People reading “Water Is…”in Vancouver and Toronto
Margaret McCaffery, chair of the PROBUS Toronto Speakers Committee invited me some time ago to speak to their club in June of 2024 on my experience with water: as scientist, mother, and environmentalist. The audience was mostly retired professional and business people with enquiring minds. I gave my Powerpoint talk in the Holy Rosary Parish Hall on St. Clair West and then enjoyed a vigorous session of challenging and interesting questions to which I responded with equal vigour.
Here is the blurb for the presentation:
Canadian limnologist Nina Munteanu explores the many dimensions of water through her journey with water as mother, educator, and scientist. She describes an emotional connection with nature that compels us to take care of our environment with love versus a sense of duty.
Nina’s talk draws on her book Water Is… The Meaning of Water, part history, part science and part philosophy and spirituality. The book examines water’s many anomalous properties and what these meant to us. In sharing her personal journey with this mysterious elixir, Nina explores water’s many ‘identities’ and, ultimately, our own. Water Is… was Margaret Atwood’s first choice in the 2016 New York Times ‘Year in Reading.’ Water is… will be available for sale at the talk.
I started with my story as a child, growing up in the Eastern Townships of Canada
I defined “limnology” and talked about my career as a limnologistand environmental consultant
I discussed some of water’s anomalous properties, all life-giving
I brought in some interesting things about water…
I tied my journey with water to family and friends and my watershed
I ended my talk with a discussion of the Watermark Project to catalogue significant stories to water bodies all over the world
I also brought my latest eco-clifi novel A Diary in the Age of Water for sale. It interested quite a few people and generated several wonderful discussions.
Nina Munteanu and her latest eco-novel
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
I’m an ecologist; I study environmental relationships. Something you’d think is easy to learn and very accessible; we’re surrounded by it, after all. We live, work and play in it. While I learned about environmental relationships with my eco-minded parents, I didn’t learn it or experience it in my school growing up. With the exception of some indigenous schools (which teach respect for the spirit of wildness), most of us certainly didn’t learn about environmental relationships in our schools.
Earthstar sits on moss-covered rotting cedar log as new cedar roots take hold, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Most Canadians live in a city; we don’t really understand what the natural environment is. Many of us have learned to ignore it, stop recognizing it, pocket it away as we go about our busy lives in the city. A park is a bit of greenery. A tree is a decoration that provides shade. Shrubs border a mall.
Walk through urban forest along the Credit River, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
But if we can’t even recognize the natural environment, how can we understand its functional role in the intricate well-being of this entire precious planet and ultimately ourselves?
It is no wonder then that most Canadians—though we may intellectually accept climate change and its effects on this planet (because we’re smarter than some)—likely do not viscerally understand or appreciate why and how it will drastically change our lives. For most of us, climate change—as with Nature—is something that is happening to someone else, somewhere else. From those far away calamities to the quiet struggles no one talks about. We hear and lament over the flooding in Bangladesh or the Maldives. Or the wildfires in northern British Columbia. Or the bomb cyclones of the eastern seaboard.
Meanwhile, the polar bear struggles quietly with disappearing sea ice in the Canadian arctic. The koala copes quietly with the disappearing eucalyptus. Coral reefs quietly disappear in an acidifying ocean. Antarctic penguins silently starve with disappearing krill due to ice retreat. And while jellyfish invade the Mediterranean, UK seas and northeast Atlantic, the humble Bramble Cay melomys slips quietly into extinction—the first mammal casualty of climate change.
Yellow Creek flows through an urban forest in the heart of Toronto, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
So, those of us who are enlightened speak of climate resilience and adaptation. We talk of arming our cities with words like green infrastructure, stormwater management, urban runoff control, flood mitigation. Ecological literacy. But what are these things to us? They are tools, yes. Good tools to combat and adapt to the effects of climate change. But will they create resilience? I think not.
I’m a limnologist and I’ve consulted for years as a scientist and an environmental consultant. I played a role in educating industry, in the use of mitigating tools, in changing the narrative even.
Trail through urban forest on a foggy winter day in Peterborough, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
But I’ve come to realize that resilience comes only from within and through a genuine connection with our environment. Tools, no matter how proficient, are only as good as how they are used based on intention from a deep understanding. It isn’t enough to achieve the HOW of things; we must embrace the WHY of things. And that comes from the heart. We must feel it in our hearts. Or it won’t work. And we quite simply won’t survive.
Various flowers and trees of Ontario (photos by Nina Munteanu)
Canadians celebrate our multi-cultural heritage. We pride ourselves in our tolerance and welcoming nature. Our national anthem speaks of our land. Our national symbols embrace nature with the maple, beaver, caribou and loon. Yet who of us knows the habitat of the loon—now at risk, by the way (climate change will impact much of its breeding grounds). Who knows what the boreal forest—which makes up over half of our country—is? How it functions to keep this entire planet healthy, and what that ecosystem needs, in turn, to keep doing it? How to help it from literally burning up?
Ecology isn’t rocket science. Ecology is mostly common sense. Ecology is about relationship and discovery. Ecology is a lifestyle choice, based on respect for all things on this planet and a willingness to understand how all things work together.
Various mushrooms in Ontario forests (photos by Nina Munteanu)
Here’s what I’ve learned to keep me caring and remain positive and not become apathetic or fall into despair:
I’ve learned to open myself to discovery. To find Nature, even if it is in the city. To connect with something natural and wild and to find and savour the wonder of it. All that matters will naturally come from that.
Become curious and find something to love.
When you do, you will find yourself. And that is where you will find resilience. What colour is it? It doesn’t need to be green…
Throughout this article I’ve shown you some of my colours…
Red fox skull emerges on a leaf-strewn icy bank of Jackson Creek, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Here are the steps I taught myself toward healthy resilience (the first two steps are both the hardest and the easiest):
Step 1:Slow down, pay attention. Give yourself the time to relax and look around your local surroundings. Until you slow down to actually look, you will not really take in your surroundings. You need to be in the moment. Only then can you take the time to use all your senses to take in your environment. Try to look at it from a different perspective. Notice the light, the smells and sounds. What is different? What is the same?
Step 2:Lower your guard, open yourself to curiosity. Rely on as many senses as you can (sight, hearing, smell, texture, taste) to sample your environment and show some humility to ask questions. Whenever I go out, particularly in Nature, I make a point of coming home with three gifts, discoveries that make me smile or think and wonder. I’m hardly ever disappointed.
Step 3: Process what you’ve seen and discovered. Do some follow-up research to questions that may arise. Look at consequences. Share with others, discuss. From there it will be easy to ‘take responsibility’ for some section of nature that you really like; perhaps a particular tree in a park or a short path through an urban forest or stretch of urban stream. This can easily lead to good stewardship.
Step 4: Take responsibility for your chosen part of Nature. Get to know it well, how it works, what it needs, what’s right and what’s wrong. Do something about it and share with others.
Step 5: You’re there. You are resilient.
Barred owl hiding in plain sight in an urban forest near Peterborough, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
It started with a simple tweet of mine on X regarding doing research for one’s writing projects. I’d met Isabella Mori a few years ago, when we both contributed to an ekphrastic anthology of flash fiction, inspired by Group of Seven art. We met again when she submitted a story to an anthology I was editing for Exile Editions. After my tweet on research, Isabella and I traded brief stories about rewrites based on research findings and ‘mistakes’ and the arcane revelations in the creative process that may result. I was intrigued by her recounting and asked her to share it with you; so here it is:
“Synchronicities And The Sea”by Isabella Mori
(Trigger warning: Substance use and suicide)
This is about the magic that comes to pass when we let the Muse guide our work and consent to synchronicity. Here is what happened:
When I go away on vacation, I try to visit the local library, and always make sure to check out the community announcements. On one of those forays, I came across a notice of a project that teamed up visual artists with writers for a short story or poem. I love these types of collaborations and immediately jumped on it. Max was the artist I paired up with, and we hit it off right away. After a few conversations, we settled on the painting below, for which I was going to write a story. As you can see, it had a moody, dark feeling. I drafted this text as a response:
The memory of a map showed her the way as she wandered, blinded by the night, along the shore. Numb with cold, her bare feet dug into the wet sand. She could not see that she left no tracks. There was something in her searching; she felt it in the deep pit of her stomach but there was no image in her mind’s eye of what it was, no tinkling that alerted her, no smell, no taste. A sense of despair drained the blood from her heart and tugged at her from the right, where the forest rushed. Foot-dragging ennui invited her onto a soft-moss carpet to the left, and thoughts of numbers, cars and cash register receipts tried to wrangle her back to where she came from. She was near giving up. But at that precise moment there tracked the light only she of the searching could see—a light bigger more forceful than giants could ever imagine; all-embracing, all-revealing, all-nurturing just like the frothy ocean beneath it, just like the sand with its fierce sparkle, each grain a diamond just like the heart-bud that could not help but open under its rays, under those rays that only she of the searching could see.
However, for reasons we have both forgotten, Max decided to lighten the colours, and the dark mood of the first draft didn’t fit anymore. This is the version we ended up with:
Walk With The Angels
The ocean has known her share of angels over the eons. They come and go but the tide is older. When an angel appears in a cloud of glistening light, beats its wings and brings out the trumpets, little humans fall to their knees and beg for mercy and miracles.
But the water stays still.
Great mother ocean has seen it all.
She waits until the angel grows tired, then she takes the worn-out wings and heavenly body into her arms and carries them into her depths. Brings the apparition to visit kelp, salmon, starfish, barnacles, otters and crabs. Anemones. Killer whales. A visit one by one, under the summer sun, beneath the light of the Hunter’s moon, when the snow falls, with the Easter rains. The angel leaves a bit of themselves here, a bit there, a gift everywhere, until only the tiniest of diamonds are left.
And that’s the sand.
Walk with the angels.
There were a few tweaks before we arrived at this text, the major one being that in a previous version, I referred to ‘angel dust’ for the sand until the editor pointed out that that term refers to a street drug, PCP. In my enthusiasm I had forgotten that.
The change away from ‘angel dust’ was very important. When Max read the new version, they called me, their tone of voice both moved and perturbed.
“When I read this,” they said, “it feels like you channeled what happened with my cousin last year, not far from the place that inspired my painting. She had had problems with drugs all her life, and one day she just walked into the ocean. Her body was found a day later.”
Under those circumstances, we definitely did not want to refer to drugs.
That story stayed with me for months until one day when I was listening to one of my playlists of Latin music. I lived in Paraguay and Chile 1977-1980, and often enjoy the nostalgia of the music I listened to back then. The first song that came on was one of my all-time favourites, Alfonsina Y El Mar – Alfonsina And The Sea. Now I have to confess, I am terrible with lyrics, no matter what language, whether it be my native German, English, or the Spanish I was fluent in for quite a few years. For some reason, I really listened to the song last summer, and then looked up the lyrics. That’s when it hit me – was it possible that the lyrics of that song had subconsciously influenced me to write the second text? Or was it one of those Jungian collective conscious moments?
Alfonsina And The Sea
(Music: Ariel Ramirez. Lyrics: Felix Luna)
In the soft sand Licked by the sea Her small footprints Don’t return. Just one path Full of pain and silence Led to the water, Deep water, And one single path of unspoken pain Led to the foam.
God knows what sorrows accompanied you, What old suffering shut down your voice That made you lie down and nestle into the songs Of the sea snails, The song that sings in the deep dark of the sea, The sea snail.
There you go, Alfonsina, with your loneliness, What new poems did you go find? An old, old voice of wind and salt Sways your soul and carries it And you go there dreaming, Sleeping, Alfonsina, clothed in the sea
Five little sirens will carry you Through passages of algae and corals And glowing sea horses will dance Around you And all the creatures of the sea will soon Play at your side.
Turn down the light a little more, Nurse, let me sleep in peace. And when he calls tell him I’m not in, Tell him Alfonsina won’t come back. And when he calls don’t ever tell him I’m in, Tell him I’m gone.
There you go, Alfonsina, with your loneliness, What new poems did you go find? An old, old voice of wind and salt Sways your soul and carries it And you go there dreaming, Sleeping, Alfonsina, clothed in the sea.
(Used with permission, my translation.)
Alfonsina ended up in the ocean just like Max’s cousin did.
With some research, I found out that the story was about the Argentinian poet Alfonsina Storni who, after a difficult life that included poverty, questions she had about gender identity, and breast cancer, one night wrote a last poem to her son and then let herself fall into the ocean amid torrential rain. (An apocryphal version has her just walk into the ocean, and that’s the one the lyricist chose.) Some of that last poem was incorporated into Alfonsina Y El Mar – the nurse who is asked to lower the light, and told to tell ‘him’ that she won’t come back. Nobody seems to know who ‘he’ is.
The other research that had to happen was to find who the inheritors of Felix Luna’s estate were to obtain permission should I tell the story that you have before you. It turned out to be his daughters. Then I had to sleuth out their contact.
Felix Luna, the lyricist, imagined Alfonsina’s death not only as the terrible tragedy that it was but also as a mystical transformation into a sea creature that nestles into the songs of the sea snails. She finds new poems and sleeps clothed in the sea. She is embraced by sirens and wanders through algae and corals. She dances with sea horses and plays with all the other sea creatures.
I definitely cannot compare myself with a great poet like Felix Luna but notice with humility the similarities of my transformed angel who sinks into the embrace of mother ocean and also visits the more-than-humans of the sea.
I went pregnant with the idea of writing about the experience of Max’s and my collaboration for half a year when in February, I chanced upon a tweet by Nina about research for writing. I met Nina through submitting a story to an anthology she was editing. I told her about needing to tweak the angel story so that it does not talk about angel dust and ended up telling her the outline of what happened. She invited me to write a guest post about this, and here we are.
So many synchronicities. I could have not gone to that library. A different artist could have been paired up with me. Max could have wanted to stay with the original painting. Or they could have chosen a painting that would not have reminded them of their cousin. They could have opted not to share that sad story with me, or they could have been paired up with someone who doesn’t understand suicide as intimately as I do (I look back on a 30+ year career in social services.) I could have heard Alfonsina Y El Mar and still not really listened to the lyrics. There was no guarantee I could have managed to find out from whom to get permission to quote the song. I could not have submitted a story to one of Nina’s anthologies, and could not have followed her on Twitter. Coming across the particular tweet that prompted the publication of this story was like chancing upon a needle in a haystack. All this, and probably more, had to come together for this magical synchronicity to happen.
Thank you, Muse.
(Note: Since this is a sensitive topic, the artist’s name and some of the circumstances of my collaboration with them have been changed. However, the artist has consented to using their images.)
Boat wharf at sunset in Ladner Marsh, BC (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
My short story Robin’s Last Song was selected by the NYC Climate Writers Collective as part of an exhibition in the Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island in New York. The exhibition, starting May 18, will run throughout the summer of 2024.
Robin’s Last Song
Robin’s Last Song first appeared in the #128 Issue of Apex Magazine in 2021. It tells the story of Robin, a blind elder whose digital app failed to warn the world of the sudden global loss of birds with disastrous ecological consequences. After years of living in self-exile and getting around poorly on sight-enhancing technology, a discovery gives her new hope in rekindling her talents in the field of Soundscape Ecology.
In a recent interview with writer Simon Rose, I described my thoughts in writing Robin’s Last Song:
I wanted to make “Robin’s Last Song” a realizable work of fiction in which science and technology play both instigator of disaster and purveyor of salvation. Our biogenetic technology comes to us as a double-edged sword in the form of gene-editing, proteomics, DNA origami, and CRISPR—just to name a few. These biotechnological innovations promise a cornucopia of enhancements: from increased longevity and health in humans to giant disease-resistant crops. But, for every ‘magic’ in technology, there is often unintended consequence. Unforeseen—or even ignored—casualties and risks. I suppose my ultimate question with this story is: will synthetic biology redesign Nature to suit hubris or serve evolution? Science doesn’t make those decisions. We do.
Anyone living in or visiting the NYC area is welcome to the Climate Imaginarium launch on May 18 on Governor’s Island. Check this Eventbrite link for details. The exhibition will continue throughout the summer of 2024 and will include: climate storytelling and poetry by Climate Café, the Sixth Festival, and the Climate Writers Collective; opening exhibition of “What is Environmental Art?” by Forest for Trees; artwork from the Climate Imaginarium community and Climate Writers exhibition; “Eye of Flora” virtual reality exhibition by Synphisica Collective; and more.
Here’s what they say:
Come to Governors Island for the grand opening of our Climate Imaginarium house! The Climate Imaginarium will serve as a community center for climate and culture, with galleries and spaces for exhibitions, performances, film screenings, and events that respond to the climate crisis with solutions and visions for hope and justice. Join us at Building 406A on Colonels Row for a lively celebration of climate art, storytelling, and community.
Exhibitions will be open to the public at noon, and the party will officially start at 2pm. All donations will support programming in our community space.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
A trickster wind stirs up clouds of drifting snow, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Not long ago, I was driving through a short tunnel that I typically take to go to work and, glancing back through the rearview mirror, I didn’t see what I expected to see. For some reason—perhaps it was the light or my wandering mind—the familiar scene looked unfamiliar; it was as though I’d entered a new dimension.
It felt ‘Otherly’ and I briefly experienced a titillating excitement akin to a protagonist journeying into a new world in some novel.
Indeed, the rhetoric of ‘Otherness’ in most fiction is typically portrayed through the singular point of view (POV) and discourse of a protagonist on a journey. The very nature of the term ‘Other’ used in any narrative suggests exclusion. According to Patricia Kerslake of Central Queensland University, the postcolonial notion of the Other arises through a mutual process of exclusion that inspires the very idea of ‘alien’ by imposing expectation on perception. Kerslake argues that: “When one culture imposes its perceptions on another, in that it begins to see the Other not as they are but as, in [Edward W.] Said’s words, ‘they ought to be’, then the process of representation becomes inevitable: a choice is made to see a ‘preferred’ real”.
In most forms of literature The POV ‘voice’ represents the Self, the inclusive ‘us’ (worldview) in its encounter with the Other, which in turn is the ‘not us.’ In his book Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient Edward W. Said contended that for there to even be an ‘us’, there has to be a ‘not-us’. The resulting power dynamic of “them and us,” of Other and Self, is created and controlled by perceptions of the singular POV voice that usually represents ‘us.
Tree branches overlook river during snowfall, ON(photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
‘The Other’ in Various Genres of Literature
In most genres of literature, the Other is often relegated to this dichotomous portrayal. In post-apocalyptic and metaphoric journey stories the Other may be the harsh environment or a calamity through which the protagonist must find their own strength to survive; in military stories it is clearly the enemy, seldom portrayed with compassion or understanding but there to test our hero; in coming-of-age stories it may be the oppressive rule or established world the hero must overcome; in science fiction it may be the hostile or unknowable aliens who must be defeated. According to Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction displays a legacy of silencing the Other and rendering it impotent to establish and confirm humanity’s superior position in the world. Given that science fiction (SF) literature is rooted in culture, and often helps construct national identity, SF often confirms worldview, and in so doing creates internal Others (Brioni and Comberiati). According to Hermann, by failing to escape our boundary conflicts, SF simply constructs “new situations of restriction and otherness.” Kerslake argues that “silencing the Other provides SF with an indirect ability to define the potential of humankind”.1
Country road in the Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
‘The Other’ in Eco-Literature
While eco-literature overlaps with many genres, it appears to differ from SF and other genres portrayal of Other through its unique intention to give voice to otherwise voiceless characters, and it often does this through masterful use of character-coupling. Mary Woodbury defines eco-literature or eco-fiction as literature “made up of fictional tales that reflect important connections, dependencies, and interactions between people and their natural environments.” The environment—or an aspect of the environment—plays a major role in eco-literature, either as premise or as itself a character on a journey.
Eco-Literature is preeminently the literature of bringing awareness to the plight of the environment as both character and as Other and explores humanity’s role in that plight.
Eco-literature may go beyond raising awareness to link environmental abuse with concepts of jingoistic hubris; it may raise issues of human intersectionality, misogyny, marginalization, oppression of class, privilege, sexuality and race, and misuse of power. Violent acts perpetrated on environment—when environment is personified as ‘character’ and/or coupled directly to a character—elicit powerful emotion and clearly demonstrate how social/human injustice reflects environmental injustice.
At the heart of much eco-literature lie strong relationships forged between a major character (often main protagonist) and a minor character (as avatar for the environment such as place or ecosystem, a being, animal or plant) or an aspect of their environment—itself a character and archetype. The strong connection between protagonist and environment—whether antagonistic or sympathetic—fosters unique communication that provides ‘voice’ to the environment as Other and as Othered. The environment may serve as a symbolic connection to theme and can illuminate through the sub-text of metaphor a core aspect of a main or minor character and their journey: the over-exploited white pine forests for the lost Mi’kmaq in Annie Proulx’s Barkskins; the mystical life-giving sandworms for the beleaguered Fremen of Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Old shed overlooks the Otonabee river on a snowy-foggy day, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Giving Voice to the Other Through Character-Coupling
The coupling of protagonist with avatar—character-coupling—creates powerful drama and visceral connection to environmental issues and needs. Character-coupling characterizes environment, the Other, and effectively provides it with a voice, often through relationship. It elicits reader engagement, sparking new understandings and motivations toward a better caring of this world. The Other’s voice may be understandable (e.g. in many fables such as The Bear), arcane, tumultuous or fearsome (Memory of Water), or enduring and silently profound (The Breathing Hole).
Eco-literature is particularly poised to make meaningful character-couplings between mostly human protagonist and environmental characters or representatives. This is because the protagonist provides relatable qualities for easy reader empathy, while the Othered character is often less relatable—often an arcane aspect of the environment, such as water (Memory of Water) or a forest (The Overstory). Character-couplings illuminate a core aspect of the main character’s journey and/or the reader’s journey. From direct and intimate (The Breathing Hole, The Bear) to associated and inferred (The Windup Girl, Barkskins), different forms of character couplings often provide a new understanding of the plight and viewpoint of the Other. The protagonist’s link to the Other provides a readable map for the reader to follow and make their own connection.2
Dogwood shrubs and trees line a marsh in Ontario (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Women Coupled with Nature as Other
Since before the industrial revolution, and very much to this day, the prevailing western worldview toward the wildness of nature has been to dominate it and constrain it. The conviction that humans are separate from and superior to nature was established by Judeo-Christian beliefs and the Cartesian hegemony that laid the foundations of modern anthropocentrism (White). Ecofeminist Ynestra King argues that “we live in a culture that is founded on the repudiation, [exploitation], and domination of nature … the Other that has no voice”. King further argues that, “Women, who are identified with nature, have been similarly objectified and subordinated in patriarchal society”.
The modern ecofeminist movement contends that a long historical precedent of associating women with nature has led to the oppression of both. Ecofeminists note that “women and nature were often depicted as chaotic, irrational, and in need of control, while men were frequently characterized as rational, ordered, and thus capable of directing the use and development of women and nature” (Miles).
French philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir elegantly explores this connection:
Man seeks in woman the Other as Nature and as his fellow being. But we know what ambivalent feelings Nature inspires in man. He exploits her, but she crushes him, he is born of her and dies in her; she is the source of his being and the realm that he subjugates to his will; Nature is a vein of gross material in which the soul is imprisoned, and she is the supreme reality…Woman sums up Nature as Mother. Wife, and Idea; these forms now mingle and now conflict, and each of them wears a double visage.
Simone de Beauvoir
Because of this association and history, some of the most powerful character-couplings in eco-literature are of women protagonists coupled with natural avatar: the Inuk widow with polar bear cub in the clifi allegory The Breathing Hole; the girl and bear in the allegory-fable The Bear; the windup girl Emiko and the Cheshire cats in the cautionary tale The Windup Girl; the tea master Noria and water in the post-ecosystem collapse novel Memory of Water; the ecologist, Patricia Westerford, with the giant trees in The Overstory.3
Heavy snow on the river, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Footnotes:
The Other has often been metaphorically portrayed in SF by aliens that lack a distinct voice or viewpoint; some portrayal has reflected a fearful imperialistic colonialism by representing Other as adversary such as an invading monster with no regard for humans (e.g. Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast; H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds). Kerslake argues that the traits of the Other “fall characteristically—and conveniently—into those spaces we choose not to recognize in ourselves, the ‘half-imagined, half-known: monsters, devils, heroes, terrors, pleasures, desires’ of Said’s ‘Orient’”. The Martians of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles—who also have no voice—reflect our indigenous peoples under the yoke of settler colonialism and an exploitive resource-extraction mindset. The monster of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—also with no voice—exemplifies the disabled/deformed unsavory departure from our ‘perfect’ self-image; to be chased, destroyed and nullified.
In some stories the protagonist is Othered in some way, providing a more direct link to the experience of being the Other or being Othered. For instance, in Mishell Baker’s Borderline, disabled protagonist Millie provides the connection to the greater theme of Othering “lesser beings.” In Costi Gurgu’s Recipearium, the protagonists are not human; they are alien creatures that dwell inside the dead carcass of a monster, representing Other as main character.
Excellent examples that overtly deal with some of these injustices include The Fifth Season trilogy by N.K. Jemisin and The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline.
Snow-covered houses line the river during a snowstorm, ON (photos and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
References:
Agamben, Giorgo. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press. 1998. 228pp.
Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. Night Shade Books, New York. 2015. 466pp.
de Beauvoir, Simone. “The Second Sex.” Modern Library, Random House, New York. 1968. p.144 In:
Dwyer, Jim. Where the Wild Books are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction. University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada. 2010. 264pp.
Ganz, Marshall and Emily S. Lin. “Learning to Lead: a Pedagogy of Practice.” The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being, edited byIn Scott A. Sook, Nitin Nohria, and Rakesh Khurana. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2012. 354p.
Herbert, Frank. Dune. Ace, New York. 1965. 884pp.
Itäranta, Emmi. Memory of Water. Harper Voyager. New York. 2014. 266pp.
Kerslake, Patricia. “The Self and Representations of the Other in Science Fiction.” Chapter 1. Science Fiction and Empire, Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 8-24.
King, Ynestra. “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology.” Chapter 2. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Pub, 1989, pp. 18-28.
Krivak, Andrew. The Bear. Bellevue Literary Press, New York, NY. 2020. 221pp.
Miles, Kathryn. “Ecofeminism: sociology and environmentalism.” Britannica, britannica.com/topic/ecofeminism.
The rotary trail on a heavy-snow day, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Cedar-pine forest covered in new snow of winter, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I’m Canadian, and I love the snow. When I grew up in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, we enjoyed a brisk cold winter with deep snow for a good six months of the year. I’ve since lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, which experiences a milder regional climate; I now live in the Kawarthas of Ontario, which has a similar regional climate to what I experienced growing up in Quebec. Living in the Kawarthas reminds me of my childhood days with winter snow.
Heavy snowfall in Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I love how the first snow of the season often comes from the sky in a thick passion. Huge flakes of unique beauty would settle on my coat sleeves and within minutes I’d be covered in snow. I would stand enraptured, arms out to catch snowflakes, and study each individual with admiration.
Farm and road in winter in Kawarthas, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Young locust trees covered in new snow, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Snow wraps everything in a blanket of soft acceptance. It creates a dazzling face on a dark earth. It refuses to distinguish between artificial and natural. It covers everything—decorated house, shabby old car, willowy trees, manicured lawn—beneath its white mantle. It quiets the Earth.
Trees and shrubs covered in new soft snowduring snowfall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I often walk a trail through the forest after a fresh snow has fallen and the sun reveals itself on a crisp day. Like a balancing tightrope walker, the snow piles itself on everything, from fat fir branch to thin black locust twig. The snow then gives itself to the vagaries of a playful wind. Occasionally, a gust would send a shower of glitter snow dust raining down on me.
Snow-covered branches overlook path in show, ON(photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Twigs piled with snow on a calm morning, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I particularly enjoy walking a trail in the evening light after a fresh snow. Boots crunch on the fresh crisp snow that glistens in the moonlight. Each step is its own symphony of textured sound. A kind of collaboration with the deep of the night and Nature’s own whisperings.
Jackson Creek after a snowfall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Since moving to the Kawarthas, close to the Otonabee River, I walk daily along the river and its riparian forest. Winters here have graced us with a variety of typical winter morphology: thick and copious snowfall, enduring fog, imaginative ice formations on the river, and glittering hoarfrost and rime everywhere else. The first snowfall can come in November, large flakes falling on still fully-clothed shrubs and trees, creating a painter’s landscape of reds, yellows, and greens dusted in a white blanket. This is when, some mornings, mist will rise like a cold breath from the river or flow and pool in depressions of the rolling Kawartha drumlins.
Thick first snowfall on Thompson Creek marsh in early winter, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
On cold nights in December, hoarfrost will form filigreed ‘leaves’ over everything—ground, sticks, ice and even snow. For a brief magical moment, this miniature crystal forest glitters like a field of jewels in the morning sun before vanishing by coffee break time. The river ices up in December, first with frazil that froths and fizzes as it coagulates into grease ice then shuga and finally to ice pancakes that crowd the shore, nudging each other like suburban women at a sale, then stitching themselves together into solid ice sheets attached to shore. By January and February, all is in place and the deep winter is upon us until ice break up and snow melt in late April into May. The river ice extends out from the bays in vast thick sheets where people can skate. The snow forms deep banks and drifts everywhere through which only snowshoes or skis can penetrate.
Mist off the river rises like steam on a cold day in winter,ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Old shed by the Otonabee River during a snowfall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Lately (in the past few years) I’ve noticed that this pattern has become interrupted by extremely mild weather throughout the winter season. January can look like November, with the exception of the absence of leaves on trees and shrubs; the greens and browns of other vegetation such as grasses, forbs and forest litter can still be revealed. The fogs of early winter may also return. The river ice sheets may fragment and flow downstream, only to reform as waters refreeze. The formerly uninterrupted reign of winter is waning and this saddens me with feelings of solastalgia. The Kawarthas still get good dumps of snow and magical frost. But for each champagne powder snow day, and hoarfrost glitter, there is a melt day, when snow melts and it rains, turning the parking lot into a skating rink as temperatures plummet with nightfall.
Snow melt on the side of a country road, ON (photo andrendition by Nina Munteanu)
I grew up in a part of Canada that experienced four distinct seasons. While spring and fall exemplify transition into and out of the two stable seasons of summer and winter, this is no longer the case in many parts of Canada, where formerly well-defined and uninterrupted winters and summers could be predicted. Now all the seasons experience transition and unpredictable phenomena. Winter temperatures in the Kawarthas were often stable at just below zero Centigrade to minus 20°; they now fluctuate more highly from minus 20° to +10.
Author’s car parks on a country road after a snowfall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
A report by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies released in 2022 confirmed that global temperatures in 2022 were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average baseline period of 1951 to 1980 and 2 degrees warmer than the late 19th century average. They reported that the past nine years have been the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880.
Teenagers walk the Rotary Trail after a snowfall, ON (photo and rendition byNina Munteanu)
The winter that I grew up with is changing into something else. It, like the changing world, is in transition. There is no denying that global warming is upon us and each region is uniquely experiencing its effects. Climate is changing and the environment is adapting to that change.
Thompson Creek after a snowfall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
While solastalgia creeps into my psyche at times, I am assiduously learning to pace myself with my changing environment. As the regional weather adapts to the warming climate, I am learning to adapt too. One way is through the equipment I use: I still use my snowshoes (a recent gift from my son) in winter; but, more often, I use snow/rain boots with crampons for terrain that includes wet snow, slush, and ice. Being prepared for change allows me to accept it with grace. I have learned to cherish those moments when fresh snow falls from the heavens like confetti. I charge outside in my snow gear and enjoy it while it’s there. I have learned to live in discovery and to thrill in the unpredictable. Each day is a gift of unknown and thrilling surprise.
First snow in early winter at Thompson Creek, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I have learned to live in the moment and to cherish that moment as a gift.
Because, even change is a gift.
Partially iced over Otonabee River, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Article originally published January 2023 in Rewilding Our Stories (edited by Mary Woodbury) then January 2, 2024 on Dragon.eco.
Trees and dogwood shrubs in winter by the Thompson Marsh, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Woman and her dog walk among giant cedars after a snowfall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
On my third day in Paris, I got lost. I didn’t mean to; it just happened.
I’d started early and joined the morning crowd at the Musée d’Orsay. After a breathtaking journey through the visions of French Impressionists, I ventured by bus to the Champ du Mars and climbed the Eiffel Tower to see Paris from the perspective of the Gods: a wheeled mosaic of art, magic and scene. Then I decided to walk home from there. I thought my adventure was over; in truth, it had just begun…
One of my many stops for delightful sustenance in Paris (photo by Nina Munteanu)
As I wound my way down a tree-lined street, the flower blossoms rained down with the fragrant breeze, painting the cobblestones in pale shades of diaphanous pink. A young couple sat wrapped around each other on a bench, kissing. It suddenly struck me that I was in Paris in the springtime; and I was alone. It was just an observation. It didn’t make me sad or uncomfortable; I’ve traveled a great deal on my own and have enjoyed the edgy play on my mind and soul that solitude in a strange place brings.
Montage of Paris (photos by Nina Munteanu)
Philosopher Mark Kingwell wrote, “travel is a drug, and not just because it can be addictive. More because it alters consciousness, dilates the mind and maybe even rewires the cerebral cortex…going somewhere different from home [is] the best way to challenge your habitual ways of thinking.”
I’d come to Paris to research the book I was writing—about a young girl (a medieval time-traveller) who can alter history (The Last Summoner). Paris, with its Neo-Classical architecture, quaint cobble streets, and stylish Parisians, lends itself to a wandering eye and finally to introspection. For Kingwell, “somewhere beyond the contrived, comfortable cityscapes, we’ll encounter a potentially more profound version of ourselves.”
Paris, like the Parisians, is a seductive dance. It is so attractive to view. But ultimately one must participate in it to fully experience it.
I don’t know when I finally noticed that I had no idea where I was. It just happened. Along one of Paris’s charming narrow cobble streets as the Hausmann-style buildings blushed in the sunset, I found myself utterly lost.
Montage of Paris (photos by Nina Munteanu)
The sky’s light shades of peach gave way to a deeper shade of ochre as I walked on, feeling more and more a stranger and more and more self-conscious that I was. I wasn’t dressed fashionably. Oh, I had the obligatory scarf and stylish leather jacket; but I lacked the finesse of these Parisians who glided confidently along the darkening streets that were familiar to them. The sounds, sights and smells of this foreign city heightened in a frisson of increasing tension. But I refused to let the darkness take me and let my feet lead me on, confident that I would find something. This was Paris, after all…
Display of one of the many patisseries in Paris (photo by Nina Munteanu)
“Not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal,” wrote Walter Benjamin. “It requires ignorance—nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city—as one loses oneself in a forest—that calls for quite a different schooling.” A school for questions, not answers, says Kingwell.
I’d come to Paris with questions, many questions; some of which I would not answer. Perhaps the most important ones. I’d come with the hubristic ambition of defining Paris. But I discovered that to define Paris is to define life…and oneself.
Montage of Paris (photos by Nina Munteanu)
Paris unfolds like an impressionist canvas, to be interpreted through experience. It is an aria, both exquisite and haunting. Like the lingering aftertaste in the back of my throat of a complex bitter-sweet Bordeaux. I lost myself willingly to its mystery. “Real travel,” says Kingwell, “means we must surrender expectations and submit to chance, to challenge our desires, not merely satisfy existing ones…Leaving home ought to be, above all…that plunge into otherness. Becoming strange to ourselves is the gateway to seeing how dependent on strangers we are for our identities…Getting lost to yourself might be the best way to find out who you are.”
Author sits with her novel manuscript for “The Last Summoner”, a cafe creme and Pastis in Place Saint-Michel, Latin Quarter of Paris
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Rocky trail through ancient eastern hemlock forest, Catchacoma Park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I look forward to my daily walks. I find that walking helps me centre myself. Depending on the time I have, some walks last half an hour to an hour. Others walks will stretch from three hours to a day long. These aren’t city-walks.
Stream swells in a spring rain in Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
My favourite place to walk is in the forest, by a river.
Perhaps it is the solitude… or the negative ions, the fresh pungent scents of damp loam, moss and trees. The humbling magnificence of these stately trees. The fishy bog smell of algae. Or the unknown treasures hiding in plain sight for me to discover… Whatever the combination, I find it most pleasing. And freeing.
It is also here, wandering in the forest, that my creativity flourishes as I find expression through the joy of discovery.
Old-growth forest surrounding Pierce Lake, BC (photo by Kevin Klassen)
The first step is to lose myself…
That’s the fun part: not knowing what’s beyond that hillside or down that ravine on the shores of the creek I barely see or around that bend in the root-gnarled trail among the swamp cedars. Like a moth to light, I’m drawn to the unknown. Ever the explorer.
Old-growth cedar forest in Jackson Creek forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Gnarly cedar roots cross a path through morning fog in a swamp cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
It is often here, as I walk along uneven trails or maneuver through undergrowth, up hills or down stream banks to explore and record with my camera, that I do my best thinking… Well, best in that it does not feel like thinking; more like simply ‘being.’ As my body responds to Nature’s sensual treasures, my ingenuous mind ‘walks away’ from restrictions of consciousness and roams in a kind of euphoric state of simple joy. Freed from thinking to feel and sense.
No need for a destination. The journey is my destination…
Gnarly roots of an old yellow birch snake across the old-growth cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Moss-covered boulder erratic (Nina’s Boulder) in old-growth cedar forest of Jackson Creek park, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Walking in a forest unclutters my mind. The forest is simple in its natural complexity. Its beauty combs out the tangles of human encumbrance and grounds me in the simplicity of natural life.
Cookout in old-growth rainforest at Mamquam River near Squamish, BC (photo by Kevin Klassen)
I go prepared. Depending on the kind of walk, I’ll bring my clementine to snack on or a hearty lunch and fruit snacks that I carry in my backpack, along with a notebook and first aid kit. And, of course, I bring my camera. When I stop for lunch or snack, I choose my location thoughtfully, sometimes a place to sit, but mostly with a view of something worth studying. Lunch or snack stops are particularly alluring with unexpected experience.
Moss-covered rocks scatter along the banks of Jackson Creek, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
It is then, when I’ve stopped walking and have become quiet, when nature closes around me like a soft blanket and often gifts me with a precious sight or sound. A nearby red squirrel eating a nut. A bird flitting from berry to berry in a viburnum shrub. Oft times, I will be rewarded with the sight of a mushroom right at my feet or next to where I sit. That is often followed by the sight of many more.
As though the one had to be first seen to reveal the many.
Various mushrooms in Ontario forests (photos by Nina Munteanu)
Now lost, I open myself to possibility…
Like the propagules of Virginia creeper, my senses reach out to find the unexpected. I’m looking to be surprised. To discover something new that will draw me outside myself.
Various flowers and trees in southern Ontario (photos by Nina Munteanu)
The river trickles in the background as I step through dappled light and inhale the organic scents of the forest. The forest and the river help me re-align and focus—without trying. That’s the magic of it. It’s in the not trying.
Marcescent beech leaves drape over old road through swamp forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I take my camera (and tripod) with me on most walks for those moments that I can never anticipate: like the time a deer stepped gracefully out from behind a tree not three metres from me in a moss-covered red pine forest. I was in the process of setting up my camera on its tripod to capture the trail through the pines when the deer moved gracefully into my sight. Startled, we both froze and stared at one another for a moment made eternity. The deer then sprang away and loped through the trees, disappearing within seconds. I stood, hands fixed on my camera shutter button, and smiled. I had not taken a picture. But I now basked in that frozen moment of fascination between two curious animals, a deer and a human.
I didn’t need a picture; I already had my prize, the enduring memory of that moment.
Pine trees loom tall at the location where I met the deer in Petroglyph National Park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In the April 2014 issue of the Journal of Experimental Pshychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Stanford researchers Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz demonstrated that walking boosts creative inspiration. Using the Guildford’s Alternative Uses Test they showed that the act of walking significantly increased creativity for 81% of the participants. Oppezzo and Schwartz were able to demonstrate that the creative ideas generated while walking were not irrelevant or far-fetched, but innovative and practical.
Moss-covered ancient hemlock in the Catchacoma old-growth forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
It begins with changes to our chemistry. In the September 3 2014 issue of TheNew Yorker, journalist Ferris Jabr describes why walking opens the mind to creativity:
“When we go for a walk, the heart pumps faster, circulating more blood and oxygen not just to the muscles but to all the organs—including the brain. Many experiments have shown that after or during exercise, even very mild exertion, people perform better on tests of memory and attention. Walking on a regular basis also promotes new connections between brain cells, staves off the usual withering of brain tissue that comes with age, increases the volume of the hippocampus [a brain region crucial to relational memory and contextual learning], and elevates levels of molecules that both stimulate the growth of new neurons and transmit messages between them.”
Beech tree with marcescent leaves in a mixed forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
So, I walk and I create in my mind and my heart as I prepare to write my next novel…
Payne Line road in the mists of an early morning rain, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Beech trees stand with bronzed leaves as the snow falls in the mixed forest of South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Yesterday, it started snowing near the end of my work shift, and I kept glancing out the window as it turned into a heavy thick snow, the kind I just adore. Whenever this happens, I long for werifesteria…
A pair of beech trees stand pale among hemlocks and poplar trees, South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Beech-hemlock forest after a light snow in South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
As soon as the shift was over, I snatched my gear and rushed off with my camera and tripod and a pack of blueberries to the beech-maple-hemlock forest nearby. The place is called South Drumlin Park, because the forest runs up and down a hogsback with wonderful trails throughout.
Marcescent beech trees greet me along a trail in South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I was the only person there. I walked and crunched through snow and frost-hardened leaf litter and I let myself get lost in the labyrinth of trails through the open winter forest. The pale beech trees, because they keep their now copper-coloured marcescent leaves, stood out amid the bare maples, oaks, poplars and birch trees.
Pale bronze beech leaves light up the dark hemlock forest, South Drumlin park (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
I wandered there for hours, inhaling the peaceful freshness and the quiet hush of gentle snowing in the forest.
There were just a few rowdy red squirrels and one persistent bluejay, but all else lay quiet in the deep of the forest. I had found my magic and mystery … It felt sublime and my heart sang…
Trail through poplars, cedars and hemlocks toward the river, South Drumlin park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Fall colours of maple trees in the Mark S. Burnham Park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
For the past few days, I’ve been wandering, entranced, in the various forests, swamps and marshes of the Kawarthas. I found myself inspired by the autumnal light and organic scent in the air.
They pulled me into the verge…
Poplar trees in the fall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
It’s the time of “the verge,” when the seasons collide in the wake of the equinox and anticipate the unruly winds of change. A moment of stillness before the Earth shifts, relinquishes, and embraces.
In the hush of a great threshold, Nature holds its breath and a leaf settles in the arms of a cedar root…
Largetooth aspen sits on a cedar root in the pine forest of Warsaw Cave Park, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Ancient pine, cedar and hemlocks in Jackson Creek forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
There I was, eyes and ears–all senses–wide, taking in Nature’s gifts of the verge. The rustling leaves in a cool wind. The musky smell of swamp water and the sweet rot of vegetation. The lazy gurgle of shallow creeks around smooth rocks. The halting shrill of a Blue Jay.
Jackson Creek in October, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
On one walk, a giant toad—the biggest I’d ever seen!—waddled across my path. I think it was an American toad, mottled and rough with warts. He looked rather grumpy and took his time, somehow confident—or not caring—that I could step on him and squish him easily. He was rather jiggly as he lumbered on. I did not take his picture; I don’t think he wanted me to, so I didn’t.
Fallen hemlock tree in Mark S. Burnham Park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Soon after, a small garter snake slithered across my path, less confident of my steps. It froze once it was safely out of my way. Good snake…
The forest was alive with the domestic chaos of wildlife busy with itself. Chipmunks chugged and squirrels scolded from the tree tops. Surely not at me! I climbed out of the lowland of old-growth hemlock-beech swamp forest to the top of a drumlin of maple-hop hornbeam-ash forest and then descended again into the dark hemlocks and pines.
Maple tree showing deep colour in the fall, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Red and sugar maples and aspens flame in the fall by the Otonabee River near Trent University, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
The colours of sugar and red maple blazed in the canopy above, frothy clouds of bright orange, red, yellow and everything in-between under a deep blue sky. I wandered, camera in hand, and found treasures everywhere—from blue fungi to tiny bright red maple leaves freshly fallen.
Various mushrooms in the forests of Ontario (photos by Nina Munteanu)
I have a silly habit of picking up leaves and pressing them when I get home; my books are repositories of colourful prizes from years past.
Small red maple leaf sits beside a hemlock sapling amid white fungi and moss on a nurse log in Mark S. Burnham forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Marsh in Ontario in the fall (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
In the marsh, I encountered a green frog, sitting in the mud. It decided to pose for my camera. And I obligingly took its picture. My new best friend.
No, I did not take him home. I left him there, lollying in the mud, looking very content.
Green frog poses for the author’s camera
For all I know he’s still there, presiding over the autumn verge…
Jackson Creek reflects the gold hue of largetooth aspen in October, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 