At first it was hard to take it all in, this close to nature living was all so new, and then I emerged and it became my way of being. And I carry forth crowned by the natural world, with her ritual convenings, her shared generosities.
This Wilderness in My Blood
"The idea of the contented hermit who lives close to nature, cultivates his garden and his bees, is trusted by animals and loves all of creation, is some kind of archetype. We think we could be like that ourselves if somehow things were different." —Isabell Colgate
And then along came Covid, and suddenly everything was different. Calling me in simple ways. Sunrise. Black coffee in my favorite mug. Making a pot of soup with late season vegetables. Searching the deep autumn garden and finding a few red serrano peppers clinging to spent vines. Sunset and moonlight with owl sounds pressing against the night. I begin watching an Orb-weaver spider, growing bigger each day, and I tuned to her rhythm.
We Who Walk the Seven Ways is Terra Trevor’s memoir about seeking healing and finding belonging. After she endured a difficult loss, a circle of Native women elders embraced and guided Trevor (mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, and German) through the seven cycles of life in Indigenous ways. Over three decades, these women lifted her from grief, instructed her in living, and showed her how to age from youth into beauty.
With tender honesty, Trevor explores how every ending is always a beginning. Her reflections on the deep power of women’s friendship, losing a child, reconciling complicated roots, and finding richness in every stage of life show that being an American Indian with a complex lineage is not about being part something, but about being part of something.
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“Terra Trevor’s memoir is a gentle invitation to journey with her across decades, an invitation to notice with her as she seeks healing and finds belonging. There were phrases and sentences I underlined, places where I wept, passages that will remain with me as they drew me to insights I’d previously struggled to name. I closed the final pages and knew that in reading this book, I had been the recipient of a generous and much-needed gift. While I can certainly finish a book in a day, I chose to move slowly through this one, letting each idea, each paragraph, each reflection gently spill over me, allowing the pages to alter me in some way.” —Patrice Gopo, author of Autumn Song: Essays on Absence
