Written River is a literary journal published by Hiraeth Press which focuses on poetry and non-fiction prose

exploring nature and our relationship to it. Published quarterly in digital format, we strive to encourage the
discipline of ecopoetics and return the voice of the poet to the body of the Earth. Ecopoetics is poetry
in which the energy of the ecosystem flows through the poem, creating a written river of words which ebbs
with the creativity of the entire Earth community. Written River marks the confluence of many streams and
many voices as they flow back into the nourishing ground of the watershed.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR WRITTEN RIVER

Written River is accepting unsolicited submissions. Our Journal primarily publishes Poetry (any form as
long as the verse is theme relevant), nonfiction, (essays, autobiographical stories, and travel writing), inter-
views and book reviews.

Please send a short cover letter, biographical statement and a Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx)
attachment of:

y Up to 5 poems not exceeding 15 pages. Please send a query letter and an excerpt if you would like a long
form poem to be considered.
y Nonfiction work of 5000 words or less.

Please email submissions to: writtenriver@hiraethpress.com.

We prefer electronic submissions. If necessary, however, you may send your proposal by post to:

Hiraeth Press
Attention: Written River
P.O. Box 416
Danvers, MA 01923

We usually respond to submissions within 4-6 weeks.

The submitted works should be previously unpublished. We are open to publishing a limited number of po-
ems or essays that may have appeared in print or online, but the author must hold sole rights to the work.

We do accept original artwork/photographs. We request that images be scanned with a resolution of at

least 300 dpi and attached it to the query email, which should also contain a cover letter.

Simultaneous submissions are permitted. However, we ask to be notified promptly if your submitted work
is accepted elsewhere.

If your work is seasonally themed you should consider our issue deadlines:
Winter Solstice Issue: November 20th
Summer Solstice Issue: May 20th

5 ΠLetter from the Editor
CONTENTS
8 Π{photograph} Sun and Stone
Photo: Copyright © 2010 Jason Kirkey
20 Π{poem} Instructions from an Old Growth Forest
21 Π{poem} Who Will Eat This?
Jason Kirkey

10 Π{poem} Doe, A Deer 22 Π{poem} I Haunt This Wood, It Haunts Me

11 Π{poem} Be-loved Gaia 22 Π{poem} Wild Hedge
Jamie K. Reaser Judy Longley

12 Π{preview} Cosmosophia 23 Π{poem} Autumnal Evening

Theodore Richards 23 Œ {poem} Summer’s Passing
L.M. Browning
14 Π{poem} Eno River Walking
15 Π{poem} Appalachian Native 24 Π{poem} Snow on the Ponderosa Pines
Jenn MacCormack 24 Π{poem} The Heart of the Prophet
T.E. Pedersen
16 Π{poem} Landscape Loved by Wallace Stevens
16 Π{poem} Real Estates 26 Π{photograph} Poems
Mary Harwell Sayler
28 Π{q&a} Jamie K. Reaser
17 Π{poem} Lieder Jenn MacCormack
17 Π{poem} Temperate Place
Leonore Wilson 31 Π{essay} Human and Humus
Adrián Villasenor-Galarza
18 Π{poem} Borders
19 Π{poem} Appalachian Autumn Womb 38 Π{photograph} Grand Embrace
Theodore Richards
39 ΠContributor Biographies
20 Π{photograph} Corpus
42 Π{photograph} Land's End
 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR HIRAETH PRESS
Hiraeth Press is accepting unsolicited submissions. We primarily publish full-length works of poetry and
nonfiction (autobiography and travel writing are acceptable as well). Please be sure to review our current
publications to ensure your submission is appropriate to our press. Please also read these guidelines in full.
We are only interested in poetry and non-fiction projects which explore themes of ecology or contemplative
works with an ecological sensibility.

Although we appreciate hearing from our readers and prospective authors, postal mail requires a lot of pack-
aging, paper mailing materials, and fossil fuel to ship. If you absolutely need or want to send us something
through the post you may do so. However, we strongly prefer electronic submissions and correspondence.
If it is absolutely necessary you may send your proposal by post to:

Hiraeth Press
P.O. Box 416
Danvers, MA 01923

Please include in your poetry proposal:

y A cover letter
y The first 25 pages of your manuscript
y A brief biographical statement and prior publications or relevant awards

Please include in your nonfiction proposal:

y A cover letter
y A complete synopsis (1 – 2 pages)
y An outline or table of contents with detailed chapter descriptions (5 – 10 pages)
y Three sample chapters including any introduction and two other chapters of your choosing (chapters
need not be consecutive)
y A list of similar or competing books
y A detailed biographical statement including author credentials and prior publications (if any)

Submissions may be emailed to submissions@hiraethpress.com as a Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or PDF

attachment. Important! We accept submissions during the following months: February, April, June, Au-
gust, October, December

You can expect to hear back from us by the end of the month succeeding the one in which you submitted
(if you submit in February we will respond by the end of March). Any submissions sent during our off-
months will be deleted and you are welcome to re-submit according to the calendar above.

The submitted manuscript should be previously unpublished. A limited number of individual poems or
excerpts may have appeared in print or online, but the poet must hold sole rights to the work.

Simultaneous submissions are permitted. However, we ask to be notified promptly if your submitted work
is accepted elsewhere.
 5

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Readers,

In our first issue of Written River I wanted to explore what it is that we mean by “eco-poetics.” We cast
the net wide and have come back with poems, photographs, and an essay which all explore the topic from
various perspectives. It is my hope that through Written River we can foster a community of artists who are
all engaged with asking how our art can transform our relationship with the Earth. Before I introduce you
to some of our contributors this issue, I want to say a few words pertaining to the mission of Written River
and why we feel it is important.

In his poem “Bread and Wine,” Hölderlin asks us, “What use are poets in times of need?” I’ve been
haunted by this question ever since. Can poety change the world? This is what I wanted to know. Poets
in the widest sense are not only those who write and speak poetry. They are storytellers, mythmakers,
philosophers, scientists, teachers, musicians, artists, and shamans—those involved in the ongoing creation
of culture. The use of poets in times of need is that they are cultural therapists and, in the words of John
Moriarty, are “healers who, healed themselves, heal us culturally, heal us, or help to heal us, in the visions
and myths and rituals by which we live, and to do this effectively they must in some sense be…temporary
ones, not eternal ones, of the Dream.”
The Dream is what the Poet communicates and creates. They change the way we not only think but also
our very way of being in the world. In doing so poets give birth to a new story that speaks to the needs of
the time. So what is the new story we want to construct? That is still an open ended question but I believe
that its fundamental attribute must be that it integrates us into the wider Earth community.
This integration must begin at the level of the watershed. The watershed is the organizing principle
of the life community. We cannot know our place in the universe if we do not know our place in the
watershed—our local and situated place. We cannot know the universe story if we don’t know the smaller
stories, poems, and folktales which constitute our personal story and the story of our place.
Every drop of rain that falls and seeps into the land is drained into the watershed and travels out to
sea. It takes about two million years for a single drop of water to make the complete circle from rainfall to
groundwater, to river, to ocean, to cloud, and back to rain again. All the water, every single molecule, makes
that journey. This is why the care of our water is synonymous with the care of the local Earth community.
The watershed defines the community of life which grows up around it and marks the boundaries of the
region.
Each watershed has its own Way, distinct to its personality. It tells a story by its “being.” To follow
6
the Way of the watershed is to the follow the Dao. The watershed freely manifests in alignment with its
deep principles which naturally follow the course of the Dao—“the flow, drift, or the process of nature,” as
Alan Watts describes it. The Dao is the principle pattern or energy which things naturally follow. Poetry
is the language of the Dao. It is spontaneous but cultivated and disciplined; free-flowing but shaped as
form—poetry is wild. Writing, speaking, hearing, or reading the poetry of our place can help us discover
the entry point at which we find our own particular way of belonging.
One of the images I’ve discovered which relates deeply to this process of integrating into the ecosystem
is the peat bogs of Ireland. The bogs represent, in their dynamic natural processes and their ecological
functioning, the new way we must find to belong to the Earth. Peat is the product of the decay of organic
matter—the bogs a kind of naturally occurring anaerobic compost heap. Through the phenomenon of the
bog we can learn about the ecosystem of the bog and through the dynamics of the ecosystem we can learn
what it means to be a human being within the Earth community.
The bogs also represent a more storied way of being. Beneath the surface of the bog the peat contains
artifacts of the past both literally and figuratively. Swords, books, and bodies have all been found well
preserved in the peat. More figuratively the sedimentary layers of the bog represent layers of history, layers
of the past, layers of the psyche into which it is necessary for us to inscend. By sinking into the peat we can
come into contact with our own Precambrian minds. These two stories co-mingle together in the decaying
humus beneath the surface of the bog.
When peat is burned for fuel it’s like burning the memory of the Earth. The peat holds the succession
of Ireland’s forests and the subsequent degradation of the landscape which formed the bogs. It holds the
rain, the moss, the heather. It holds the bones of the past with little concern for whether it is human or
Earth history it records. In the bog it is all just bog history. Bog-deep in us, are we too still just the decaying
compost of Earth matter?
We can think of poetry as feeding directly into the energy cycles of cultures, which are interconnected
with the energy cycles of ecosystems—it re-invigorates them, heals them, constructs them, dreams them, and
sometimes even destroys them. The use of poets in times of need are to descend into the composting bog
of our cultures and reinvent them in a way which enlivens and sustains us by re-dreaming them and passing
on that dream to rest of the culture. In the 21st century, at the edge of the Cenozoic, this means it is the
task of the poet and culture worker to, as Thomas Berry said, “reinvent the human—at the species level, with
critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story
and shared dream experience.”

I think we have a great issue for you to curl up with this winter. Scattered throughout you’ll find some
beautiful photographs taken by James Liter, who we are hoping to release a book of poems from in 2011
with a photo book to possibly follow. His photos have really brought this issue alive in a way I could
hardly imagine when it was first conceived. We also have an excellent essay from Adrián Villasenor-
Galarza, a Ph.D. student of Integral Ecology at California Institute of Integral Studies, which examines
the relationship between composting and alchemy. We’re also featuring several poets: Leonore Wilson
 7
is publishing a collection called Western Solstice with us next year. Jamie K. Reaser, who released Huntley
Meadows last August, submitted poems from her new collection called Note to Self which you can expect to
see in the spring. Jenn MacCormack, in addition to being a featured poet, also conducted a question and
answer session with Jamie about Huntley Meadows. L.M. Browning (my co-editor at Hiraeth Press) and I
also contributed some new poems that we hope you enjoy. We also have poetry from Theodore Richards
along with a preview of his upcoming Hiraeth Press book, Cosmosophia: Cosmology, Mysticism, and the Birth of
a New Myth which is due out on February 25th. Whatever your tastes I think you’ll find something in this
issue of Written River to inspire you and perhaps even change the way you see the world.

Yours from the estuary,

Jason Kirkey
 8
Copyright © 2010 James Liter
9
10

DOE, A DEER
That takes everything you need.
Jamie K. Reaser
Look! She’s moving,
Doe, a deer,
shifting her head so that
a female deer
her big brown watery eyes meet your eyes.
standing in ironic be-wild-er-ment
amidst a still-screaming clear cut.
She can See that you are human,
Have you seen
but she just doesn’t get it.
the big yellow monster
that destroyed her home?
And neither do you –
Blades that have never known
And neither do I –
the ethics of a Ninja.

despite the long practiced walk and talk.

She now has PTSD
and is too numb
How is it that even those of us
to grieve,
who have awakened to the consequences of
to dash,
our actions still largely
to join the stumps in their collective shrieks
partake in hypocrisy?
of amputation.

It’s all about the fuel that goes into

My eyes catch a glimpse
the Big Yellow Monster
of a single flower that made it through—
of You
Podophyllum peltatum—
and Me:
Mayapple.

Insecurity,
Eternal hope.
Fear,
Loneliness…
I’ll ask you again:
These things drive the harvest rates
of that which is Beautiful—
“Have you seen
both within us
the big yellow monster
and outside us.
that destroyed her home?”

So, it is time All

It dwells within you,
you know.
that we call for an alternative energy source:
The Destroyer—
Compassion,
That part of you that takes more
Love,
than you need.
Unity…
We start not by monkey-wrenching
BE-LOVED GAIA
The Destroyer,
Jamie K Reaser
but by bringing The Destroyer into Intimacy is the fingerprint
ecstatic relationship with The Creator. of the fully present witness,

I’ll say it again: and I know Her body

well enough to read
“We start not by monkey-wrenching
The Destroyer, the pigeon-feather spray of a
but by bringing The Destroyer into Cooper’s Hawk hit,
ecstatic relationship with The Creator.”
the rise of a toad’s gastric
Her udder is becoming painful passing in garden mulch,
as it swells,
and there will be no relief. the Monarch caterpillar’s inscription
on late-season milkweed leaf.
The twins were dismembered
and disemboweled Oh but the grief.
as they did what ancestral memory Someone has been here
told them to do— before me.
place your lovely white spots
in the glitter of leaf-sieved sunlight All these wounds…
and be still.
I leave no such mark
Two Mothers will mourn on my Lover’s body.
and someone else
will refer to these and other casualties
simply as “negative externalities”
of Progress.

Look within.
Go within.
Redefine Progress
for yourSelf and
Copyright © 2010 James Liter

for our species

before you fuel your
next outward step.
12
Preview
Cosmosophia
•
Cosmology, Mysticism, and the Birth of a New Myth
T HE OD ORE R ICH ARDS
T his coming year, on February 25th, Hiraeth Press
will proudly release the much-anticipated title,
Cosmosophia: Cosmology, Mysticism, and the Birth of a
New Myth by Theodore Richards, author of the poetry
collection Handprints on the Womb. Speaking to hu-
manity’s current ecological crisis and religious quanda-
ries there are few books more relevant to our current
days, than Cosmosophia.
Confronted with global warming, economic injus-
tice, and a profound sense of meaninglessness, many
Theodore Richards … takes us on an epic journey ...
It is his journey and it is our journey. It is humanity’s
journey and though it necessarily includes the misery
of cruelty and oppression, there is wisdom at work as
well … Things could be so different. We wandered
away from our African origins so many millennia ago,
and though we have become lost and confused, the
universe leaves clues everywhere. A new beginning
is possible, a new feeling of the interconnectedness
of all things is before us. Richards takes us on a
journey into the edge of the universe which is the
edge of the human being which is the edge of God.
—Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story, on
Handprints on the Womb
™
in the modern world have come to the conclusion that
we are at a turning point in human history. Cosmoso-
phia: Cosmology, Mysticism, and the Birth of a New Myth
offers a fresh approach to the crisis of the modern
industrial world, emphasizing the worldview that pro-
vides us with our core values and basic assumptions
about reality.
Cosmosophia takes the reader on an extensive histori-
cal journey through the ideas and worldviews that have
shaped the West, as well as a journey around the world
to explore the various mystical traditions that could pro-
 13
The story of the Universe is the story that ends as it began: the spark of the Big Bang is in each of us; we have, at this mo-
ment, through our creativity, the capacity to create anew the Universe, to become compassionate to the whole of creation.
Chaos—and surely we live in chaotic times—is the mother of creative transformation. Even as our individual interiority
emerges, our imaginative capacities allow us to return to embeddedness in the cosmic womb. This return requires more than
new knowledge, but a new myth, a way of connecting us to one another, to the rest of Earth and to the cosmos. The new
myth will not be created by science or philosophy, but by the collective creativity of humanity. We will need more than mere
ideas; to be remade and renewed from our very roots, to become “pure and ready to climb to the stars,” we need poets like
Dante. We are, at this moment, like my unborn daughter, putting hand prints on the edge of our world, our womb—not un-
like the earliest humans did on the interior of the cave—unsure what lies beyond. —Excerpt from Cosmosophia

vide alternatives to the Western worldview. Ultimately, in which the members of a culture understand their
it is argued that the unique challenges of today’s world relationship to the world is defined not by facts about
cannot be solved through a return to the ideas of the the world, but the story we tell about it. A story invites
past—or even through mere ideas at all—but by a deep us to participate. The mythmaker is the artist who tells
mystical re-connection to our world and the creative, these great stories. Using the most recent insights of
imaginative process of telling a new myth that inte- science as well as drawing from various mystical tradi-
grates our mystical traditions and modern science. tions, a new myth is proposed based upon the symbol-
This book develops a new discipline, “cosmoso- ic framework of cosmosophia. —By L.M. Browning and
phy,” which seeks to reconcile the individual and the Theodore Richards
whole through the wisdom of the cosmos. Central to
this work is the notion that wisdom is not the creation
™
THEODORE RICHARDS is a poet, writer, and re-
of the human, or deposited into the world from above,
ligious philosopher. He is a long time student of the
but the way the Universe creates meaningful, compas-
Taoist martial art of Bagua and hatha yoga and has
sionate relationships. The human is called upon to
traveled, worked and studied in 25 different coun-
find the specific human expression of this wisdom at
tries, including the South Pacific, the Far East, the In-
this moment. From this discipline, a new mythic and
dian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin
symbolic framework has been created, “cosmosophia,”
America. Theodore has received degrees from the Uni-
which integrates the insights of the cosmologies and
versity of Chicago, The California Institute of Integral
mystical philosophies of the wisdom traditions and
Studies, Wisdom University, and the New Seminary
modern science. Any worldview is based on certain
where he was ordained. He has worked with inner
basic assumptions about reality that a particular cul-
city youth on the South Side of Chicago, Harlem, the
ture makes. In modernity, these assumptions or core
South Bronx, and Oakland, where he was the director
metaphors have led us to see our world as corrupted
of YELLAWE, an innovative program for teens. He is
or dead. Cosmosophia is a new set of metaphors upon
the author of Handprints on the Womb, a collection
which a worldview can be created that treats the cos-
of poetry. Theodore Richards is the founder and exec-
mos as ensouled, alive, or sacred.
utive director of The Chicago Wisdom Project (www.
Finally, Cosmosophia begins the process of telling a
chicagowisdomproject.org). He currently resides in
new myth. It is central to the argument that the way
Chicago with his wife and daughter.
 14
ENO RIVER WALKING
Jenn MacCormack
This place with birds calling to one another,
the slow whir of river walking upon
age-worn rocks from another life,
red clay sinks down, accepts, slides,
green thorns covered with promises of spring,
snow like winter’s ghost melts into the earth.
The river runs and walks, then runs again,
as quiet eyes of trees observe
passing of time
passing of years
dropping their leaves down
sap rising
budding
shooting forth into fullness
the color and splendor of death
as falling leaves come anew.
But now, now their blood,
their heartbeat pumps stronger
after long, unconscious sleep.
The deer have eaten at bark and branch
during winter’s starving bite,
but now, now from roots
spread forth green blades,
speared desires for sun and air.
This place is open
and intimate
the pebbles and small shells
mingle together like brothers and sisters
at the river edge,
each stone a story past, each shell a life long gone.
This place with its tall trees,
buckeye and oak: white, blackjack and laurel.
This place with holly, rhododendron, sycamore,
white ash, maple and beech, the trembling beech,
walnut, pecan, wild thorn, alder and dogwood,
sourwood and ironwood, honeysuckle,
a thick array of river birch, cedar and hemlock.
This place with grasses, grasses and grasses,
moss and lichen, ivy, sumac and creepers,
shooting bulbs wild with spring’s coming day.
And pine trees, who could not mention the pine trees,
short-leafed pine in bunches with loblolly pine drooping
down,
long-leaf pine that needs fire to seed, fire to be freed,
ancient giants that covered this place long ago,
pine-cones everywhere before deciduous trees took root.
A sparrow peers at me now,
querying my intentions in this place,
then carries on, moves along feeding off the ground,
dancing with a hop in his step,
his lover nearby,
their white breasts glimmering
beneath brown wings and
gleaming eyes.
I am breathless,
breathless
at this place,
at its rolling sides rising up into blue sky,
this valley, this river course,
this place of cosmic lineage,
about to awaken to Spring again
like all other years — yet unlike ever before.
The joy that fills me
reminds me of home,
tells me I’m home,
tells me to walk softly on this clay,
to slip with it and slide with it,
to feel the leaves, the bark, the dead grass, new grass,
smooth stone, volcanic etrusions,
woodpecker in the distance amidst creaking trunks.
 15

APPALACHIAN
I know this place in my dreams,
NATIVE
have known it for many years, Jenn MacCormack
but this place is real,
Into the Appalachian wilderness,
this place breathes,
no rules but the rule of the wild,
it lives,
no god but the god of presence.
carries with it memories
sinking in,
My nest is amidst dead leaves
sinking into me,
where-ever I stop for sleep,
seeping in like blood and breath,
wandering all day to feed on nuts,
like scent on the wind.
bitter fruit and sweet mountain waters.
In this moment,
Shedding my shell,
there is no me.
shedding the shackles of all I thought I knew,
Woods, river, birds, shore,
the silent white-footed mouse staring at me from his hole
here the human creature
as he melts into grey rock light,
sinks back into the soil,
blurring his edges,
merging into bark texture,
not mouse, but stone,
mushroom, green leaf and bird.
not stone, but mouse.

Plans rot down,

So too I melt
expectations wear away like riverbanks,
dissolve
while a mountain of thoughts
blend into hues of green and brown.
transform
I am earth and wind,
into trees.
murmur of water as it kisses stones,
tree-creeper hopping, moving up bark paths,
wren in the distance shrieking his warning,
rising rocks emerge from the hillside,
winding their way along a river’s long walk

all this I am,

all this flows in me and through me,
the Eno River walking and running, then walking again,
part and whole,
whole and part.

This place is real.

This place is home.

 16

LANDSCAPE LOVED BY
WALLACE STEVENS REAL ESTATES
Mary Harwell Sayler Mary Harwell Sayler
If you could fly over \ yards and yards And the hills that climbed us
of green lace lining the Gulf and Space puffing for breath
Coasts, you would see low-lying bands exchanged their wildflowers
of land seeding the sea with pockets blue- for houses, big houses, brick
beaded with water, and you would wonder houses that consumed
how one more word could fit into the shell- our landscapes and resumed
shaped pattern, stitched with canals, and the kiln-baked earth.
not unravel beneath the hem of so many
people pushing the delicate fabric, poking
the intricate design, picking at flaws not
found in winter-bound spools of wool.

Copyright © 2010 James Liter


LIEDER
Leonore Wilson
In advent you find their half-wreaths
Of sleep like underground springs; here
They once quieted their lissome limbs,
Pawed the soil clotted with moisture,
A musky grammar heard by the owl
And field mouse protesting and the vole
Urinating and you occasionally sinking
Like a stone to sleep when that quizzical
Plethoric neighing anticipated the grum
Of fungi and frost, the frenetic day
When a noble fir would be sought,
Chopped down and heaved over
The threshold and through the pome-
Scented halls like a lugubrious bride.
Slowly the snow
Spreads over the meadows, powders the mountains
Like sugar or manna and you wonder where
The forest daughters now hide with or without
Their brood, where is their warmth,
Their somnolent succor, until one evening late
Crossing your bridge from errands in town
You see under a hard batch of stars
Two stags disappearing up the canyon’s ravine,
Crossing the minute creek, foreign
To any portent you’ve witnessed thus far;
Their tremulous breath, small bluffs of fire,
Racks splendid as diadems, and you know
As you burrow into bed with the one you desire
Those you’ve missed will be drenched
In the libidinous scent of recognition too,
Raw as bitter orange, or husked winterberries—
Bruised Eden’s perfume of the divine.
17
Photo: Copyright © 2010 James Liter
TEMPERATE PLACE
Leonore Wilson
The suburb’s motion is mandatory,
will nail down this rustic landscape
no doubt, but for one more year
it shimmers in the spoors of the old rooster’s
croak, the phlegmatic hedge of stubborn
cattle, the possum in his farewell tremor
flitting on the sidewalk, in the magpies’
clamor, the cobwebbed canal water
smooth as a bed sheet, the monologue
of the recluse looking for his lost slippers,
complaining about the rainy weather
as the mother on the veranda in her
starched cotton blouse buttoned up
to her chin, finishes her last cup of tea,
while three of her children ring her skirt
like choleric quail.
Remember this
when sickness sharpens your features,
when dusk becomes your scruffy
neighbor, the one with bad breath
and patched up trousers, who bikes
the lumpy path to your house, only
to hand you a half-eaten bag of sour apples.
18
BORDERS
Theodore Richards
Far before I reach the border,
Landscapes and languages begin to change.
English is spoken only occasionally;
In the dusty plains of south Texas—
A place that prides itself on its Americanness,
Not realizing
That the Spanish-speaking people
Make it so—
Mexico comes gradually,
Long before the border.
The snakes and the birds tell me, too,
That I have already reached a place far different
From the one I have left,
Even before I have gotten there.
The world we have paved
And drawn lines upon
In our fear of its vague and subtle
Grayness. Its slow fade
From one land to the next
In stark contrast to the comforting abruptness
Of guards and currency exchanges.
Do they
Consider the birds of the air…
The lilies of the field,
When they draw those lines,
Even as they hold Bibles
(Written in English) in hand?
The birds fly past those borders,
The lily-seeds find fertile soil on both sides.
We tell ourselves that the lines between nations
Are real
As if we know what the real really is.
Is it real because it exists on paper,
And in concrete walls built by men,
And in still harder, higher walls in our minds?
The snakes and birds, then,
Must not be real,
For they pass over and through with ease.
And people, in spite of our ideas,
Pass through, too,
Following the money on which we all depend
For survival.
These people must not be real, then:
Who move silently through the desert,
Searching for work from which others hide;
Who pick our vegetables and in their struggles
Make them cheaper.
We seem not to care
That they speak strange tongues
As we gorge ourselves
In the bloated supermarkets of entitlement.
Do we taste their suffering
In our grapes? Their struggles
In our greens?
In this backward world
In which borders are crossed daily,
Even on city buses,
In which money is real value
And lines on a map,
So allusive on the dusty borders of
Creation,
Are more real
Than the dust itself.
 19

APPALACHIAN I drive eastward out of Upstate New York, smoking bidis.

The dull monotony of interstate gloom
turns abruptly into rural joy;

AUTUMN small mountains replace the small,

depressed cities of post-industrial New York.
Cows are seen more often than people.
WOMB Small farms dot the landscape
when there is a break in the roughness of the topography.
Theodore Richards Most of the rural routes are lined with stone fences
barely visible through the tangled brush,
a reminder that people had once come here
to conquer the land,
chopping down the forests,
using the abundant rocks they found
when trying to farm
as walls.
The forest has returned,
its thickness
a testament to the strength of nature;
the presumptuousness of those walls
a testament to humanity’s hubris.

I pass by tourists
Who take pictures of the landscape.
Green countryside turns to
orange, brown, and yellow.
But I enter her,
take long walks in the woods,
assaulted by the colors, above, below,
and on all sides.
I fast for days in this forest womb of ambient color,
the long Autumn shadows
and ever more barren trees
a soft reminder of the cold winter ahead,
a reminder that nature celebrates death
as well as life.

These tourists cannot see

That while the forest is pretty
From the roadside
Its true beauty
Is found within.
Copyright © 2010 James Liter

20

INSTRUCTIONS FROM
AN OLD GROWTH FOREST
Jason Kirkey
This life
will take some time to build
like the slow upswell
of breath from earth—
one day: an old growth forest.

Start with seeds

sailing toward soil—
white pine
red cedar
carried by the currents
of all that you love.
A rain of needles
to blanket the loam
of flesh
calling to dream-flesh.

Let whatever lives

within your branches live—
don’t dream of oak and moss.
Let your shade be a shelter
for ferns and grazing deer.

Be patient with the perching of birds—

the fox and coyote will come.
A community gathers slowly
in the chorus of frogs or
mosquitoes on the humid breeze.

Oak and hickory

moss and mushrooms
shade and dappled light—
the mature smell of decay.
Scattered leaves rotting:
This life
will only grow
when you’re ready to give it away.
 21

WHO WILL EAT THIS?

Jason Kirkey
This compost from which I came,
to which—like lines of poetry
that feed the culture fed by
water and plants, the winged and legged—
I too feed the earth and decompose,
break down, rot, fertilize, decay.

So much for the summer sun,

apples on trees, or the dew
hanging like crystals on leaves.
All things return to you—
not a thing will be spared:
not the oak, maple, and pine;
neither wren, robin, or crow;
not the fox and deer;
not this poem—
not even the woman I love.
Everything is forfeit to the damp
fungal mycelia of soil,
rich with earth-scent,
the voice of the dead still speaking.

The rain falls upon the detritus of

de-composed lines:
once flesh and bone and singing,
drips from the branches and leaves—
a baptismal for the holy fruits to come,
spoken in the common tongue
of mushrooms and moss; sorrel and sprouts.

Even as the ink of this poem sinks into the page

the paper fades, dampens, decays—
What vegetables will it become?
Who will eat this? Who will drink the vitality of
change?
Who will fruit, flower, and seed?
What use are poets in times of need?
22
I HAUNT THIS WOOD,
IT HAUNTS ME
Judy Longley
A shrunken acre of maple,
oak and ash, a fistful of pens
scribbling arboreal history
on the parchment
each dawn unrolls,
shading the surround
of Monopoly board homes.
A reminder of the immeasurable
forest our naked hungry selves
could not reach the limits of,
where we enacted our grave
industry of hunter and hunted
in deepest shade, sleeping
under starry eaves, our predators
pacing the snow pack,
slit eyes slanted upward.
Each day I enter the story,
my fingers explore bark’s
rough Braille, a wood thrush
trills, pierces the cacophany
of city walls, traffic’s
gutteral exhaust.
Deer swim from their margin
of brush, five gray ghosts...
or two...or three...
My dream body captures glittering
paragraphs bold against the sky,
crows explode into a flight of arrows.
With night’s winged descent
I dance among dark pillars,
my legs grown long, stemmed,
each phosphorescent step releases
old moons, the wind saturated
with ancient vowels wolves blow
from the edge of time.
WILD HEDGE
Judy Longley
A scarlet blur
bursts through the understory
becomes cardinal
in image darting
through my lens
into the tidy parlor
of consciousness:
my mother’s voice lifting me
to a farm house window
crying red bird, red bird!
A yellow swallowtail
undulates along the perimeter
where wood, garden,
my unpruned heart converge,
weaving vine to grasp
my mother’s delicate wrists,
the wingspan of her fingers
against glass.
 23

AUTUMNAL EVENING SUMMER’S PASSING

L.M. Browning L.M. Browning
The acorns fell like heavy rain Sparks from the fire
future giants falling to Earth as newborns, were cast into the sky--
one day to stretch between the worlds. for a moment able to live
as red stars of the Milky Way.
The chipmunk chirped like cardinals
back and forth at one another The balance tips
as they raced along the ledges and we pass into the darkness.
of the channeled slate walls. The days of long daylight spent.

Bees hovered in mid-air The trees surrender their leaves,

with Zen like peace. laying themselves bare--
While the crickets chanted their mantra exposed nakedly
unto the full Harvest Moon. unto those who dwell around.

The red kernels of the burning oak log smoked The clinging leaves
blessing those that stood around, ripped away violently
witnessing the cremation of its century-old life. from their mother bough--
orphans falling to Earth;
The trees shed their leaves some to wither where they fall,
blanketing the path ahead others to have their mulchy ashes
like flower maids spreading golden pedals spread across the four directions--
before the bride as she walks to her union-- borne away by the gushes of wind
before me, as I walk deeper into this wood unto a new shore.
and offer myself as a companion
to the spirits in the surround.

Copyright © 2010 James Liter

24

SNOW ON THE PONDEROSA PINES

T.E. Pedersen
Out walking in the brisk morning air, I look up, and on the pine trees I can see the
snows from the night before still clinging to the boughs, as if presenting their white
beauty to the red chalk spires. I am dressed warm, and so am enjoying the cold air, that
is still the surprise of the season thus far, early in the autumn, and I marvel for a few
moments at the white blanket of the landscape, the steely clouds that are gifting the
occasional flake. I walk and I look, observing the quiet as much as the land or the trees
or the trailway underfoot. There is a vibration here that stirs the soul. In my heart I am
giving humble thanks to God, for nothing more than snow on the Ponderosa Pines.

THE HEART OF THE PROPHET

T.E. Pedersen
There is an indescribable wonder, a fair elegant halo of invisible light, streaming from
a grove of aspen, or leaping from off the pines, coruscating subtly from a group of
mountain larch, or rising up from the earth, dripping from heavy clouds, as drops of
dew condensed into the tips of flowers, that then emanate upwards, in naked glory,
from their roots in the wetted dust, to turn with sun-bleached lips and slowly re-open
themselves after the tender touch of recent rain. This indescribable wonder is as ever
a transparency to the spirit, that might nevertheless be seen of the senses as a palpable
glimmer in the air, a sunshade of lingering rainfall, the shimmering pristine that tells
the heart of the prophet, and speaks poignantly to us of the Ineffable that trembles and
flourishes in the leaves and the trees and the flowers, is present in the skies and the
waters, as the sign of the transcendental Soul.
25
 26
Copyright © 2010 James Liter
27
28

Q&A WITH JAMIE K. REASER

Jenn MacCormack
1. Huntley Meadows is a place-centric collection multiple layers of meaning and they Work me for
of poetry. How did you first encounter Huntley days, months, even years after “coming through.”
Meadows?
4. Can you define and explain the term “soul task”
A friend of mine, Dr. David Wilcove, invited me that you use? How was Huntley Meadows a soul
to go for a walk at Huntley in the late 90s. David is task?
currently a Professor of Public Affairs and Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University’s “Soul task” is a term used in the context of the
Woodrow Wilson School. He wrote the foreword Soulcraft work of Animas Valley Institute—where
for the book. I have been a guide for several years. A soul task
is a process—usually undertaken in a Nature-based
2. Each poetry piece is written as though a journal setting—to encourage soul initiation, unfolding, and
entry. What gave you this idea and how did it in- dialogue. At its core, it is a practice for coming into
fluence your process? conservation with and expressing the deepest, most
authentic Self.
This collection was written in 2001 as a “soul task”
that I assigned to mySelf. At the time I was living 5. By using the word “naturalist” in the subtitle,
in the pathologically lawned suburbs of Springfield, you set a certain tone for the poems. What do you
Virginia and working amidst the frenetic urban mean by “naturalist,” and what does this reveal
landscape of Washington, DC. The daily grind and about the way you relate to nature and the wild?
lack of emersion in Nature were leaving me feeling
depleted, disconnected, and down trodden. Enough I have a doctorate in biology and so could have ap-
was enough. I decided to create a weekly practice of proached the book from a more scientific perspec-
“walking meditation” upon the trails Huntley Mead- tive. For the purpose of the process, it was impor-
ows Park, and to record my inner and outer observa- tant that I didn’t. I was intentionally letting go of
tions in poetic form. the linear, rational mind and inviting the deeper,
creative aspects of mySelf to have a conversation
3. What role did your “walking meditations” with nature. For me the terms nature and naturalist
around Huntley Meadows play in your personal cannot be contained by scientific vocabulary—they
life as well as in the development of each poem? reach beyond what we know and explicitly invite a
relationship with the unknown, with Mystery.
My time at Huntley Meadows was literally ground-
ing. Each trip enabled me to get out of my head and 6. The way in which you include the voices of birds,
into my body and to reclaim experience through all frogs, and other inhabitants of Huntley Meadows
of my senses. I was literally en-livened. None of my feels as though the place itself has co-authored the
poetry is “developed” in the sense of intellectual poems. Why do you think it is important to in-
approach. I merely try to get down on paper what clude more-than-human voices in art?
shows up in my awareness. Often the words convey
 29
I perceive “art” as something different from “craft.”
Art is a relatively modern concept that involves a
relationship with an object from a rather disassoci-
ated, observer perspective. Craft, however, is a term
that describes an intimated relationship that hu-
mans have had with the world since ancient times.
It is a celebration of a sacred in the mundane. The
poems emerged out of my relationship with all of
the spirits of the place, and their relationships with
each other. It was merely my role to help the sacred
take its place on blank pages—those within me and
those within my hands.

7. You have included practices at the end of the

book. What were you trying to communicate by
juxtaposing poetry with practice?

I didn’t start this project with the intent of writ-

ing a book. It was a very personal exploration into
relationship and renewal. I offer the practices as a
means of encouraging and enabling other people to
embark on similar journeys wherever they live—to
engage in their own “soul tasks.”

8. How do art and poetry help us contribute back

to the Earth Community, both local and global?

The soul speaks through the arts (crafts) and to fully

engage our authentic Self, or to reach another per-
son at their core, we must engage the language of
the soul. We contribute by fully showing up in dia-
logue with the Earth Community and inviting a co-
creative process to emerge and evolve.

HUNTLEY MEADOWS is available

now from HIRAETH PRESS!
www.hiraethpress.com

Copyright © 2010 Jamie K. Reaser

30
 31

HUMAN AND HUMUS *

An Alchemical Approach to Composting

Adrián Villasenor-Galarza

Photo: Copyright © 2010 James Liter

AS SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED WITH COMPOSTING, I STAND WITNESS TO ITS SEEMINGLY MIRACULOUS
transformations and effects. Years back, a friend and I started a small business that involved compost making
and its commercialization. We employed an aerobic and thermophilic method that had the advantage of
accelerating greatly the decomposition of the materials from a few months to a couple of weeks. The
difference in time had to be paid for in labor; it was hard work, especially for city people like us who are not
used to intense physical work. Shoveling, carrying, mixing, dung collecting, and being constantly smeared
with a fragrant mixture of fermenting substances was the order of the day.
The particular process was also characterized by the close attention one had to pay to all the factors
involved in the composting, such as temperature, water, size of the particles, aeration, quality of the
components and their harmonious integration. It was a matter of finding and gathering the appropriate
materials (local, organic, and generally considered wastes), then transferring them to our headquarters to
commence, monitor, and maintain the compost process, package the end product, and finally deliver it to
our clients. We managed to get compost of fairly good quality, but because of our limited staff (my friend
and me) and a lack of funding to start with, we didn’t make a lot of profit. However, what we got out of the
experience was a different kind of profit, a knowledge of the kind that’s not possible to buy, an intimation
to the wisdom inherent in Nature and its cycles.
We knew all the theoretical information necessary to undertake a successful composting process, but as

* I would like to thank Sean M. Kelly for his valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.
32
we were to find out, it’s an entirely new world when alchemy are one and the same—the individuation
you see and participate in the process. Composting process. In other words, the integration of the
demands a transformation of all the beings involved, conscious and the unconscious aspects of the psyche
whether bacteria, soil, human. I would dare to say is by nature alchemical.
that even if I had limited myself to observing, the For the reader not familiar with Jung’s work,
transformation would still have taken place within this may require further explanation. I allude to
me. This deep change that shows its subtle presence Jung because it was largely through his work that
to the observer was propelled by the interaction alchemy was reintroduced to the West by linking it
and integration of the external odors, textures, and to psychology. Jung saw that the psyche is composed
varied materials we used with our own bodies and of three main parts: the conscious, the personal
unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The
psychological states, a particular kind of participation
mystique. Quite a few times while watching the conscious is the part of ourselves that defines us, that
compost heap transform, I often thought to myself: delimits what the “I” (the aforementioned ego) that
“This is just pure magic.” It didn’t take me long we so much talk about and refer to, is. The personal
to arrive at the conclusion that the compost heap unconscious is formed by contents that we were
was indeed a living entity, full of its own needs and once aware of, such as feelings, habits, and memories
developments. It is in the overall development, that are now repressed or forgotten. The collective
cycling, and recycling of the “compost heap being” unconscious is our ancestral and communal psychic
that we can find great similarities between its heritage that informs the other two aspects of our
unfolding and what past sages have termed the psyche through archetypes, images, and symbols.
Great Work (Magnus Opus), or the art and science It is important to say that the unconscious aspects
of alchemy. of our psyche are only unconscious relative to the
ego and that the collective unconscious is so vast
ALCHEMY AND THE SOUL that the ego is like a star in the vast firmament of
the unconscious. The unconscious is where gods,
The ostensible goal of alchemy is to change base dreams, and the stuff that spirituality and religions
metals or lead into gold. Seen from a psycho- speaks of dwell. Having clarified this, it may be
spiritual perspective, this goal can be likened to the easier to relate to the alchemists’ task of converting
transformation of our current state of being, largely and integrating the unconscious into our everyday
based on a restrictive structure loosely referred as lives: “Taken as a whole, alchemy provides a kind of
the ego, to one that is consciously held in unity and anatomy of individuation” (Edinger, 1994, p. 2). As
wholeness by what Jung calls the Self. Accordingly, a result, we can say that individuation, the fusion of
changing lead into gold within ourselves assumes the unconscious with the conscious, is an alchemical
that we begin with a determinate inner state that will transformation in which we find fulfillment, joy,
transmute into its ultimate expression, represented and self-realization.
by the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, through Although the particular means toward the creation
a process that Jung called individuation. Thus, it of the Philosopher’s Stone can be as varied as people
can be said that the goal of Jungian psychology and in the planet, the early alchemists envisioned four
distinct stages. These stages were associated with the colors mentioned by Heraclitus: melanosis (blackening),
leukosis (whitening), xanthosis (yellowing), and iosis (reddening). However, the process couldn’t commence
without finding the prima materia. The prima materia or original matter was a mysterious substance that
every alchemist was in search of. Ironically, it is all-pervasive and constitutes the original chaos or sea that
bathes all matter. It is possible to say that the discovery of the prima materia, or at least some aspect of it,
is like the realization of the soul’s existence and its deep longings. It is the “aha! moment” that informs us
that there’s something more to us than we are normally willing to embrace consciously. By consciously, I
am referring to the workings of the ego. This realization can make a person feel reverence and gratitude for
the discovery that adds enormous depths to one’s life when he or she reflects on how much was previously
taken for granted.
An entire inner universe (or universes) opens up to the one who has found the prima materia. But with
this the work is just about to begin. That person might realize that some of the psychic elements in those
universes that he or she has unveiled (and will continue to unveil) are gross and coarse and, at some level,
want to be relieved of their heaviness. It is as if the telos or purpose of those elements is imprinted in the
mute but powerful cries of the soul that call out for their purification and refinement. Once we begin
to observe the gross psychic aspects largely derived from the ego’s habits, we begin “cooking” them—we
maintain those aspects in our field of awareness. It is then that the first stage of the work, the blackening
or nigredo, becomes manifest.

Photo: Copyright © 2010 James Liter

34
COMPOSTING ALCHEMY
The entire composting process is driven by the
breakdown or decomposition of organic matter. The
end product of the bio-chemical transformation,
hopefully present in a fine compost, is a relatively
stable compound called humus. Humus is highly
esteemed by farmers, gardeners, and the like
because of its many beneficial properties. It is
largely responsible for the fertility of the soil, retains
moisture, contributes to the formation of good soil
structure, aids in the exchange of gases and charged
molecules that enhance nutrient availability, and
greatly increases the diversity and richness of the
soil’s microbiota. Because of all this, humus is
regarded as the carrier of chi or “life force” of the
soil. In many respects, humus is the most refined
expression of organic matter, the ultimate “goal”
and state of being of organic matter. Thus, there are
great similarities between organic matter or “waste”
(from a human perspective) and the ego, on the one
hand, and between the individuated Self and the
philosopher’s stone and humus, on the other. Just
as there are stages in the alchemical process, there
are different ways of classifying the transformations
that organic matter undergoes during composting.
In one of the most common classification systems,
we find four main phases that are largely driven by
the temperature present in the compost heap. These
are mesophilic, termophilic, cooling, and curing.
In composting, the “wastes” that my friend and
I scavenged and gathered can be seen as the initial
gross prima materia. This was the organic matter that
people had disposed of because they saw no use
for it (the stone that the builders rejected). In fact,
they saw this matter as quite the opposite—it was
unwanted stinky stuff that needed to be out of their
sight. People found it humorous and odd when we
went to collect fresh cow manure with our shovels
and sacks, sometimes waiting while the cow did its
business to shovel it into the sack. It wasn’t that we
enjoyed this experience that much; we just knew
that the longer the manure was subjected to the
sun’s rays and lack of moisture, the more it would
denature and the less microbial diversity would be
present. Microbial diversity is crucial for a successful
decomposition of organic matter and the creation of
rich compost. Knowing this, we shoveled the fresh
and warm manure with particular joy. We needed
to plan and closely observe the sources and disposal
places from which adequate wastes would come,
similar to the mindfulness it takes to encounter our
soul and its longings. Once we observed and gathered
the wastes (similar to maintaining the gross psychic
elements in our field of awareness), the composting
process per se could begin.
The Nigredo (blackening), the first phase in
the alchemical transformation, is a stage of
decomposition. Sometimes referred to as “blacker
than the blackest black,” this stage represents a visit
to the depths of the underworld, in which darkness,
formed by all that is not properly acknowledged
and honored in ourselves, reigns. A sense of loss
accompanied by melancholy, chaos, inner struggle,
and a variety of difficulties, signals that one has
entered the nigredo phase. What is dying is the old
nature, the gross psychic materials, the “common”
human and most of the elements that are dear to
the person in question. For a person too fixed in
the conscious aspect of its psyche, the depths of
the underworld can have a devastating effect, “an
ego-crushing invasion of archetypal symptoms and
impulses” (Chalquist, 2005). These happenings bear
resemblance to the ones that occur in the first, or
mesophilic, phase of the composting process.
The mesophilic stage of decomposition is carried

out by mesophiles, or moderate-temperature
organisms, that rapidly break down the soluble,
readily degradable compounds such as carbohydrates
and proteins. The metabolic activities of these beings
combine carbon with oxygen and release carbon
dioxide and energy, some of which is given off as
heat. Interesting to note is that many mesophilic
organisms found in decomposing organic matter are
human pathogens. It is a composter’s dictum that
the compost heap has to exceed at least 40 °C (104
°F) to eliminate all possible pathogens and to kill
off unwanted seeds that could end up germinating
later on. Also, if this temperature threshold is not
passed, the entire composting process is significantly
longer.
As mentioned earlier, the nigredo phase is when
we face unwanted and often harmful aspects of
our psyche. A similar process occurs during the
mesophilic stage. In both the nigredo and mesophilic
phases of composting there’s a need to transform
the prima materia (egoic states and organic wastes),
refine it, and kill off unwanted elements so as to
give way for the new. The high temperature in the
compost heap causes the microorganisms to perish,
giving way to the second phase, the termophilic
phase.
During the termophilic phase, high temperatures
accelerate the breakdown of proteins, fats, and
complex carbohydrates such as cellulose and
hemicellulose, the major structural molecules in
plants. Termophilic organisms can thrive in extremely
high temperatures (above 100 °C) and are found in
thermals, geysers, and deep sea hydrothermal vents.
They are said to be among the oldest beings on
Earth; in fact, they represent the common bacterial
ancestry of all life on the planet. My friend and I
had to pay special attention to the high temperatures
in the compost heap in order to avoid killing the
35
microdiversity of the thermophiles that were doing
the breakdown in order to have an end product
full of beneficial organisms. During most days, we
performed the turning of the massive heaps twice a
day to lower their temperature, aeration, and further
mixing of the materials.
Deep in nigredo, one finds whiteness or albedo,
the second phase of the Great Work. The whiteness
encountered after being in the dark depths comes
with an understanding of the source of everything, the
volatile Spirit of our true nature, and the proof that
darkness does not last indefinitely. The encounter
with the volatile Spirit characteristic of albedo can
be echoed by the presence of the termophiles in the
compost heap. Seen as the planetary ancestors of
organic life in the planet, thermophilic organisms
are present in each and every living organism, and
from a biological-evolutionary perspective, they
can be seen as the source of life, closely linked to
processes of refinement and purification.
Albedo is compared to the coming of dawn after a
long night. Understandably, it is often accompanied
by feelings of rest, hope, and joy and a sense of
increased wisdom, derived from having found the
way in which to transform the past coarse state of
the psychic components into a more positive and
pure psycho-spiritual state. Albedo is often related
to the anima, which is the “soror” or “wife” of the
alchemist. The anima, being the feminine aspect of
our psyche, is released at the death that occurs in
the nigredo phase and returns in white to bring about
the resurrection of the “new” psychic components.
Accordingly, it is said that whereas lead is the metal
of nigredo, silver, transmuted from lead, is the metal
of albedo. At this stage in the composting process,
the appearance of the organic wastes is quickly
transforming into finer particles that resemble the
“new” psychic components brought about in the albedo
36
stage. Both the termophilic and albedo stages have to
do with the source of life and its regenerative effect.
The third stage in the alchemical process of
individuation is the yellowing or citrinitas. Whereas
the albedo is represented by the female (the moon),
citrinitas is referred to as masculine and compared
with the sun. The emergence of opposites or pairs of
opposites such as day/night, good/evil, and light/
darkness takes place, and it is the alchemists’ final
task to integrate them through a “chymical wedding.”
This occurs during the fourth stage, or rubedo, which
many sages after the 15th or 16th century merged with
the yellowing phase. Other authors merged citrinas
not with rubedo but with albedo.
Either way, once the inner light (albedo) is
discovered after having descended to the depths
of the unconscious (nigredo), it should be fixated
or coagulated. The wisdom and insight obtained
through the metamorphosis needs to be made
present in our conscious psyche. The marriage of
opposites or coniunctio oppositorum occurs when
the ego (conscious) folds itself into the soil from
which it grows and relinquishes total control of
our being by acknowledging its deeper unconscious
nature and its hidden contents. The result is a
resurrection, “a divine birth ... characterized by a
coniunctio oppositorum and which anticipated the
filius sapientiae [son of wisdom], the essence of the
individuation process” (Jung, 1958, p. 172). Finally,
the philosopher’s stone has been created, and with
it, the base metals (the contents of the soul) have
mutated into their purest essence, materializing the
divine essence in human form. The alchemist has
triumphed.
As the high-energy compounds of the compost
pile break down, the temperature gradually decreases
and mesophilic microorganisms take over once
again. This stage (cooling) is generally dominated by
fungi because their spores are equipped to withstand
temperature extremes along with lower moisture
levels and are able to utilize lignin. The initial organic
matter has undergone a radical transformation,
and some of the more resistant organic elements
are further being decomposed, largely by the fungi
but with the aid of various microorganisms. It is in
this stage that humic compounds begin to be more
ubiquitous.
The cooling stage is followed by the curing
phase, in which a further decrease in temperature
occurs together with the formation of more humic
substances and the overall stabilization of the compost
heap. The previous rotting smells, hard and coarse
elements, and the unevenness of the heap give way
to a harmonious mix of fine materials, mostly dark
brown, with a pleasant “virgin dirt” smell. It is here
when the sought-after humus becomes apparent.
A process of deep breakdown and a “beast-to-
beauty” transformation of the organic matter occurs.
Starting out as “waste,” considered undesirable and
gross refuse as it goes through the nigredo phase, the
organic matter is renewed in the termophilic (albedo)
phase. Organic matter’s deeper nature is revealed.
Then, in the third phase or yellowing, the realization
of organic matter’s deeper essence and ultimate
telos—humus—arises. But still, the breakdown process
hasn’t been fulfilled and there’s a duality present
within the compost heap, the emergence of the
opposites: organic matter and humus. Afterwards,
the final phase of maturing or curing finally
completes the emergence of the spongy, amorphous
structure, the dark child of gold, humus. Humus is
referred to by many as “black gold,” resembling the
gold of the alchemists and achieved in the final two
stages of the composting process. Humus can also
be equated with the philosopher’s stone in terms
of their longevity and permanence, since the latter
 37
is said to bestow immortal life, while the former is unfolded. In other words, the participation mystique
known for its remarkable stability for thousands and of composting was an intimate process in which the
thousands of years. transformative nature of the world was disclosed by
its numinous interrelatedness.
ALCHEMY AND THE WORLD If we dare to entertain the notion that the
alchemists sought a psycho-spiritual transformation
It is clear to me that the dance between my psyche and that included or somehow was intimately related
that of the compost being occurred at a multitude of to the physical transformation of metals, we enter
levels (both in and out of my being), some of which uncertain territories. By translating the non-dual
I still try to unravel from the depths of my psyche. birth of the philosopher’s stone to our everyday
Yet, in Jung’s many works—especially in the first half world, we would have to admit that the archetypal
of his writings—there’s a tendency for restricting dimension of the universe goes all the way through
the alchemical transformation of the philosopher’s matter, and it is here, also, that we can grasp and
stone to a psycho-spiritual level, as a “projection of experience its deep wisdom:
the unified self” (quoted in Cavalli, 2002, p.46).
This view can lead us to psychologize the alchemical For the alchemist, the universe, nature, every
process and somehow relieve it of its full agency and phenomenon is a concrete presence of the
meaning by denying the involvement of the physical powers that governs it. The Hermetic art of
world with all its other-than-human inhabitants. alchemy is then the raising of a symbol into its
It could also prevent us from fully embracing the living angelic archetype. But this is not just an
message of our little excursion. inner act; it is a reality (Bamford, 2007, p. 42).
Faithful to the kind of Great Work that I have
so briefly narrated, Nature’s secrets appear infinitely While my friend and I produced compost after
more complex than we can comprehend when exploring, observing, and interacting with the
we restrict them to binaries of psyche and nature, compost being, we caught glimpses of the nature of the
exterior and interior, spiritual and material. The philosopher’s stone. The holistic alchemy of human
compost being and my own psyche might appear and humus becomes apparent in the composting
to be two distinct entities, but at subtler levels of process, and our consciously participation in it,
reality, that may not be the case. In so far as I appeal prevents us from flattening life’s mysteries into
to my experience, the wrappings of my ego appeared specific categories of human knowing. It provides
to peel and allow for the cyclings and recyclings us with avenues for the transformation of the world
of the compost being to directly inform me to the while making compost out of the coarseness in our
point that, at times, a compound of human-compost soul.
emerged. Its journeys were my transformations. The
conscious becoming of the common substratum
of human and humus appeared to follow a certain
rhythm and seem to acquire increasing clarity as the
breakdown and refinement of organic compounds
 REFERENCES

Bamford, P. (2007) “One the All: Alchemy as

Sacred Ecology.” In: P. L. Wilson, C. Bamford &
K. Townley Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology
(29–46). Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne
Books.
Chalquist, C. (2005). “Cooking for the Collective
Unconscious: An Alchemically Enlivened
Recipe.” Alchemy Journal 5 (4), from http://www.
alchemylab.com/AJ5-4.htm
Cavalli, T. (2002). Alchemical Psychology: Old Recipes for
Living in a New World. New York: Tarcher/
Putnam.
Edinger, E. (1994). Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical
Symbolism in Psychotherapy. Peru, IL: Open Court.
Jung, C. (1958). Answer to Job. New York: Pantheon
Books.

Copyright © 2010 James Liter

 39

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
ADRIÁN VILLASENOR-GALARZA holds a bachelors degree in Biology and Ecology, a Master’s in Holistic Sci-
ence from Schumacher College, UK, and is currently a PhD student of Integral Ecology at California Insti-
tute of Integral Studies. He has given many lectures and workshops internationally under the Bioalchemy
initiative and is the founder of Living Flames (www.living-flames.com). Both of these projects are dedicated
to a deep transformation of humans and the Earth. His main interests include: Embodied Spirituality, In-
tegral Ecology, Holistic Education, Ecopsychology, North–South Dialogues, and Alchemy. He is passionate
about the conscious weaving of nature, psyche, and spirit, and the implementation of a more wholesome
education for all.

JAMIE K. REASER has a deep fondness for the wild, intimate, and unnamable. She received a BS in Field
Biology and Studio Art from the College of William and Mary and her doctorate in Biology from Stanford
University. She has worked around the world as a biologist, international policy negotiator, environmental
educator, and wilderness rites-of-passage guide. She is also a practitioner and teacher of ecopsychology,
nature-based spirituality, and various approaches to expanding human consciousness, as well as a poet,
writer, artist, and homesteader-in-progress. Jamie has a passion for bringing people into their hearts, inspir-
ing the heartbeat of community, and, ultimately, empowering people to live with a heart-felt dedication
to Mother Earth. She makes her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Visit her poetry blog at:
www.talkingwaters-poetry.blogspot.com.

JASON KIRKEY is the founder of Hiraeth Press. He grew up in the Ipswich River-North Atlantic Coastal wa-
tershed of Massachusetts. At the age of twelve he began his long apprenticeship to the earth. Jason holds a
Bachelor’s degree from Naropa University where he obtained an interdisciplinary degree in Contemplative
Psychology and Environmental Studies and a Master’s in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness from
the California Institute of Integral Studies. His work is influenced by the myriad landscapes in which he
has lived—the temperate forests and old mountains of New England, the red rocks and high desert of Colo-
rado, Irish mountains and rivers, the Pacific coast and redwood trees of California—as well as Eastern phi-
losophy, ecology, and the Celtic traditions of his ancestry. Jason is the author of three volumes of poetry,
Portraits of Beauty, Songs from a Wild Place, and The Ballad of the Sea-Sweet Moon and Other Poems. His prose
book, The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality won the silver medal in the 2010 Independent
Publisher Book Award in the mind-body-spirit category. After many years of travel Jason is reconnecting
with his home watershed. His website is www.jasonkirkey.com.

JAMES LITER is an American photographer, poet, and artist. From his first training at the Kansas City Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art, expressing creativity has always been a part of his life. James has a volume of pub-
40
lished poetry as well as paintings which are on exhibition in France. With lifelong experience in art ranging
from poetry to painting to web design, James has now turned his attention to the medium of photography.
Coupling his deep love of imagery with his concern for nature and the human condition has convinced
him that nothing is more powerful than images to express and ignite the feelings of passion, beauty and love
needed to bring a new vision into the world. His website is www.wildestbranch.com.

JENN MACCORMACK is an anthropologist at heart, but is training to work as a psychotherapist. For four years,
she made her home in North Wales, UK, where she studied Welsh language and literature before return-
ing to live in her beloved Eno River watershed. Jenn discovered written language at the age of 3--and has
been writing ever since, merging her love of people, places and psychology together in the form of poetry
and prose. As a bioregionalist and ethnoecologist, she is concerned with the nature-human relationship,
and how the language and stories we use influence our dreaming, thinking and behaving. Through writing,
Jenn examines this nature-human relationship in an experiential and personally transforming way.

JUDY LONGLEY has four books of poetry: My Journey Toward You, Paraellel Lives, Rowing Past Eden, and A
Women Divided: Poems Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe. Her poems have appeared in Paris Review, Poetry, West-
ern Humanities Review, and Southern Review among many other journals. Poetry editor five years for Iris: A
Journal for Women published by the University of Virginia, and Tough Times Companion, published by the
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, she currently teaches a poetry workshop at WriterHouse, Charlot-
tesville, VA.

L.M. BROWNING grew up in a small fishing village in Connecticut. She began writing at the age of 15 fol-
lowing what she describes as “a profound spiritual awakening.” Mankind’s relationship with the sacred, is
at the center of this young poet’s themes. Raised a Catholic, she studied the history of this faith and it’s
doctrine thoroughly; however, it was not long before her spiritual search eventually crossed the boundaries
from Catholicism into the other religions of the world, compelling her to investigate her family’s Judaic
roots and her own interests in Tibetan Buddhism. In 2004, Browning made one of the defining choices
of her life when she decided to move away from world religion as a whole; taking the few truths she felt to
be absolute as she followed her heart in search of personal answers. This period of redefinition lasted for
over five years. it was during this period that Browning wrote her contemplative poetry series that is be-
ing released by Little Red Tree Publishing over the course of 2010: Oak Wise: Poetry Exploring an Ecological
Faith, (May, 2010), Ruminations at Twilight: Poetry Exploring the Sacred (August 2010), and The Barren Plain
(December 2010). In the Summer of 2010, Ms Browning became a partner at Hiraeth Press. She is an
Associate Editor of the biannual publication Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics. Continuing to reside
in New England, she is currently studying for a degree in Philosophy through The University of London
External Programme, in conjunction with Yale University; while simultaneously working as a Teacher of
Special Education.
 41
LEONORE WILSON has always lived on a sprawling 1200 acre ranch in Napa, California that has been in her
family since 1915. She attended the University of California, Davis where she received her M.A. in Creative
Writing and English. She raised three sons who are now in their late twenties. For the past twenty years, she
taught literature and writing at various colleges and universities in Northern California. Her main purpose
now is to keep the land a sanctuary for wildlife as well as protect it from outside encroachment. Leonore
has been nominated for four Pushcart Awards in poetry. She received fellowships to Villa Montalvo Center
for the Arts, University of Utah, Vermont Studio. She received numerous Poets and Writers grants for her
teaching. Her work has been in such magazines as Quarterly West, Poets Against the War, Third Coast, Nimble
Spirit, Wild Apples, Laurel Review, Madison Review, Pedestal, and Poet and Critic.

MARY HARWELL SAYLER began writing poems as a child but, as an adult, wrote almost everything except
poetry. Her publishing credits include 25 books of fiction and nonfiction for all age groups and over 200
poems in journals and e-zines. She also works with other poets through The Poetry Editor website (www.
thepoetryeditor.com). Away from her desk, she and her husband might be found hanging out by the pond
or taking a woodsy walk down their unpaved road where the only honking traffic comes from sandhill
cranes.

T.E. PEDERSEN grew up in Sonoma County, California. He spent the last three years living and writing in
the northwesternmost corner of the state of Montana. At present he again makes his home on the West
Coast, in Redwood City, where he works and lives.

THEODORE RICHARDS is a poet, writer, and religious philosopher. He is a long time student of the Taoist martial
art of Bagua and hatha yoga and has traveled, worked and studied in 25 different countries, including the South
Pacific, the Far East, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Theodore has re-
ceived degrees from the University of Chicago, The California Institute of Integral Studies, Wisdom University,
and the New Seminary where he was ordained. He has worked with inner city youth on the South Side of Chi-
cago, Harlem, the South Bronx, and Oakland, where he was the director of YELLAWE, an innovative program
for teens. He is the author of Handprints on the Womb, a collection of poetry. Theodore Richards is the founder
and executive director of The Chicago Wisdom Project (www.chicagowisdomproject.org). He currently resides
in Chicago with his wife and daughter.
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 43

Copyright © 2010 James Liter

We are passionate about creativity as a means of transforming consciousness, both individually
and socially. We hope to participate in a revolution to return poetry to the public discourse and
a place in the world which matters. Of the many important issues of our times we feel that our
relationship to the environment is of the most fundamental concern. Our publications reflect
the ideal that falling in love with the earth is nothing short of revolutionary and that through our
relationship to nature we can birth a more enlightened vision of life for the future. We believe
that art and poetry are the universal language of the human experience and are thus most capable
of transforming our vision of self and world.

Written River Copyright © 2010 Hiraeth Press

All poems and essays copyrighted by their respective authors.
Photographs Copyright © 2010 James Liter except where otherwise noted.

P.O. BOX 416

DANVERS, MA 01923
www.hiraethpress.com