Living by Water: Essays on Life, Land and Spirit

"I've found solace in living by water" (p. 132), Brenda Peterson writes in this collection of thirteen essays. Before Peterson left "the desert mesas of Arizona" (p. 2) to become an apprentice to the "watery wisdom" of Seattle's Puget Sound (p. 132), I was a student in her creative writing class at Arizona State University. I arrived at this 1990 gem after first reading Peterson's more recent books, SINGING TO THE SOUND and BUILD ME AN ARK. While LIVING BY WATER is unfortunately no longer in print, I was able to find a copy at my local library.The basic themes of Peterson's book are that, as Chief Seattle understood, "whatever we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves" (p. 32), and that wind and water have the capacity to transform us (p. 40). Peterson's dedicates her book to the Puget Sound, "who mothers" her. "If I am to learn to live by water," she observes, "what better teacher than a cetacean" (p. 26)? Peterson believes that we human beings "are out of balance and out of control" (p. 32). She writes, "I know that claiming cetaceans as my kin is not just science, it's shrewd. Learning to be human and to know what I might become, I need all the help I can get" (p. 27). Walking along the "wild, seaweed-strewn beach," Peterson remembers her "blood is very similar in composition to seawater. I am, after all, evolved from an ancestral amoeba only recently emerged from primal slime. According to geologic time, I am a relative newcomer. Who knows how long my kind will last" (p. 61)?Peterson writes with wisdom reminiscent of Thoreau's WALDEN and Annie Dillard's PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK. "Now that I find myself midlife walking in the dark woods," she says, "I know I am not alone. The animals are my allies; the trees are gods and goddesses who in deep stillness keep the Earth's counsel. All that is alive calls out to me to come play, to take part in the dance" (p. 95). As more readers discover Brenda Peterson through her SINGING TO THE SOUND and BUILD ME AN ARK, this book deserves to be published in a second edition.G. Merritt