I write as a witness to what I have seen. Terry Tempest Williams More Quotes by Terry Tempest Williams More Quotes From Terry Tempest Williams I see myself as a human being. You're right, I am an American, I do live in Utah, and I am deeply ashamed about the decisions our President is making around the world, in our name: the war in Iraq, his continued denial about global warming, the wholesale degradation of the environment on every level. Since September 11, 2001, I have come to believe that there are many forms of terrorism, and environmental degradation is one of them. We have to transcend our government and relate to each other as human beings first and Americans second and feel both our local and global responsibilities. Terry Tempest Williams responsibilitywarbelieve The only thing I have done religiously in my life is keep a journal. I have hundreds of them, filled with feathers, flowers, photographs, and words - without locks, open on my shelves. Terry Tempest Williams locksflowerdone I write to create red in a world that often appears black and white. Terry Tempest Williams black-and-whitewritingworld The choices and decisions we make in terms of how we use the land ultimately affect our very DNA. Environmental issues are life issues. Terry Tempest Williams decisions-we-makednaland Find something that matters deeply to you and pursue it. Question. Stand. Speak. Act. Make us uncomfortable. Make us think. Terry Tempest Williams speakmatterthinking Thomas Berry calls the Ecozoic Era, a time when we recognize the imperative of caring for the planet as a means of compassionate survival. We do not know what the outcome is going to be, but we have an opportunity to make these kinds of creative and imaginative leaps of thought and actions both locally and globally. This is completely antithetical to the direction George W. Bush is leading this nation. I do trust that the open space of democracy is ultimately the open space of our hearts and that we can follow our own leadership that carries a long-term view way beyond "four more years." Terry Tempest Williams caringheartmean I live in a very, very quiet place. I have a sequence to my creative life. In spring and fall, I am above ground and commit to community. In the summer, I'm outside. It is a time for family. And in the winter, I am underground. Home. This is when I do my work as a writer - in hibernation. I write with the bears. Terry Tempest Williams summerspringfall Hope is not attached to outcomes but is a state of mind, as Vaclav Havel says, "an orientation of the spirit." And I have faith; maybe more than hope, I have faith. I think of my great-grandmother, Vilate Lee Romney, who came from good pioneer Mormon stock. She always said to us that faith without works is dead, so I think if we have hope, we must work to further that hope. Maybe that is the most important thing of all, to have our faith rooted in action. Terry Tempest Williams importantmindthinking I think about capitalism, consumerism, our consumptive nature as a species approaching the 21st century. I certainly don't have the answers. Terry Tempest Williams centuryanswersthinking The Japanese have a word - aware - which, in my understanding is, again, that full range - both the joy and the sorrow of our life. One does not exist without the other. And I really feel that. Terry Tempest Williams understandingsorrowjoy I know, that Rilke quote - "Beauty is the beginning of terror" - I think about that a lot. It's that realization that we are so small, and yet we are so large in our capacity to relate to the beauty of things. Terry Tempest Williams realizationcapacitythinking Hopefully there will come a time when I have no words, when I can honor and hold that kind of stillness that I so need, crave, and desire in the natural world. Terry Tempest Williams honordesireneeds I think that it's too much to take on the world. It's too much to take on Los Angeles. All I can do is to go back home to the canyon where we live and ask the kinds of questions that can make a difference in our neighborhoods. Terry Tempest Williams differenceshomethinking I have spoken about what we can do as citizens, what we can do as a responsive citizenry, and this is where we have to shatter our complacency and become "active souls,"and be prepared to engage in aware - that personal struggle between our grief and our sorrow. But I don't think we have any choice. Terry Tempest Williams griefstrugglethinking I think we have to stand up against what is unacceptable, and to push the boundaries and reclaim a more humane way of being in the world, so that we can extend our compassionate intelligence and begin to work with a strengthened will and imagination that can take us into the future. Terry Tempest Williams humane-wayimaginationthinking I think I must be worried all the time - maybe that is the other side of joy, you know, holding that line of the full range of emotions. Terry Tempest Williams linesjoythinking I worry, that we are a people in a process of great transition and we are forgetting what we are connected to. We are losing our frame of reference. Terry Tempest Williams transitionworrypeople What I mean by "An Unspoken Hunger." It's a hunger that cannot be quelled by material things. It's a hunger that cannot be quelled by the constant denial. Terry Tempest Williams denialhungermean I think community is a shared history, it's a shared experience. It's not always agreement. In fact, I think that often it isn't. It's the commitment, again, to stay with something - to go the duration. You can't walk away. It's like a marriage, only I think it's more difficult to divorce yourself from community than it is to a human being because the strands are interconnected and so various. Terry Tempest Williams divorcecommitmentthinking I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home. Terry Tempest Williams communityhomebelieve
