘our nation’s rivers’ have not moved me once. The rivers that move me are those I’ve fished, canoed, slept beside, lived on, nearly drowned in, dreamed about, sipped tea and wine by, taught my kids to swim in, pulled a thousand fish from, fought and fought to defend. I’ve come to suspect, for this reason, that is only the personal geography–the one experienced in daily depth–that can in fact be in-habited, and only the personal geography that has that Yeatsian ability to connect us, root to root, to people or places we’ve never met…
“The personal geographies conveyed via the arts converge in our interiors, create resonance, expand knowing through mysterious soul-to-soul empathy. Whereas ‘the national water situation,’ I have come to suspect, will never create anything more artful than bureaucrats.”
—David James Duncan, My Story as Told by Water, p. 72-73.
If that stirred your soul…consider joining Alex for a writing retreat where the Tye meets the James…
Heartlands 