What Flaubert refers to as the “mélancholies du voyage” is like the sadness I feel as one season departs and another arrives. Gretel Ehrlich More Quotes by Gretel Ehrlich More Quotes From Gretel Ehrlich Between highway sounds I heard waves and thought how the curve of the coastline here had sheltered and nurtured live-born sharks, humans, and migrating whales. Here, at the edge of the continent, time and distance stopped; in the lull between sets of waves I could get a fresh start. Gretel Ehrlich curves distance ocean From the clayey soil of northern Wyoming is mined bentonite, which is used as filler in candy, gum, and lipstick. We Americans are great on fillers, as if what we have, what we are, is not enough. We have a cultural tendency toward denial, but being affluent, we strangle ourselves with what we can buy. We gave only to look at the houses we build to see how we build *against* space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness. We fill up space as if it were a pie shell, with things whose opacity further obstructs our ability to see what is already there. Gretel Ehrlich pie pain loneliness Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild is an exquisite, far-sighted articulation of what freedom, wildness, goodness, and grace mean, using the lessons of the planet to teach us how to live. Gretel Ehrlich grace practice mean All that's known is this: there is no central processor, no single computer. Nothing that simple. Millions of neurons process information simultaneously and in parallel, not linearly, but the actual chemistry and electrical properties of that integrative process are still being mapped. Even so, it seems odd that during the evolution of brain circuitry and thinking, the ability to understand itself did not get wired in. Such built-in innocence seems like a terrible oversight. Gretel Ehrlich simple mind thinking Ritual which could entail a wedding or brushing one's teeth goes in the direction of life. Through it we reconcile our barbed solitude with rushing, irreducible conditions of life. Gretel Ehrlich rushing teeth solitude The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly; light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding. Gretel Ehrlich nature light art The retreat and disappearance of glaciers—there are only 160,000 left—means we're burning libraries and damaging the planet, possibly beyond repair. Bit by bit, glacier by glacier, rib by rib, we're living the Fall. Gretel Ehrlich library mean fall The toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce. Gretel Ehrlich heroism dumb art History is an illogical record. It hinges on nothing. It is a story that changes, and has accidents, and recovers with scars. Gretel Ehrlich records stories history A black-crowned night heron stood on an apron of wet sand, looking across the channel. The feather plume at the back of his head lifted in a faint breeze. Out there the channel churned its cyclonic eddies counterclockwise. Schools of anchovies, halibut, and sea bass came and went: silver flashes, small storms that well up from the inside of the sea but are short-lived, like lightning. Gretel Ehrlich ocean night school People travel and hunt on the sea ice - in Alaska, they hunt in skin boats for bowhead whales; in Greenland, they hunt with dogsleds. The ice is their highway. The ice is also the ecosystem in which marine mammals and terrestrial animals such as polar bears exist. Gretel Ehrlich skin sea people travel Every footstep we take, every action has a consequence. We breathe in weather, but we breathe out CO2. We're responsible for weather and for climate. Gretel Ehrlich out breathe action weather What people don't understand about the Arctic is that this isn't just about those other people, those Eskimos that have nothing to do with us. The Arctic drives the climate of the whole globe. Gretel Ehrlich us nothing understand people In 2007, I received a National Geographic Expeditions Council grant to go around the top of the world and talk to Arctic people about how they've been impacted by climate change. Gretel Ehrlich climate-change change people world I started traveling in the Arctic in 1991, so I experienced the ice in winter and spring. The seasonal sea ice, it has a long season. It starts in September and ends in June. Gretel Ehrlich sea winter spring long
