I believe the personal is the collective. One of the ironies of writing memoir is in using the "I" it becomes an alchemical "we." This is the sorcery of literature. Terry Tempest Williams More Quotes by Terry Tempest Williams More Quotes From Terry Tempest Williams If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide and so we are found. Terry Tempest Williams desert sacred self To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from. Terry Tempest Williams nature science mean Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn, and to sing at dusk, was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated. Terry Tempest Williams simple joy bird I feel we have to begin standing our ground in the places we love. I think that we have to demand that concern for the land, concern for the Earth, and this extension of community that we've been speaking of, is not marginal - in the same way that women's rights are not marginal, in the same way that rights for children are not marginal. There is no separation between the health of human beings and the health of the land. It is all part of a compassionate view of the world. Terry Tempest Williams rights children thinking The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. Terry Tempest Williams looking-back eye praying The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinion? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow citizens to join us in our determined pursuit-a living democracy? Terry Tempest Williams trust giving-up home The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands. Terry Tempest Williams space eye hands We are animal. We are Earth. We are water. We are a community of human beings living on this planet together. And we forget that. We become disconnected, we lose our center point of gravity, that stillness that allows us to listen to life on a deeper level and to meet each other in a fully authentic and present way. Terry Tempest Williams community animal water To slow down is to be taken into the soul of things. Terry Tempest Williams slow-down taken soul Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imaginations shared create collaboration, collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change. Terry Tempest Williams community imagination teamwork Creativity ignited a spark. In that moment, I saw that art is not peripheral, beauty is not optional, but a strategy for survival. Terry Tempest Williams creativity survival art Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find. Terry Tempest Williams creating broken world I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen. Terry Tempest Williams praying prayer bird The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves. Terry Tempest Williams whispering prayer world It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas - whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers, and bureaucrats - and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place - there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true. That is why we are here. That is why we do what we do. There is nothing intellectual about it. We love the land. It is a primal affair. Terry Tempest Williams farmers-and-ranchers land intellectual For me, it always comes back to the land, respecting the land, the wildlife, the plants, the rivers, mountains, and deserts, the absolute essential bedrock of our lives. This is the source of where my power lies, the source of where all our power lies. Terry Tempest Williams land rivers lying What I fear and desire most in this world is passion. I fear it because it promises to be spontaneous, out of my control, unnamed, beyond my reasonable self. I desire it because passion has color, like the landscape before me. It is not pale. It is not neutral. It reveals the backside of the heart. Terry Tempest Williams passion self heart Storytelling awakens us to that which is real. Honest. . . . it transcends the individual. . . . Those things that are most personal are most general, and are, in turn, most trusted. Stories bind. . . . They are basic to who we are. A story composite personality which grows out of its community. It maintains a stability within that community, providing common knowledge as to how things are, how things should be -- knowledge based on experience. These stories become the conscience of the group. They belong to everyone. Terry Tempest Williams community real personality There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why. Terry Tempest Williams women life two This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. Terry Tempest Williams faith writing running
