April 2024 week pick

Back when we were young and impressionable, the writing of Rachel Carson introduced us to topics and issues that opened up our world. At wonder | wander | world we are forever grateful for sharing her stories and insights with us.

a classic introduction to the wonders of nature

Author, biologist, conservationist, and leading pioneer of the global environmental movement - her life, legacy, and revolutionary writing have greatly impacted the world. We give homage to the literature and environmental education she shared - which still remain our treasured and eternal companion.

Rachel Louise Carson is well known for her Silent Spring book (1962) that challenged the use of chemical pesticides and launched an environmental movement. Not many knew that before she wrote about the silencing of birds she was a marine biologist and wrote a trilogy about the ocean.

In her essay and book The Sense of Wonder - when her grandnephew visits Carson for a summer at her cottage in Maine - together they wander through the surrounding woods and tide pools. 

Teaching Roger about the natural wonders around them - she relates to her readers how she too experiences them anew - sharing these same magical moments of awe with us, her audience. 

Learn more about her story and legacy. Read her writing for yourself - it is the ideal way to honor her on Earth Day this April 22.

plant | as life form & life force

As fall gives way to winter and colder temperatures here in the northern hemisphere, wonder | wander | world longs for the lush green warmth our tropical bones much prefer. 

To soothe us we turn to The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree - an online project of the Camden Art Centre.

The Botanical Mind at Camden Art Centre

This new online project brings together digital commissions, podcasts, films, texts, images and audio in an expanding archive that will be updated and added to regularly over the coming weeks.

Drawing on indigenous traditions from the Amazon rainforest; alternative perspectives on Western scientific rationalism; and new thinking around plant intelligence, philosophy and cultural theory, The Botanical Mind Online investigates the significance of the plant kingdom to human life, consciousness and spirituality across cultures and through time.

a trans-generational group exhibition moved online due to COVID

It positions the plant as both a universal symbol found in almost every civilization and religion across the globe, and the most fundamental but misunderstood form of life on our planet.

Humanity’s place in the natural order is under scrutiny as never before, held in a precarious balance between visible and invisible forces: from the microscopic threat of a virus to the monumental power of climate change.

Barbara Kingsolver | scientist & artist

Reading a recent interview of Barbara Kingsolver on the publication of her latest book, Unsheltered - wonder | wander | world was inspired to post Literary Hub's list of essential texts on climate change as well - precisely because they were also written by women. Hurrah!

Kingsolver's Guardian article was aptly titled, "It feels as though we are living through the end of the world." If we should be so lucky that the world as we have come to know it since the time of defeatist folks like Trump and Duterte is indeed coming to an end, we declare resoundingly - bring it on.

It is time. We believe the sick cruel world of their dour imaginings must be extinguished forever more.

Another Kingsolver interview on Longreads has an even better title: "I've always been praised or accused of ambition." Where they discuss the writing craft and the effects of “writing while female.”

Set in New Jersey, home to wonder | wander | women too, Kingsolver returns with a timely novel that interweaves past and present to explore the human capacity for resiliency and compassion in times of great upheaval.

Perfect timing indeed. Happy reading to all.

epigenetics on arbor day

wonder | wander | women at wonder | wander | world celebrate and honor two on going themes this month - happy days and science.

The Canlaon Wonder Tree is a 1,328 year old balete or banyan.

Happy Arbor Day! Hope you planted your tree or better yet many trees. 

While we are on the subject of green and growing, let us focus on science in general and epigenetics in particular. 

Say what?