Nature and Other Mothers: Personal Stories of Women and the Body of Earth

POTENT AND POIGNANT…Lively essays that mix politics, religion, nature, myth and memoir.
–San Francisco Chronicle
After the success of Living by Water, novelist and nature writer Brenda Peterson turns her eye on the nature in human nature. Her focus is mainly the feminine body–of earth and women, of animals, human and nonhuman. Whether writing about whales or women’s bathing rituals, wolves or her grandparents, rainforests or life-saving dreams, Peterson weaves a compelling story of the bond between nature and ourselves.
This rich, expanded collection was first hailed by critics as lyrical and life-enhancing…with large doses of wonder, humor, and warmth. The new essays include a moving appeal to seek compassion in healing our sexual lives during this time of AIDS. There are also chronicles of the birth, death, and afterlife of a baby beluga whale, and of the seagull’s memory for human faces. Peterson’s passionately observed subjects range from lullabies to abortion, dolphins to old-growth forests, fundamentalism to fishing.
Combining her skills as a mesmerizing storyteller and nationally acclaimed nature writer, Peterson explores the healing, vital symbiosis between the sacred, sensual body of our earth and the feminine–an intimacy which instructs and inspires, but most of all sustains us.
Peterson writes a vital, intimate prose that energizes readers with its intelligence and good humor.
–Publishers Weekly
Her powerful essays about how and where we find mothering are replete with rich, sensual imagery, poignant still lifes, wisdom and wit.
–Maureen Murdock
Author of The Hero’s Daughter