Refuge - Session 5

Interfaith minister Elizabeth River leads a class based on the book Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams a poetic memoir that reflects on several themes: the destruction of wild bird populations in the flooding of Great Salt Lake; her mother’s death from cancer; women in the Mormon Church; and the US government’s responsibility for irradiating Utah over 11 years of atomic testing.  Using these themes of family and place, ecology and healing, we will deepen our own commitment to awareness and action through discussion, meditation, and writing. Point Reyes Books offers 10% off this book. Presented by Point Reyes Books and Black Mountain Circle.

About Refuge: In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic. (randomhouse.com)

About Elizabeth River: Elizabeth River is an Interfaith minister, ordained by the Chaplaincy Institute, an Interfaith Seminary & Community in 2004. She is a hospice chaplain, and she also officiates weddings and memorial services. Her central spiritual practices include living in gratitude at every moment, spending as much time as possible in nature, and loving and accepting people as they are, helping them connect with one another. She lives in Inverness.

About Black Mountain Circle: Black Mountain Circle is a California nonprofit organization created by Point Reyes Books to explore the relationships between the arts, spirit, story, and place. The Circle serves as the fiscal sponsor of the literary journal the West Marin Review, the bi-annual Geography of Hope Conference, and an expanded set of programs hosted at the Point Reyes Presbyterian Church and elsewhere, including author events, retreats, films, book groups, and writing workshops for youths and adults.