Environmentalists Anonymous-Day 13
10/25/23
To start, we did a short, warm up. Choose a word or term that is on your mind. Maybe it’s an animal or place name. Or perhaps you have always had a scientific term floating around in your head, like trophic cascade or meteor shower. Sit with this phrase or word and play with it. What images come to mind? What does it sound like? How do you define it?
Write for 5-10 minutes and see what comes out. No editing, just write.
Next we talked about rivers. I was taken by this recent CNN article, “Amazon rivers fall to lowest levels in 121 years amid a severe drought”:
Boats stranded at David’s Marina on the Rio Negro, Manaus, Brazil on Oct 16, 2023. River water levels hit their lowest point in at least 121 years. SOURCE: Bruno Kelly/Reuter
Rivers in the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil fell to their lowest levels in over a century on Monday as a record drought upends the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and damages the jungle ecosystem.
The port of Manaus, the region’s most populous city, at the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Amazon River, recorded 13.59 meters (44.6 feet) of water on Monday, compared to 17.60 a year ago, according to its website. That is the lowest level since records began in 121 years ago in 1902, passing a previous all-time low set in 2010.
Rapidly drying tributaries to the mighty Amazon have left boats stranded, cutting off food and water supplies to remote villages, while high water temperatures are suspected of killing more than 100 endangered river dolphins.
In contrast, I have also been thinking a lot about the historic floods in Skagit and Whatcom counties that occurred two falls ago.
The photos from 2021 are astounding to revisit, especially in contrast to the drought images from the CNN article above.
As a writing exercise, consider your relationship to rivers. Are you afraid of them? Do you live near a river? Do these images conjure up any feelings or emotions?
Take 15-20 minutes to reflect on rivers in poetry or prose.
Our next in-person meeting is November 8th from 12-1 pm at Village Books. All are welcome.
We will now be meeting in the Readings Gallery. This is located on the bottom floor of Village Books.
Environmentalist Anonymous meets the 2nd and 4th Wednesday at Village Books from 12-1 pm. This is free and open to the public. I will email a synopsis of our gathering and post on my Substack page, Her Deepest Ecologies, for easier access (no subscription required to see writing group updates).
