Into the deep, dark woods.
On fairy tales for the climate crisis, shapeshifting, and morning songs.
Just as smoke from Canadian wildfires was drifting over much of the Northeast and Upper Midwest last month, Orion magazine published its summer issue, “The Deep Dark Burning Woods: Fairy Tales for the Climate Crisis.”
It included an essay I wrote about when my daughter, Alma, and I were stuck indoors several years ago due to severe flooding from a series of unprecedented atmospheric rivers — how her rain coat turned her into a little fox, how together we fell under the spell of fairy tales. We watched as rain transformed the landscape, as floodwaters submerged city streets and made familiar places strange. And, to pass the time, we listened to stories of enchantments and transformations — some wonderful, some terrible. Both held us rapt.
Now, it’s high summer, and the woods are still burning. In many regions, the air is choked once more with wildfire smoke, and the blue skies of summer are transformed by an eerie orange haze. It’s apocalyptic, people keep saying. It looks and smells and feels like the end of the world.
I keep thinking about how fairy tales may help us to face the despair that comes from living with the realities of a changing climate. In her introduction to Evergreen: Grim Tales and Verses from the Gloomy Northwest, Sharma Shields writes of the deep, dark woods, about the conversation between wonder and despair:
This makes sense to me, too, the way wonder and despair converse. As a kid I was terrified of the dark but I also knew its magic, standing in a sparse forest at night and widening my eyes, opening my senses. I was familiar with the fluttering low shadows of bats, the high shrieks of the coyotes, the way the broad black vault of sky held the stars. There was trauma all around and love and wonder, too, and I still feel this way, shivering in my sensitive skin as I move about the world afraid and distrustful and in love. The best storytelling for me explores what makes us vulnerable. It allows us a space to define what others defy.
On a planet that’s warming, we are so vulnerable: to extreme heat, to storms, to fires, to floods. But we are also powerful. Humans have transformed the world in ways that are wondrous and terrible, but that’s not the end of the story. We have the power, and the knowledge, to transform it again. The future is not a foregone conclusion.
If we stay open to the possibilities, we, too, may find ourselves changed. I’m reminded of Robin Wall Kimmerer, who writes, “Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
Here’s to acting with love and wonder; may it transform us.
“Enchantment is small wonder magnified through meaning, fascination caught in the web of fable and memory. … It is the sense that we are joined together in one continuous thread of existence with the elements constituting this earth, and that there is a potency trapped in this interconnection, a tingle on the border of our perception.”
A poem from the fairy tale forest of The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison:
“Shapeshifter” by Maggie Smith
Half me, you’re half haunted. Your heart is destined to skip like a scratched record. But lucky you, you weren’t made of the past, an alchemy that comes out all rusted. You weren’t hauled up like a car from the lake. No, you’re new. As soon as I memorize your face, you change it. Shapeshifter, it’s a dream chase—the more I pursue you, the faster you run. You answer my wren with a hawk; my doe with a fox. The more you change, the harder it is to go back. Waking at dawn, the light outside still limey, just barely yellow with sunrise, I hear the first few birds starting up— one, then another—then you chiming in: peep peep peep. Half me, I’m half afraid to see you this morning, wondering who or what I will find in your bed.
Garden Notes
Transformation is commonplace in the garden. Seeds turn into sprouts turn into vines, whose buds turn into blossoms turn into pea pods. Pea pods my children have lately been munching on in the sunshine.
The first few hollyhocks have opened, revealing ruffle-y magenta petals. We’re picking hydrangeas as big as balloons. My leafy greens are bolting, and I can’t keep up with them, even though I’m making this herby salad nearly everyday. Too, I’ve finally composted the radishes I didn’t harvest in time…such a disappointment.
My roses are still blooming and setting new buds. Whenever I’m on the phone, I’m out with my snippers, deadheading. Overheard, a conversation between Alma and the roses: “Hello Mrs. Rose, you’re looking quite beautiful today.” When her cousin came to visit, they made a game of scattering rose petal confetti all over the yard. And, mostly, I let them…
I’m listening to…
This playlist of curated morning songs, interrupted only by requests for the mermaid shuffle.
The songs my daughter makes up nearly constantly. Yesterday, she serenaded a friendly ghost in our kitchen, assuring it through improvised rhymes that we are a kind and welcoming family.
An in-depth update on the impact of climate legislation.
A conversation with eco-philosopher Joanna Macy (an old episode, replayed) and her reading of this Rilke poem: “and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, / a storm, or a great song?”
At sunset on my favorite beach: the birthday song, sung to a friend, and in the quiet after, the chirps of purple martins swooping over the water.
My son, who just learned my favorite word a toddler can say: wow.