Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World

Radiant. Insightful. Enchanting. Beautifully written. This is a book you will fall in love with. Themes of connection, separation, and "living thickly" (p. 69) flow through this collection of twenty essays like a river. Moore teaches philosophy at Oregon State University, and also wrote RIVERWALKING (1995). Derrick Jensen's recent interview with Moore in the Sun magazine prompted me to read this book."Sitting on a boulder whitewashed by western gulls," Moore writes, "I resolve to study holdfasts. What will we cling to, in the confusion of the tides? What structures of connection will hold us in place? How will we find an attachment to the natural world that makes us feel safe and fully alive, here, at the edge of the water"(p. 14). In nature, a holdfast is the root-like structure that keeps a plant in place, the "glue" a plant makes from sunshine and saltwater to "stick to a rock" (p. 13), or the connection that allows seaweed to "lean toward land on the incoming tides and swirl seaward as the water falls away" (p. 13), never letting go of the ocean floor. With an eye for natural detail reminiscent of Annie Dillard, Moore finds holdfast images throughout nature, from the grip of bullwhip kelp (p. 13), "oysters clinging to every rock, to each other, layer on layer" (p. 66), and "roots pushing through soil" (p. 68), to the "periwinkles, the urchins, the acorn barnacles and rock-wrack--thousands of tube feet on a single starfish, suction-cup stomachs for gastropods, tufts of black hairs to hold the mussels, bony tubes, sticky feet and calcified plates" (p. 28) in ocean tidepools.Love, home, a daughter's cross-country move, her dying father--Moore also discovers holdfasts in the tidepools of life. "Humans don't have holdfasts of suction-cup stomachs," she observes, "but we do have hearts and minds. We have strong memories of smells that have held meaning for us since we were small, smells that fill us with joy or bring us to our knees with sorrow and regret. Certain sounds go straight to our hearts--seagulls, wind over water, a child's voice, a hymn" (p. 30). "If there is eternal life," she learns, "it will not be the length of your life, but in its depth" (p. 69). Although I have only given this book a four-star rating, it is not without many such five-star moments.Another such moment is when she contemplates the house that separates her from the natural world on which it sits: "hardwood floors, a layer of spiderwebs and acoustical tile, eight feet of damp air, a laundry basket of unmatched socks, a slab of concrete, and a six-inch footer of gravel fence me off from the earth. But if I dug under that, I could find an ancient riverbed of round boulders, and below that, sea animals so old they have turned to stone, floating on a lake of burning rock" (p. 69). Moore's essays are like superglue for the soul. They will stick with you long after clinging to every last word.G. Merritt

I've read most of the chapters in this book twice, some three times. The three sections - Connection, Separation, Connection - enforce the metaphor of the title, the holdfast, the structure that grips the kelp to the ocean floor. So we have holdfasts in life that Kathleen Dean Moore documents here. Love, family, being in the natural world, wondering, creating, remembering, are our connectors. Fear, pain, death, destroying the natural world are our separators. These truths are rooted in what seem simplicities like baking bread, avoiding estate sales, howling with wolves, canoeing a marsh, casting a fly, mastering a field guide, but each reaches out, like the wands of kelp, toward the mysteries of our existence. There is joy here and sorrow, a celebration of life in all its forms. I'll be reading more of Moore and many of these chapters again and again.

This book is part introspective -- looking inward. This book is part extrospective -- looking outward. For me, the books underlying theme was about understanding your connection (home) to all of that.The author managed to do this all without sounding as vague and cheesy as I just did. :)I don't want to over-hype. The book didn't revolutionalize my life. Yet, I have found myself returning to these pages for more.If you are the least bit ponderous or enjoy natural beauty -- or would like to grow in either of those areas. I'd recommend it.

I previously read Ms. Moore's book, Riverwalking and loved every word of it. Her second book is again filled with a mixture of philosophy, family remembrances and nuggets of truth. How do we find our way in this world? She seems to live every moment and to cherish what has made her life fulfilling: camping trips, watching her children become adults, remembering her parents, and knowing that the quiet, small moments usually make the most significant memories that will be remembered. I can hear the wind, smell the campfire, taste the fish on the fire and feel the texture of her sleeping bag. I can feel the grief of her father dying, her anger about the clearcutting that ravages a once pristine mountain range, the joy she feels on a snowy morning, and the love and memories that return when she revisits the place where she first met her husband. What makes up a life? Who will remember us when we are no longer alive? I treasure this little book and recommend it highly!