I Want To Be Left Behind

For all the children

2011-07-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Our new children's book, Leopard and Silkie: And One Boy's Quest to Save Seal Pups with photographs by Robin Lindsey

Last week, after three years in the making -- and many seal pup Seal Sitting seasons, we went to press with our new children's book (ages 4-everyone). This book was a labor of love all round -- from the seals, Leopard and Silkie, who inspired this story, to the Seal Sitters who protect the seals now year-round. The editor was fabulous and devoted to wildlife and the production team at Henry Holt for Young Readers gave us the most beautiful design we could ever imagine.

Though the book isn't published until early spring, 2012, we've already begun publicizing it in our school presentations and training sessions. We just had another successful training of Seal Sitter volunteers last weekend. Forty-five people showed up and we're preparing for another busy pup season. Every day as we take our beach walks, we're on the lookout for newborn pups on our very busy beaches.

Here's our new bookmark with illustrations by Uko Gorter and designed by Robin Lindsey, who also designed and helped produce the gorgeous signs that now adorn our beaches. We are grateful to the City of Seattle who gave us a neighborhood grant for education and conservation.

For more information, please visit our website at: www.sealsitters.org and see the video and read the Blubber Blog, written by First Responder, Robin Lindsey.

See you on the beach and if you're interested in becoming a volunteer, please sign up through our website.

Are You Blue? Ten Things You Can Do to Help Heal Our Oceans ~

2011-06-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/ Clark Little photo credit

Brenda Peterson

Author, 'I Want to Be Left Behind'

Posted: 06/22/11 11:53 AM ET http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/are-you-blue-ten-things-y_b_881575.html

Are You Blue? Ten Things You Can Do to Help Heal
Our Oceans ~ Huffington Post

"Shocking" new scientific reports of the self-destructive abuse of our blue planet's oceans are enough to make anyone feel blue. Not just those of us on the coasts or who've studied marine life for many years. Without healthy oceans -- the fertile wombs of our worlds -- we land dwellers are also lost. It's a simple equation: Oceans = life support.

Because we are so focused on our terrestrial life, the marine world is often our dumping ground, battlefield, or playground. In the 21st century we are at last turning our attention to the fact that our oceans are so degraded, we face "the next mass extinction" -- and it's man-made.

If we humans created this disaster, then we can take action to help stop it. We cannot leave saving our seas to scientists or governments. Nor do we have time for the denial of compassion fatigue or despair. The only antidote is engagement, education, and action. Here are ten simple steps that we can do every day to help heal our oceans.

1. Declare No Driving Days -- By reducing our own CO2 emissions, we decrease our carbon imprint and ease the pollution, warming, and acidification of our oceans. Locomote more! Take public transit. Save money and fuel. Support new green fuel technologies, cars, and daily kick the habit of fossil fuels.

2. Eat Less Fish -- Overfishing has devastated marine species from top to bottom. If you eat fish, then support sustainable fisheries and don't eat farm-raised fish. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a handy shopping guide. And boycott goods from countries that still practice the primitive and brutal commerce of whaling.

3. Just Say No to Plastic -- Plastic bags, balloons, water bottles all end up in our water systems. Slow to degrade and often mistaken for prey by marine mammals, this plastic is choking our seas. There are continents of plastic afloat in our waters. Recycle responsibly; use stainless steal water bottles, cloth shopping bags, and glass instead of plastic.

4. No Dumping: Watch what you flush. No pharmaceuticals, cleaning products with bleach or phosphates, or kitty litter. Flushable kitty litter has been cited as a major cause of seal deaths from contamination and pollution. Use recyclable toilet paper, towels and while we're at it, let's plant more oxygen-rich trees.

5. Stop Run-Off: This is a major man-made problem that can be easily limited. Wash your car at a car wash that advertises "Clean Green" to stop grease, anti-freeze, oil, and heavy metals from draining into your water systems. Report any illegal dumping of paint or pollutants. Inland farming dumps agricultural run-off that creates "Dead Zones" -- vast areas of oxygen-starved seas that kills marine life.

6. Support Your Bodies of Water: Adopt a local wetlands, stream, river, bay, or ocean. Such grassroots organizations as American Rivers, People for Puget Sound, and Sierra Club all offer direct conservation activities from wetlands restoration to day-lighting streams to beach litter pick-up. Or start your own group of citizen naturalists.

Clark Little photography

7. Adopt Other Species: Whether it's Save the Manatee Club, Orca Network, Save Our Wild Salmon, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, or Seal Sitters there are many organizations working to protect marine life. Joining grassroots organizations not only educates us about marine life; it also expands our kinship system to include others. It's the basic tenet we teach our children: To share. Interspecies adoption works!

8. Commit Daily Acts of Climate Change: Instead of feeling helpless and overwhelmed by the Big Picture of global warming, educate yourself and your children about its causes and possible remedies. Search websites such as Greenpeace's Stop Climate Change.

Or Blue Marble's How to Help Stop Global Warming.

9. Support Marine Protected Areas: Like our far-sighted national parks and forests, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have proven that conservation of species and habitat actually works. The benefits of MPAs are clear: cleaner waters, more fish, healthy coral reefs, and a legacy for all next generations. See: http://www.mpa.gov/
10. Be Blue: We are all People of the Sea. Our species evolved from the primal oceans and it is our oceans that will determine our destiny and survival. After all, we're not just talking any more about other species' extinction -- but our own. See: Heal The Ocean.

photo: Clark Little

In the remarkable book, THE WORLD WITHOUT US, author Alan Weisman notes that centuries ago, the seas were so abundant and healthy, our ships actually collided with whales, some fish like groupers were 800 pounds, and long-lived sea turtles were 1,000 pounds. Coral reefs shimmered with life. In our brief blip of geological time, humans have stripped the seas -- from overfishing to pollution to military sonars that deafen and destroy marine mammals.

Weisman imagines our "sea cradle" recovering perhaps only after our species disappears. If we take the long view of geology, natural selection may simply disappear our self-destructive, short-sighted species. And the seas will recover, with or without us.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if it were with our help? Our bodies, like our planet, are mostly made up of water. So whether you're land-locked, conservative or democrat, whatever your faith, young or old -- every last one of us literally lives by water.

Brenda Peterson is a National Geographic author. Her sixteen books include Living by Water, Build Me an Ark, and the recent memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, whichThe Christian Science Monitor named as among "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010." Peterson is the founder of Seal Sitters. For more: www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com and www.sealsitters.org

Dear Friends,

Please post this widely and help heal our oceans. Also, here is more of the sublime photography by Clark Little, whom I discovered on line at this website: http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/

CETACEAN EDUCATION ~ Class of 2011

2011-06-11T17:05:00.000-07:00

Uko Gorter, natural history illustrator extraordinaire at http://www.ukogorter.com

View of Seattle skyline from West Seattle beach

And here's video of the gray whale, like those I wrote about in my National Geographic
Book, Sightings with co-author Linda Hogan.

Graduating class of 2011 take their biology and bright chalk art to the walkway outside West Seattle High School

I awoke this morning to the Salish Sea alarm clock of sea lions barking in my back yard. A good sign for writing my new water world novel. And then on my daily walk, we discovered this cetacean gallery as the West Seattle 2011 class celebrates their graduation.

This is one of the reasons I so love living in Seattle for the past 30 years. We live by water and share the shores with our marine mammal cousins -- from orcas to sea lions to harbor seals. They are not just "out there" but part of the neighborhood!

I hope you enjoy these video and photo highlights as much as I do. And congratulations to all the graduating classes of 2011. You give me much hope for the future.

Harbor porpoise

Sea Lion

After the discovery of this chalk walk of cetaceans, a friend and I decided to have a relaxed Saturday afternoon in sunny Seattle and go down to the water to take in a sailboat regatta. Here's the Seattle skyline on this beach walk. We've been unseasonably cold this spring, but compared all other parts of this country, we've the lucky ones. No heat wave here. Just happiness in our home waters.

For those of you intrigued by this high school cetacean gallery, please visit my friend, Uko Gorter's, fabulous professional natural history illustrations. He has a new poster-sized gallery of his beautiful cetacean illustrations on his website at:
http://www.ukogorter.com

Now for a much needed afternoon nap, listening to the raucous serenade of sea lions!

We All Live by Water Celebrate World Oceans Day

2011-06-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

Here is my photo from my West Seattle neighborhood of the Salish Sea (a.k.a. Puget Sound)
I have always preferred the Salish name because of its indigenous roots and the fact that Peter Puget, a British aristocrat, never saw the vast, serpentine inland sea that was named for him by Lewis and Clark.

It's sunset, early June, and you can see the ferry to Bainbridge Island in the long, slanting light of early evening. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the sunsets are late as we move toward the Summer Solstice. The light is almost as long as the summer ferry lines as we greet many visitors to our shores.

On this worldwide day of celebrating our blue planet's oceans, please think of something you can do every day to help restore and conserve the watery womb of our world. You might want to start a neighborhood watch or grassroots organizations as I did with Seal Sitters.

Every pupping season from late June through October, we neighborhood Seal Sitters keep watch over seal pups resting on shore while their mothers are out fishing. For more information on Seal Sitters, please see our website: http://www.SealSitters.org

And for more information on World Oceans Day and how to get involved, here's a link:

http://worldoceansday.org

http://blog.arkive.org/2011/06/world-oceans-day-8th-june-2011/World Oceans Day – 8th June 2011ARKive Blog
June 2011
[Several photos]

The 8th of June is World Oceans Day, our annual chance to celebrate all things marine! Coordinated by The Ocean Project and The World Ocean Network, World Oceans Day encourages us to consider everything that the oceans provide us with – from oxygen to climate regulation, food to pharmaceuticals and of course, the breath taking beauty of this underwater wonderland.

By raising awareness of the resources that the oceans provide, World Oceans Day hopes to encourage us to do our bit to protect this valuable environment, especially in these challenging times when factors like climate change, plastic waste, over-fishing and environmental disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill all threaten to damage our oceans beyond repair.

Each year, World Oceans Day takes on a different theme. You may remember that last year’s theme was “Pick your favourite, Protect your favourite” and the ARKive team had great fun picking their favourite marine species. The theme for 2011 and 2012 is “Youth: the Next Wave for Change”, the idea being to inspire young people around the world to care for the marine environment, as the future of ocean conservation is in their hands.

Wherever you are in the world there are loads of ways to get involved, whether you want to get together with friends or colleagues to organise an aquatic clean up, take the Seven C’s Pledge to reduce your environmental impact, or simply host your own celebration of the seas. If you are stuck for ideas, the World Oceans Day website has plenty of suggestions as well as a list of organised events around the globe, as they say, there’s an “ocean of opportunities” to help and celebrate!

And if you need any more inspiration, why not check out the wonderful range of marine species on ARKive: http://www.arkive.org/search.html?q=ocean&output=xml_no_dtd&client=arkive-info&site=arkive-info&ie=utf8&oe=utf8&num=20&proxystylesheet=tng-se
arch&filter=0&getfields=*

And you might also want to enjoy my Northwest classic Living by Water: True Stories of Nature and Spirit: htp://http://www.literati.net/Peterson
www.literati.net/Peterson

The Reality of Global Climate Change is Upon Us - Newsweek

2011-06-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

The Reality of Global Climate Change is Upon Us - Newsweek

No, it's not the end of the world. It's the tribulations we all share with climate change. What if we're all left behind here to help the earth and the waters heal?

Why I Still Want To Be Left Behind

2011-05-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

Brenda Peterson

Author, 'I Want to Be Left Behind'

Why I Still Want To Be Left Behind

Posted: 05/19/11 12:20 PM ET HUFFINGTON POST

Sunset on the Salish Sea, Seattle, spring, 2011 photo: B. Peterson

When California preacher, Harold Camping, predicted the world would end this Saturday evening, several of my Rapture-ready friends insisted I finish reading theLeft Behind series and make my preparations.

Camping's ubiquitous billboard messages: "Blow the trumpet, warn the people!" were all over Seattle. People were so giddy with anticipation, it recalled the many loopy, no-exit conversations I've had with my righteous neighbor.

"Why are you so ... well, cheerful, about doomsday?" I always asked him.

He gazed at me with the true alarm of deep pity. "I'm afraid you'll have a rough time of it here during the Tribulations."

"Don't you love any of us you believe will suffer so?" I said.

This gave my neighbor a moment's pause. But then he admitted with some chagrin. "You can't blame us born-agains for at last getting our heavenly rewards. We've waited thousands of years for End Times. We've got holy wars, world financial markets crashing, Israel's military power, Middle East uprisings, and even global warming."

This last sign he pronounced brightly, as if our global climate was gleefully graduating into a hot time in the old world.

It struck me that being "raptured" out of this world trumps the insecurity of living and the surrender of dying or staying on. No bodily indignity. No suffering. One will simply be whisked off with the fellowship of the believers -- the Rapture gang -- to a heavenly reward.

In the twinkling of an eye they say, the righteous will ascend, dropping golden dental work, nightgowns, and perhaps some spouses. Unless you count losing the earth and billions of unfortunate sinners who cling to it, getting raptured is a blast. Who wouldn't want to escape prophesied plagues, floods, and nomadic thug-like legions of the unsaved?

This rather pitiless evacuation plan for only the righteous might seem darkly comic, if not for a Timemagazine poll: 56 percent of Americans "believe the prophecies in the Book of Revelation will come true." Perhaps that explains why the Left Behind books are the biggest selling fictional series in the United States.

Read on at The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/may-21-rapture_b_863982.html

And enjoy your weekend, especially Sunday's sunshine! And here's one of my favorite quotes:

"On the last day of the world

I would want to plant a tree."

~ W. S. Merwin, "Place"

Here's a photo I took last month of a 500-year-old tree on the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest where I was Writer-in-Residence. And some video of climbing into its massive canopy with children.

massive ancient cedar HJ Andrews Experimental Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site

http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/

Blue River, Oregon. The rapture of the sky and ancient forest

Climbing with brave and monkey-agile 7th graders up this old, generous tree into the canopy, alive with birdsong and a deep, poised silence. Rapture.

www.PacificTreeclimbing.com

Return to Huffington Post full blog for "Why I Still Want to Be Left Behind"
Read on at The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/may-21-rapture_b_863982.html

Wolves Endangered by Political Predators ~ My Seattle Times op-ed

2011-05-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

(original artwork by Gabriel Campanario/The Seattle Times)

Dear Friends,

Here is my new opinion piece for The Seattle Times (4.31.2011) that appears in the Sunday print edition as well as the online edition at this link. Please READ ON AT THE ORIGINAL LINK:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2014913892_guest01peterson.html

Please get involved in protecting endangered species, especially the wolves, by visiting:

Natural Resources Defense Council at : http://wwwnrdc.org

Or Earth Justice and Defenders of Wildlife: http://wwwdefenders.org

And thanks for visiting The Seattle Times and, if you can, making a comment or recommending it to your friends and Facebook pages. The more we howl to Congress about this precedent-setting gutting of the Endangered Species Act, the less this kind of playing poker with other species will be allowed.

The back story on this "wolf rider" attached to the budget bill that passed April 15th, is that Sen. Tester, Montana, sponsored this bill to assure himself re-election in 2012. And the Democrats, desperate to keep Democratic control of the Senate, sacrificed the wolves to keep their margin in the Senate. This is exactly why the Endangered Species has, until now, always insisted on science, not politics, guiding the delisting and listing of species.

And here's another of my favorite wolf photos from the reintroduction of the first packs of wild wolves to Yellowstone in 1995.

(U.S. Fish and Wildlife photo, 1995 First wolf pups born in Yellowstone, 1995)

(photo courtesy of wolf biologist Rick McIntyre, author of THE WAR AGAINST THE WOLF:
America's Campaign to Exterminate the Wolf (Voyager Press)

Also, I have written extensively about the original wolf reintroduction in my first memoir, BUILD ME AN ARK: A LIFE WITH ANIMALS, as well as other articles for The Christian Science Monitor, The Huffington Post, and The Seattle Times.

A big howl out to all of the pack who are speaking for the wolves and all other endangered species! Work at the state and federal levels to make your voices heard.

BOOK LUST interview with Nancy Pearl now live online and airing locally

2011-03-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

Renown librarian and author Nancy Pearl interview with Brenda on BOOK LUST

http://www.seattlechannel.org/BookLust/

WATCH online or on Seattle Channel 21 3.24-28

Nancy Pearl's far-ranging and insightful interview focuses not only on my new memoir, but also on all of my work, including the New York Times "Notable Book of the Year," Duck and Cover, Becoming the Enemy, my creative non-fiction books, such as Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals, and my new Young Adult novel-in-progress.

As every reader, who hasn't been living under a rock for the past decade knows, Nancy Pearl is the Uber-librarian, named by Library Journal as "Librarian of the Year for 2011." Well-deserved praise:

Photo by Ron Wurzer/Getty Images

LIBRARY JOURNAL

Photo by Ron Wurzer/Getty Images

"No one other than Nancy Pearl has so convinced Americans that libraries, books, and reading are critical to our communities. Her passionate advocacy has done that nationwide for thousands of individual readers and library workers in the trenches at the local level. She has spread book lust via broadcasts to the nation on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and from local radio and TV outlets and through her blog posts and tweets." http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/communitypeople/888408-275/nancy_pearl_ljs_2011_librarian.html.csp

Nancy has done for all readers what J.K. Rowling did for children -- engaged and delighted and directed us to rediscover the life-saving magic of books. In Pearl's own introduction to her bestselling Book Lust, she writes:

"I spent most of my childhood and early adolescence at the public library. The librarians at the Parkman Branch Library found me books that revealed worlds beyond what I saw and experienced every day. . . I was transported when I read them."

In our interview, Nancy and I talk about how books enriched our childhoods and were hand-held portals to other worlds we could explore with the power of imagination. She cites Space Cadet as a childhood influence she read while eating her lunch under the table at the library. I credit Wrinkle in Time as my early inspiration.

I confess I was a little nervous about this televised interview, preferring the acoustic intimacy of NPR interviews.

Writers are usually most comfortable in our studios, not in public. As one of my author friends quips, "I have the perfect face for radio!"

We writers are introverts, not used to the glare of television lights, the camera angles, the stillness of sitting, trying to keep our hands from flying around as they do at the keyboard.

When I do radio interviews I can hook up my headset and pace around my apartment in my bathrobe, gesticulating to the cats, my only visible audience. There is the illusion that it is just a friendly phone chat and that thousands are not really listening in.

But the camera is the EYE of the public and there is no escape. So I was scrambling to find the perfect interview outfit -- "authorial but not stodgy, comfortable but not uncool."

The minute Nancy engaged me with her generous curiosity, I felt completely relaxed and heard. Not just seen by a camera, but understood by an Ideal Reader who invites authors to talk about how it really is to write books, to live them, and to courageously birth them into the world. A world that may or may not welcome them.

Somehow it doesn't matter, because Nancy Pearl is reading your book. All seems right with the writer's world.

Now, when I write I can imagine Nancy Pearl reading along with me -- encouraging, completely "getting it," and most of all asking the ultimate question every writer longs to hear: "What happens next?" or "What did you really mean?"

One of the great pleasures for me in interviews that are not reduced to sound bites, is being able to thank those who have championed and guided my work. In this interview, I tell stories about my mentors, including my first writing teacher, the novelist Diane Johnson, whose many novels include Le Divorce, Le Mariage, and the most recent, Lulu in Marrakech.

Diane took me under her capable wings when I was 18 at the University of California, Davis, and she is still inspiring me with her writing and her criticism. Here's a link to her latest New York Review of books essay: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/feb/24/west-coast-delusions/

Then there is the late Fiction Editor at The New Yorker magazine, Rachel Mackenzie, to whom all of my work is, in a way, dedicated. In 1978, she discovered and edited my first novel, River of Light. I write about meeting her when I worked at The New Yorker in the new memoir and her influence still runs deep. Here is an author photo of Rachel from her ground-breaking book on heart surgery Risk:

Continuing in my "Let Us Now Praise Famous Women" mode, I could never have written this new memoir without the mentoring of my beloved literary agent, Sarah Jane Freymann, to whom the book is dedicated. She and her husband, Steve Schwartz, gave me sanctuary in their New York City apartment when I began the East Coast book tour and Sarah Jane even accompanied me on the L.A. and San Francisco lags of the tour. I cannot imagine a better guide in the wilderness of writing.

Sarah Jane Freymann (top), Jessica Shinsheimer, Katherine Sands, and Steve Schwarts
Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency www.sarahjanefreymann.com

Sarah Jane, along with my esteemed and clear-sighted DaCapo editor, Merloyd Lawrence, who published my new memoir under her own imprint, were the guiding lights of I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth. Even though I'm at work on a novel now, I still write Merloyd several times a week, seeking her counsel, her wisdom, her wit. And I hope we can work together again on another book.

I wish I could return to Sarah Jane and Merloyd Lawrence a universe of financial and literary rewards for all they offered my writing -- at least here I can tell stories about them that might help other authors and readers.

I hope you enjoy the Book Lust interview and share it with other readers and friends. And thanks again to Nancy Pearl who gave me the opportunity to talk about writing as if my life depended upon it. Which it does!

P.S. For those of you who are local, here is the Seattle Channel schedule:

Book Lust with Nancy Pearl featuring Brenda Peterson
Brenda Peterson, whose newest book is I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, discusses how her childhood upbringing has influenced her novels and memoirs.

Upcoming Broadcast Times:
Friday, March 25, 2011	2:30 a.m.
Friday, March 25, 2011	4:30 p.m.
Friday, March 25, 2011	8:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 26, 2011	12:00 a.m.
Saturday, March 26, 2011	1:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 26, 2011	8:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 27, 2011	4:30 a.m.
Sunday, March 27, 2011	10:30 p.m.
Monday, March 28, 2011	1:00 a.m.
Past Broadcasts:
Thursday, March 24, 2011	10:30 p.m.

WATCH NOW

Watch more videos like Book Lust with Nancy Pearl featuring Brenda Peterson

http://www.seattlechannel.org/BookLust/

Confessions of an APPLEholic: From Addiction to Sobriety

2011-03-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers, Here is my continuing series on the tsunami and its effect on all our lives, even a world away. They predict a plume of radiation from the nuclear reactors will hit California today. As Chief Sealth, the Squamish Indian elder from whom Seattle takes its name, said: "All things are connected."

Wave of Destruction

Photograph by Mainichi Shimbun, Reuters

A tsunami wave crashes over a street in Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture, in northeastern Japan on March 11.

Published March 15, 201

NASA satellite imagery

Confessions of an APPLEholic: From Addiction to Sobriety

Inspiring Funny Obsolete Scary Must-Have Amazing Innovative Nerdy

Read More: Apple , Electricity , Green Living , Ipad , Ipad 2 , Japan , Renewable Energy , Technology , Tsunami ,Technology News

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/confessions-of-an-appleah_b_837252.html

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The day the tsunami struck Japan, Apple launched its tsunami-seller, the iPad2. My calendar for 3.11.11 -- the date of the massive 9.0 earthquake -- was steady:

1. Write
2. Teach
3. 5 p.m.: Stand in line for iPad2

When the first iPad was unleashed, like Harry Potter's magical wand, but for adults -- I stood in line for three hours to buy the shiny portal for my parents. The hype around the iPad2 this spring is almost unbearable. And, like a true APPLEaholic, I was driven by "the hunger." After all, it was Eve who first ate that apple promising the Tree of Knowledge.

I count myself among the disciples to Steve Job's elegant technology, his sleek, design style born of his calligraphy training, his artistry and eloquence that make Microsoft geeks look like dunderheads -- or worse, drones. Self-employed, I'd endured decades of Microsoft's disdainful tech support.

Now I'm a slave to the pampering of Apple Care; I'm drunk at the Genius Bar where I can cozy up to an amiable expert as we confess our astonishment at all things Apple. The continuing education of Apple classes calls me like a church service or revival meeting.

In fact, as my Apple addiction grew I embraced the iPhone, graced my writing desk with a stylish iMac, and streamed Apple TV. That's why I found myself standing in an endless line of other devotees for the first iPad. A magical creation that changes the world, according to Apple ads. Kind of like a tsunami.

Is there any cosmic coincidence that the iPad2 hit the world the same date as a tsunami? Watching the heartbreaking images of cities falling, whole towns swept out to sea, and people standing in lines desperately searching for their loved ones, I felt suddenly very sober. Amidst such a disaster, how could I go mindlessly stand in line for something that doesn't even work long without electricity? Like Japan.

All those bright, shiny lights blink out. Tall Tokyo buildings eclipsed by a quaking earth. An island world drowning. And the real, awesome power is not technology but water. Long before the discovery of electricity, the ancients understood that water equals power. This equation predated our hydro-electric dams. What happens to power when we mistake it for our own creation and forget the water source from which we borrow, upon which we run our technologies? What happens when our 10-hour batteries die and our smart phones black out?

These thoughts swirled as I watched the tsunami overwhelm Japan. While Japan collapsed into chaos and nuclear reactors exploded, I watched the radioactive rise of sales for Apple's iPad2. Stores nationwide sold out. Now the lines form at ungodly hours as we addicts wait for the hope of a "blind shipment" that may or may not bring us the iPad2.

Like all the newly sober, I self-righteously judged all those APPLEaholics craving their next technological hit. The ridiculously manipulative iPad2 launch (or dribble) with no pre-orders and handy pick-up in stores, consumers strung-out in daily lines - all this caused me to Doubt my faith in Apple. Like all doubt or detox, I began to look within.

Even with the world upside down, why did I and minions still lust after iPad2? Perhaps it's as familiar as a need to escape into an alternate universe because our own world is so unstable. We could fall into the earth's cracks, drown in a tsunami, be swept up in some revolution, or lose our pensions in a collapsing economy. Why not the quick getaway of a magic universe we can hold in our hands? Click. Control. Multi-task.

It took a tsunami to trigger in me this technology sobriety. I find myself wondering: What within us is illuminated when we only light up a screen, a hand-held device, and not our own souls? What do we leave behind when we escape into alternate realities that have nothing to do with the nature upon which our lives depend?

I've just heard a rumor from another APPLEaholic. This techno-wizard says the shortage of iPad2s is due to the lack of a crucial electronic part -- made in Japan. So perhaps there is an eerie connection between this tsunami and the Apple iPad2.

"We have to wait for Japanese factories to rebuild," he says, "and meanwhile, there'll be a worldwide rationing of iPad2s."

Now, when I feel the urge to call my Apple store and ask if they have received another shipment of iPad2 and hear the familiar, "Sold out, don't know when in stock. Just come and stand in line again, starting at 5 a.m." - I slam down the phone.

I remind myself that Lao Tzu says truly wise people are "the light that does not shine." That there is nothing artificial or falsely bright about true power, just as there is a world of difference between neon and starlight. Even if I can see the constellation patterns on my iPad when I hold it up to the heavens.

I tell myself I am in recovery. Like technology-driven Japan. I call my tech-support sponsor and we exchange the tried-and-true oral formulas that all add up to this: You have enough. Our resources are limited -- like the iPad2s. Don't eat the Apple!

Brenda Peterson is the author of 16 books, including the recent memoir I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, which The Christian Science Monitor named among the "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of2010.

The Water Way and the Tsunami

2011-03-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

As we witness the terrible tsunami in Japan and its aftershocks, we can consider both the destructive and the nourishing power of water. Water is a world-changer, a teacher, and the greatest force to be reckoned with on earth. Here's my new Huffington Post meditation on "The Water Way and the Tsunami," as well as a very interesting scientific article link about the connection between climate change and tsunamis. Thanks so much for reading.

Brenda Peterson

Author, 'I Want to Be Left Behind'

Posted: March 11, 2011 04:26 PM

The Water Way and the Tsunami

Inspiring Enlightening Infuriating Scary Helpful Amazing Innovative Adorable

Read More: Climate Change , Cnn , Environment , Global Warming , Japan Earthquake 2011 , Natural Gas Earthquakes , Northwest Cable News , Rising Seas , Tsunami , Water Way , Green News

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For almost three decades I've lived here in Seattle on the Salish Sea and my apartment is like a glassed in aquarium. Often the waves are fierce and winds howling, so I sleep in my noise-canceling headphones. Our coasts have frequent tsunami drills. Last night, I was just about to brave my windswept bedroom, when news of the 8.9 earthquake and tsunami in Japan broke.

Long past midnight, I stayed awake, watching horrifying images of a tsunami wave cresting and flowing deep into farmland, cars and buildings like tiny toys bobbing about in the slow-motion flood.

"It's like watching a disaster movie -- but for real," the CNN reporter said.

Amidst all the video footage and tweets, I wished some more philosophical caller would have tweeted the Tao Te Ching (Stephen Mitchell translation),

"Nothing in the world is weaker than water,
But it has no better in overcoming the hard"

Water usually humbly follows the lay of the land, its tides are regular, dependable, its currents carry our human cargo and us from shore to shore. But when water rises up, it is a world-changer. That's why in almost every mythology, it was water that once destroyed a world in a great deluge. From the Bible stories of Noah and his ark to our local Skagit Northwest coastal tribe's story of a flood that rose so high it covered all but Mt. Baker and mighty Mt. Rainier -- water is the original stuff of life.

It's also a way of living. The ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, often called "The Water Way," believed water was the most revered teacher. Lao-tzu, the sixth-century B.C. master whose Tao te Ching is still a classic, wrote long ago:

"The highest good is like water,
for the good of water is that it nourishes without striving."

Witnessing this life-changing and terrifying tsunami as it drowns coastlines in Japan, it's difficult to remember how water can be "good." And yet, it is water that nourishes our bodies, our lands, and our souls. Our human bodies are mostly water. Dwelling inside us are individual, inland seas that ebb and flow -- from the blood, to the cranial sacral fluid, to the water that hydrates us.

(read more at this link:)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/the-water-way-and-the-tsu_b_834725.html

To the Taoists, water's intuitive, harmonious flow was wiser than the rational attitudes of a linear, man-over-nature mind. Thus according to the ancient Taoist Kuan-tu, "the solution for the Sage who would transform the world lies in water."

Our present day willfulness has taught us much about our own separate selves and little about how to live wisely and at one with our world. A world that is mostly water.

Here in the Northwest, where so much of our life is linked with water, where the Asian influence is keenly felt -- where we await the tsunami from Japan to hit our own West Coast -- we have a chance to not just react or stare numbly at the CNN screen, but to contemplate this Tao or Water Way.

Besides the devastation and despair that such a disaster brings us, does it have any meaning? As we witness the power and force of rising seas, can we now begin to grapple with making changes in our lives to finally face and adapt to global warming?

Today tsunami warnings are sounding along the Oregon and Washington coasts. On our local Northwest Cable News station, we coastal dwellers are advised to head to high ground. Cameras on the beach show eerie low and high tides rise and fall in minutes, not the usual hours. The world seems out of synch. In fact, a geology expert tells us, the Japan Islands earthquake has actually wobbled the North Pole on its axis; and the planet is a little flatter.

Everyone on our Northwest Pacific Rim coasts knows to never turn our backs to the ocean. Every year sneaker waves sweep beachcombers out to drown at sea. But this tsunami is "like sneaker waves on steroids."

Still some people wander the beaches, thrill seekers - or just clueless.

"Foolish, foolish people," the geology expert on the Oregon television station says.

One of my friends in New York city calls to see if I'm okay. At the end of the call she comments, "We never want to be on the wrong side of nature." Her voice is soft, haunted. She's been watching the CNN coverage of the Japan earthquake and tsunami all day.

What should we do, we wonder. Go to our scheduled meetings? Go stand in line and buy an iPad2? Business as usual?

"Of course, somebody on the radio is talking about End Times... " I say.

"Well, maybe the Mayan calendar is right," she wonders.

"Are you going to keep watching?" I ask.

"I think we should witness this," my friend says firmly. "Keep those who are suffering in our thoughts. And try to learn -- something."

More than volcanic fire and wind, earth is sculpted by water. Perhaps then, it is from water we can at last learn how to shape ourselves in its image. To find inside our own watery selves, a way to live in harmony with the way of the world -- which is water.~

Brenda Peterson is a novelist and nature writer, author of Living by Water: True Stories of Nature and Spirit. Her recent memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth is one ofThe Christian Science Monitor's Top Ten Best Non-fiction Books of 2010. www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com

Please consider the environment before printing

Is Japan's tsunami linked to climate change?
mongabay.com
March 11, 2011

Could the earthquake that triggered Japan's devastating tsunami be linked to climate change?

While it's unlikely that scientists will be able to provide a definitive answer anytime soon and Japan has long been a hotbed of seismic activity, past research suggests there may indeed be a link between climate change and earthquakes in some parts of the world.

Scientists have shown that weight shifts caused by melting glaciers can trigger tectonic activity. As ice melts and waters runs off, tremendous amounts of weight are lifted off Earth's crust. As the newly freed crust settles back to its original, pre-glacier shape, it can cause seismic plates to slip and stimulate volcanic activity, according to research into prehistoric earthquakes and volcanic activity.

The Living Earth and the Living Dead: The Ecology of Vampires

2011-02-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

from "The Vampire Diaries" on CW channel. Stefan as a vampire who wants only to be human.

Dear Readers,

Here is my latest Huffington Post commentary. It's somewhat out-of-the-box -- or should I say coffin? This post managed to make the front page of the Huffington Post's TWILIGHT FEVER page, as well as the ENVIRONMENT section and Green pages. Strange bedfellows? Perhaps not, when you consider that many young people identify with vampires. Why? Is it really the end of us, as my young student suggests?

I've had many comments from readers and friends on this particular post. One I'd like to add is that the vampire craze is not so much about "eternal youth" as it is as "eternal love." What do you think? Why are we so bloody obsessed?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/twilight

The New Yorker's 86th Anniversary: A Look Back

2011-02-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

This week is the 86th Anniversary of The New Yorker magazine, where I served my editorial apprenticeship in the early 1970s under William Shawn's editorship. In my twenties, I learned so much about the craft of editing, writing, and reading -- lessons I still call upon today after 16 books. It was a great blessing to witness such editors as Rachel MacKenzie and Robert Bingham "meeting in the margins" with writing luminaries. My favorite writers were novelist William Trevor, film critic, Pauline Kael, travel maven, Emily Hahn, and the most prescient Jonathan Schell.

The first time I wrote about my years at the magazine, I did so in fiction in my second novel Becoming the Enemy (Graywolf Press, 1988.) Set at an imaginary publishing house among New York's literati, I created characters, some of them drawn from life and others thoroughly fictional. There are stories within stories, character studies of the complicated patron-protege bond, and a portrait of Manhattan in the days before the Web -- when writing and reading was an avocation. And The New Yorker was the world's finest literary magazine.

I've revisited this literary apprenticeship in non-fiction, with a fond, but humorous eye in my new memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind, in the chapter "I Love to Tell the Story." Recently, a very clever and successful journalist, Tim Appello, asked me to imagine what Pauline Kael might think of the current crop of Oscar contenders for Best Picture and Best Director. Here is a link to that article in The Hollywood Reporter.

Stay tuned for more reminiscences from my New Yorker days to celebrate their anniversary this week!

How Pauline Kael Might Vote: No on 'Social Network,' Maybe on 'Black Swan' - The Race

Source: hollywoodreporter.com

How Pauline Kael Might Vote: No on 'Social Network,' Maybe on 'Black Swan'

February

11:19 PM 2/4/2011 by Tim Appelo

Comments

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Pauline Kael's Last Tango typist, author Brenda Peterson, thinks Kael might like Oscar nom Black Swan, but not The Social Network -- and The King's Speech would hit too close to home.

"In the mad monastery of The New Yorker," writes Peterson, "I worked in the typing pool, Walden’s Pond, and stayed late one night because Miss Kael was finishing up an important review. Fervently, she leaned over me as I typed her red-lined prose. She painfully dug her elbows into my shoulders and read aloud, changing words even as I typed her review: phrases like 'thrusting, jabbing eroticism,' and 'the audience was in a state of shock.' "

"So was I. There was palpable electricity running through her. She seemed in an altered state. Her review of this movie, Last Tango in Paris, was muscular and mesmerizing, as passionate as it was prophetic. And even though I didn’t particularly like the movie, Miss Kael’s review explained to me why it was revolutionary."

"I can only guess what Miss Kael might make of the current crop of Oscar nominees. Her editor is right, she might laugh at the excesses of Black Swan; but she might also be engaged by the almost hypnotic sibling rivalry between the women. In its way, it’s a ferocious echo of the sensual, female competition of her Personal Best [she helped writer/director Robert Towne out]."

"Miss Kael struck me as a Luddite so I don’t know if she’d champion Social Network for Best Picture. I do believe she would keenly point out, yet again, the woeful lack of women up for Best Director. And since The New Yorker in the Seventies was so much itself like an aristocratic, Anglophilic asylum where idiosyncrasies were not only allowed but encouraged, The King’s Speech (which I adored) might be too familiar for her to acknowledge as the soaring, somehow humble film it is."

"But what do I know? The still-greatest film critic ever is gone. I miss Pauline Kael’s witty, searingly intelligent reviews. But if I ever worked with her again, I’d bring shoulder pads."

Peterson's 16th book, the new memoir I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, is one of The Christian Science Monitor's Top 10 Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010, and contains more New Yorker reminiscences.

More on What We Learn from Animals: How to Play -- and Howl!

2011-01-22T16:08:00.000-08:00

For those of you who read my 1.21 Huffington Post on "What We Learn from Animals: How to Play" at this link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/what-we-learn-from-animal_b_811800.html

This is my neighbor, Tracey's, dog, LuLu, who is not only beautiful but spirited. She is a joy to walk and "She Who Must Be Obeyed." People will stop their cars and roll down the window to call out their pleasure upon seeing LuLu prancing by. Today, outside the bookstore, an elderly woman said, "Seeing her makes my day!"

Simple, daily joys of animal companionship.

What We Learn from Animals: How to Play

2011-01-22T11:57:00.000-08:00

LuLu, the world's most beautiful dog during a November blizzard in Seattle

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/what-we-learn-from-animal_b_811800.html

What We Learn from Animals: How to Play

Brenda Peterson, 01.21.2011

Author, "I Want to Be Left Behind"

Whenever I'm feeling blue or stressed, I drag out the cat toys or toss the squeaky ball with my neighbor's husky. Watching my Siamese and Tuxedo cats leap, pounce, and pirouette mid-air, I'm suddenly smiling -- and most, importantly, not taking myself so seriously.

LuLu and author at an Oregon beach mid-winter

I have always placed a high value on play. Once, a friend decorated my birthday cake with the inscription. "I play, therefor I am."

I've always considered my decades of studying and encountering wild dolphins, as an apprenticeship to play, learning the lessons of another intelligent species that spends three-quarters of their lives playing. What are our big-brained mammal cousins learning during all the playtime that might teach us how to better survive the stresses of our lives?

Dolphins, like many other species, learn vital survival skills from play -- astonishing navigational teamwork with their family "pods," communication abilities that at times seem almost telepathic, and a buoyant resilience. We humans respond to dolphins with a surge of pleasure and sometimes joy.

In Hawaii, I watched even a boat of scientists burst into laughter when a pod of spinner dolphins flew over our bow, twirling like silver corkscrews.

Our frivolity reminded me of the recent research by Jaak Panksepp, a professor of psychobiology, who documented that animals laughed before humans. Panksepp has studied the happy chirps of rats when playing or tickled. "Human laughter has robust roots in our animalian past," Panksepp said.

In a National Geographic article on "Animals at Play," physician Stuart L. Brown concluded that play is an indicator of psychology health, well-bring, and even survival. Brown cited primatologist Jane Goodall's decades of chimpanzee research in Tanzania's Gombe National Park. Dr. Goodall has described chimpanzees as champions of play. She noted that a sure sign of depression in orphaned chimpanzees was that they stopped playing at all.

Read the rest of this Huffington Post at the above link. And come back here later when I can figure out the technology -- for more video and play photos!

Heavenly Hash: The Sweet Epiphanies of Holiday Feasts

2010-12-24T13:45:00.001-08:00

Photo courtesy NASA The Starburst Galaxy

Dear Friends,

Happy holidays to you all! Here is my Huffington Post by way of a seasonal card. It’s already been picked up by sites as far-flung as USA Today, Dave Letterman's page, S. Korea, India, UK, Thailand, and Ireland. Bon appétit! And may your New Year be magical and heavenly.

All best, Brenda

BIO The Huffington Post

Heavenly Hash: The Sweet Epiphanies of Holiday Feasts

Brenda Peterson | Posted December 24, 2010 | Religion

My mother always taught us that no one should be alone at Christmas and that we must expect miracles and mysteries. She offered these miracles from her Southern kitchen. The petite Madeleines of her Christmas celebrations were her peanut-butter fruitcake, cherry and pineapple fudges. And who could resist the temptation of Mother's meringue-light Divinity, studded with black walnuts?

In the fervent circles of my childhood, food was love ...

(Read more on The Huffington Post) And here are some photos and recipes from the Internet.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/heavenly-hash-the-sweet-e_b_800930.html

Heavenly hash: http://springmontcottage.blogspot.com/2009/11/heavenly-hash.html

Then there is the sugared inspiration of Heavenly Hash. This holiday concoction is an melange of Cool Whip, cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple, marshmallows, and nuts. In a crystal or glass bowl it looks rather like a suspicious mishmash. But if made right -- especially with buttery French-style marshmallows -- this medley of fruits and nuts sings on the tongue.

Another favorite was Russian tea, a concoction of citrus Tang, and Lipton's black tea. This spicy brew was always served on our Christmas Eve with Mother's homemade sausage cookies. Battered balls of sharp cheese, sausage, Jiffy Biscuit Mix and milk -- these salty cookies cut the glut of too much sugar.

Food.com

http://www.food.com/recipe/sausage-breakfast-cookies-103611/photo?aid=54958

As one of my Jewish friends, who sampled my mother's Divinity, says, "Isn't food one of the primary reasons to be here on earth? Maybe that's what Eve and the apple were all about -- nothing to do with good and evil, or knowledge, but food, glorious food."

Why Wolves Matter: The Green World Theory

2010-12-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

USFWS Biologist Joe Fontaine with Gray wolf pup from the first litter born to Yellowstone wolves
credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

My new Huffington Post commentary on wolves and the politics of hunting and conservation is just published at this link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/why-wolves-matter-the-gre_b_790616.html

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In the cold, dawn light of Yellowstone's Lamar Valley, I watched the Crystal Creek wolf pack at play. It was 1995, and these were the first wolves to return to Yellowstone in 60 years. Fifteen years ago, we had no idea of how successful and popular wolf reintroduction would be. Or how wolves would revitalize this damaged ecosystem -- astonishingly increasing the health of everything from trees to songbird populations.

That morning, the vast, panoramic meadow below was abloom with spring wildflowers as the Crystal Creek alpha male and female loped across the green meadows, followed by their rambunctious pups.

"This is history in the making," said Park ranger and wolf researcher Rick McIntyre, as he let us take turns watching the wolf pack through his spotting telescope. "Our children will thank us for this."

McIntyre, author of The War Against the Wolf: America's Campaign to Exterminate the Wolf, had no way of knowing then that from these few small bands of wolves returned to Yellowstone in 1995, there would now be 1,650 in the Northern Rockies. But this still is far from original pre-hunting numbers; and only five percent of their former range.

"Look!" he pointed excitedly. "Over on the far ridge . . . do you see the grizzly?" (READ MORE at

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/why-wolves-matter-the-gre_b_790616.html

Here are a few photos to illustrate that article from respected wolf researcher, Cristina Eisenberg, author of the ground-breaking book The Wolf's Tooth and from Rick McIntyre whose book, The War Against the Wolf is a classic. I wrote about wolf reintroduction in Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals and have followed this issue over the last decade. Please get involved in wolf conservation. Visit the Huffington Post and contact your Congressional representatives to ask them to stop any bill to delist wolves from the Endangered Species List. And to stop any renewed wolf hunts in the Northern Rockies.

Wolf pup and ranges in Yellowstone, circa 1995 First wolf reintroduction

Wolf pack, Colorado, photo credit: Cristina Eisenberg, author of The Wolf's Tooth

Wolves howling. photo credit: Cristina Eisenberg

TO GET INVOLVED, PLEASE VISIT: http://www.nrdc.org/media/2010/101004.asp

A La Recherche du Cheese Perdu. Fall FOOD issue of LOST magazine

2010-10-27T23:17:00.000-07:00

pimento cheese recipe from the Amateur Gourmet

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2010/03/pimiento_cheese.html

A La Recherche du Cheese Perdu

http://www.lostmag.com/issue39/cheese.php

Here is my new original piece in the current FOOD issue of LOST magazine

Bon appetit!

Pimento Cheese sandwiches are the petite Madeleines of my childhood. My mother is a splendid

Southern cook who taught herself "from scratch." The first time she made chocolate chip cookies

as a girl, she proudly mixed the sticky batter and then deposited a thick mound of chocolate-studded

dough onto a cookie sheet. She watched through her General Electric oven's glass window and waited

patiently for the little mountain of dough to separate into two dozen perfect cookies.

When my mother married — after an exciting stint as a World War II telegrapher on the Wabash

Cannonball railroad — she followed her brand new Betty Crocker cookbook with some inventions

of her own.

"I was determined to fatten your father up," mother tells the story. "After all, that was my job back

in those days. That, and having you kids."

She took to her recipe books with the same zeal with which she had aced Morse code — a language

she remembers to this day. By the time I, her firstborn conceived on the honeymoon, was eating

real food, my mother's counter boasted a handy metal file of index cards with recipes begged,

borrowed, never stolen. Her archives were a gold mine coveted by other cooks.

The colorful little tabs were labeled with complimentary dishes:

East Indian Chicken and curried sweet potatoes

Sausage cookies and sweet pickle ChowChow

Barbecued butter beans and hot, wilted lettuce

Peanut-butter fruitcake, cherry and pineapple fudge

Divinity spiked with black walnuts.

These specialty nuts Mother bought from a black market of housewives in Georgia. She would

clandestinely receive a burlap sack of these smoky, almost bitter nuts. Their shells were so hard

she flopped the bag on our driveway and ran over them with the family station wagon to crack

them open.

Since we lived my early years on a U.S. Forest Service station in the High Sierra, surrounded

by more wild animals than possible dinner guests, my mother experimented with the game my

forester father brought home. The lean, sweet meat of the majestic moose was "mooseghetti"

with a spicy marina; venison was ground into lean burgers; and elk was our weekly pot roast

garnished with dill potatoes.

Growing up on game as my own body flexed its muscles and stretched its bones, left me forever

unable to become a vegetarian. Every time I try to go from carnivore to gentle grazer, I succumb

to the family heritage: anemia.

That's where cheese comes in. It is my protein of choice. And because of cheese I can survive on

just a few helpings of meat a week. Cheese is my one vice. I have no sweet tooth; and, coming

from generations of tea-totallers, I cannot process alcohol. I had to give up caffeine in 1986

when I became "allergic to my own adrenalin," as the doctor marveled. So, of necessity, I am

moderate in most all things. The only time I ever understand addictions is when it comes to cheese.

Gotta have it!

When I lived in New York City I stood in line for so long awaiting my special dill havarti that I

fainted. But the crush of the crowd held me upright.

"Diabetic?" a kindly shopper asked me. "Need orange juice?"

"No," I managed to revive. "Cheese … smoked gouda, please."

The recent boom in specialty cheese counters at such "foodie" hang-outs as Whole Foods and

even now local farmers' markets, boggle my mind. As I cruise through, I sample tempting cheese

bits with a pleasure that is part connoisseur, part junkie.

Here in the Pacific Northwest where I've lived for over two decades, there are celebrated creameries

whose cheeses draw coven-like converts. I call their hand-crafted cheeses by name like a mantra:

Rogue River Blue, Mt. Townsend "Sea Stack" and Cowgirl Creamery's Devil's Gulch with its spicy,

dried red pepper flake rind.

But one shopping trip I dared to ask a sacrilegious question of our Cheese Master at the urban temple

of our high-end food market.

"Say, do you ever carry Pimento Cheese spread?"

"What?" the Cheese Master snapped. "A spread?" He shook his head as if I had proposed

something obscene. But wasn't peppery cheese a perfectly respectable combination?

"My mother makes it," I said. "It's got a kick … a little spicy and …. "

"Never heard of it!" The Master dismissed me and turned to an elegant shopper in line behind me.

His world was righted when she ordered a Camembert.

I was familiar with this Master and had always enjoyed his Beardesque generosity in helping me

adventure through the rich territory of my favorite food. I never expected he would be such a

cheese snob.

James Beard, you are not! I wanted to tell the Master; but instead I plucked up a respectably aged

Irish cheddar. Then I skulked around the supermarket like a heretic to find roasted pimentos in a jar.

As I stood before colorful jars of Italian roasted pimentos, I straightened my shoulders and stood tall.

There was nothing wrong with wanting a food that summons up all that was most wonderful about

my childhood. Proust never apologized for dipping those rather pedestrian butter cookies into his

tea and opening a time-traveling portal.

Why not me? And why not with Pimento Cheese? Why had this blessing from my childhood

cuisine disappeared? Why had it not conquered and captured the imagination of the American table?

Right there in the super market, I called my mother on my cell.

"Are there any top-secret ingredients to your Pimento Cheese?" I asked her.

My mother worked for 17 years at the C.I.A. I don't know what she did, except she had a top

security clearance and worked in a vault that locked at night. Every Christmas she still gives us

C.I.A. memorabilia, like travel mugs, t-shifts, and little silver boxes that open into a pen and

calculator set — if one can figure out the puzzle.

"There are a few secrets to pimento cheese," mother said. "And use the very best cheddar you

can find."

Check.

"Then find fire-roasted pimentos. I make my own special dressing: Heat two tablespoons of

flour and two egg yolks in a saucepan until bubbly. Add a little vinegar, salt, red pepper, and

of course, dry mustard — that really gives it some pizzazz! Stir in ¾ cup milk and some butter,

heat on low.

And here's the secret — add two tablespoons of sugar," she laughed. "Remember, your

grandmother always said that everything goes better — even vegetables — with just a bit

of sugar."

I knew this last ingredient would make the Cheese Master wince. But happily I zipped around

the market gathering all I needed. And to add to my mother's recipe I found a fabulous one in

The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock. They write: "There's not a

big tradition of hors d'oeuvre in the South," famous for its "dry" counties. "Drinks before

dinner — and anytime — are considered a scandal … 'pimento cheese' on a cracker or with

celery sticks is a terrific cocktail nibble."

Of course, these experts advise making one's own mayonnaise. Well, that's not in my league

or in this lifetime.

I am culinary-impaired. Always anxious in the kitchen, I stock my oven with organic kibbles

for my two cats, blue corn chips, and peanut butter pretzels to slake my salt tooth. My

microwave doubles as a breadbox. Though my fridge's cheese keeper is full of stiltons, blues,

and brie, the other shelves are scantily stocked: take-out Thai, cold cuts, organic veggies,

Russian borscht and piroshkies from my friend, Dianochka. She is an inspired chef who cooks

for her family and brings me delicacies every Tuesday night after singing. She has helped me

understand food as more than fuel for a pit stop between computers.

Then there was my first editor, the legendary cuisine guru, Judith Jones, who discovered Julia

Child and James Beard. Judith's own bestselling book The Pleasures of Cooking for One has

an entire chapter devoted to "The Seduction of Cheese." Unlike my Southern style of eating

Pimento Cheese as prelude to any meal, Judith ends her meal with cheese each night when

she dines alone.

Girded by all these culinary guides, I decided to attempt to make my own pimento cheese. Yes

it's like playing chopsticks on the piano. But maybe if I can sing, I can also do two-fingered cooking

In The Gift of Southern Cooking by Miss Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock, two of Judith's famed chefs,

I found a Pimento Cheese recipe; it is also posted online at The Amateur Gourmet. Shooing my cats

off the counter, I grated the Irish cheddar, but with some effort. Judith recommends a carpenter's rasp

for grating cheese. Then I folded in the mayonnaise, seasoned with salt, cayenne, and black pepper.

I reverently spread the Pimento Cheese on artisan bread, a fresh baguette from our world-famous

neighborhood Bakery Nouveau. I garnished it with sweet, chunky Persian cucumbers and pickled

asparagus from our Sunday farmer's market. Then I enjoyed smoked salmon chowder from our

local Pike Place Chowder. Voila!

So as they say in the South — I was lost … but now? The spicy, sharp and creamy aroma of cheddar

harmonizing with the peppery tang of pimentos. A la recheche du temps perdu. Cheese as the

voluptuous communion, the body as soul.

AUTHOR BIO:

BRENDA PETERSON is the author of 16 books, includingDuck and Cover, a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year." Her new memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, is just out and was selected as an "IndieNext" Top Pick by independent booksellers nationwide. Read more at http://www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com.

Buy Brenda Peterson's books through Amazon at the LOST Store.

Articles in this Issue

Introduction, by the Editors
Monkey Head Soup, by Charles Lindsay
Barbarians at the Hotel Bar, by Edward Chupack
Desert Survival, by Craig Childs
A La Recherché du Cheese Perdu, by Brenda Peterson
Heaven on the Half Shell, by Andrew Beahrs
A Hog Butchering, by Thorpe Moeckel
Lamb Shanks Roasted in Paper, by One Ring Zero
Lemon Meringue Pie, by Alan Huffman
Making Sajur Lodeh, by Julie Lauterbach-Colby
Lost Meals, by Phil Buehler
It's Seaweed Weather!, by Wendy Noritake
The Ingot, by Edward Hardy
My All-American Bacchanal's Deep-Fried Remains, by Nick Kolakowski
The Last Supper, by Susan Buttenwieser
The Spoils Room, by T. D.
A Taste for Tonka, by Ramin Ganeshram
Recipe Cards, by Ted Weinstein

We Are Pod: Dolphins as Elders and Teachers

2010-10-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

Dolphins Leaping in California surf

My new Huffington Post commentary is out as a featured post on GREEN and on WORLD/Japan. Please send this around to your contacts, post to your FaceBook pages, and comment on the Huff. It lets the Huff Post know that readers care about our oceans and wildlife. And for readers of this blog, I’ve added an excerpt about Hawaiian spinner dolphins I encountered that first appeared in my book, Sister Stories (Viking/Penguin paperback)

THE HUFFINGTON POST
OCTOBER 13, 2010

FEATURED POSTS

1 of 6

Japan: Stop Killing Our Evolutionary Elders and Help Save Our Oceans

Brenda Peterson, 10.12.2010

Author, "I Want to Be Left Behind"

Instead of changing their environment to fit themselves, dolphins have adapted to a changing ocean.

That's what wise elders teach their young: Cultures change. Oceans change. We must change, as well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/japan-stop-killing-our-ev_b_759995.html

Why Dolphins are another Reason to Be Left Behind

(Excerpted from Sister Stories “Sister as Pod and Pachyderm” (Viking/Penguin)

While on a humpback whale research trip in Hawaii, I had the great good fortune to kayak into a warm-water bay and find myself suddenly surrounded by a pod of sleek spinner dolphins.

            “We’re in the middle of their nursery,” our kayak guide whispered as we paddled slowly through deep, turquoise waters.

            Six dorsal fins swam close behind me, their twoosh, twoosh, a fast, intimate exhalation, like a musical, synchronized sigh.

            Then there were more dolphin inspirations as thirty or so spinners swam close, circling us. At the sight of so many wild dolphins, I leaned over in wonder and capsized. Plunged underwater, I was laughing so much I swallowed salty gulps of ocean. Then I heard them, that familiar, high-pitched click and whir like a cross between a Geiger counter and a small jet engine. I floated, holding my breath and listening and smiling as the nursery pod circled me, spinning through the waves.

            Whenever I encounter wild dolphins, I can feel the communication. First, there is that calming quiet of my nervous system as I leave gravity above and float –- warm water like an intimate second skin perfect and complete embrace of me.

Then there is the dolphin signature whistling and sonar like a much-loved song, lulling and caressing my body from the inside outwards, along each limb until my fingers and toes feel radiant, electric. Ecstasy eases into every ache and hidden hurt in my body and I stretch out as if in a serene, flying dream. Only, this rapture is underwater and accompanied by the clicking, kind scrutiny of an alien intelligence I can only begin to fathom.

            The dolphins always surprise me with their tenderness. I tried to synchronize my breathing with the dolphins and when I lifted my face, I saw several spinners leaping up, somersaulting, then diving back into the sea, their wake splashing over my back. I attempted my human version of a signature whistle, complete with rapid-fire gurgles and bleeps. It seemed to amuse and interest the nursery pod because they all suddenly cruised closer in a dazzling display of acrobatic dolphin dance.

            Imagine dozens of dolphins speeding by in a blur of silver and gray skin, ultrasound, and curve of fin, streaking past in one breath, as if one body. Inside my body their speed and sound registers like a trillion ricochets, tiny vibrations echoing off my ribs, within each lobe of my lungs, and spinning inside my labyrinthine brain like new synapses.

            Then I was alone for a moment. I drifted through the depths so lost in this watery dreamtime that my mind was also adrift. It is always during these meditative underwater moments that the dolphins seem most to cherish their human companions. Suddenly I saw out of the corner of each eye three dolphins flanking me –- and among them were several tiny dorsal fins –- newborns guarded by their nursery pod.

I was accepted inside their pod, surrounded by fast spinners who slowed to accompany my pace. They kept me in their exact center for what seemed an hour, and it was only then that I understood what it feels like to be fully adopted into the deep, welcoming physical communion of dolphins.

            I am pod, I felt, with no sense of my single self. I belong.

            Mystics may call it divine union, this melding of minds, bodies, and souls, this solitude that suddenly opens into the solace of We are one.

            Dolphins are known to be self-aware; they also show us this soul-mingling and connection, which our human species only glimpses in rare spiritual insights. Perhaps this is what dolphins have spent their long evolution achieving:

Instead of changing their environment around them, they have changed themselves; those big brains are attuning themselves to one another and the natural world. Maybe that’s what they’ve been doing these thirty million years longer than humans have been around: seeking to survive together as a whole. Meanwhile, we’ve been battling and selecting who among us will survive, never imagining that we are all humans, all one pod.

(Excerpted from Sister Stories “Sister as Pod and Pachyderm” (Viking/Penguin paperback)

War Games R Us

2010-09-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

(From Medal of Honor 2 / Heroes)

As a native Californian, when I got transplanted to the South, all the rules of our childhood games changed. Suddenly we were at war and as an outsider I had to play the despised Yankee. Maybe this time, the Confederacy would win? In Virginia, the Old Dominion, the Civil War was still dominating our imaginations. It was 1960, the Civil Rights Act was four years away; schools and buses and bathrooms were still marked “colored.” When we ragtag Yankee kids laid siege to a well-stocked tree fort of Confederate children, chestnuts rained down on our heads. Always, we were defeated. No matter that history said otherwise.

I was thinking about growing up playing war games in the forests of my childhood after I read a recent New York Times magazine article, "War Games." I was so surprised by the statistics about virtual war far outpacing any real connection or even interest in the two wars our country is fighting, that I wrote a Huffington Post.

Video games and how they shape our imaginations, our abilities to mediate conflict, and our psychological health, have long concerned me. In 1996 I wrote an article for New Age Journal "Healing Visual Violence."

I tell the story of a friend's 12-year-old son who, until recently, was addicted to video games. His grades were plummeting and he blamed this on his teacher, Miss Haines. Every afternoon he'd sit in front of his video games and imagine that with every "kill" he was getting rid of Miss Haines and all of his school problems.

One day, Miss Haines didn't appear at school, and the substitute gently told the students she had died from an aneurysm. Freddie was guilt-stricken, convinced his video game assassinations had reached out through virtual reality and killed his teacher. A kind of child-like voodoo.

Freddie gave away all his video games and is now afraid to enter cyberspace. This is affecting his schoolwork and his learning skills. But he is haunted and depressed. He wonders if Miss Haines would still be alive if he had not targeted her in his game. And from time to time now, Freddie contemplates suicide.

A survey estimated that by the end of elementary school, the average child has already witnessed 8,000 screen murders and more than 100,00 acts of TV or film violence; those numbers have dramatically increased with war games. The Columbine High School boys who massacred their teachers and classmates in 1999, were immersed in the first-person shooter games of the popular “Doom” video. Almost a decade later, the boom in virtual warriors is staggering.

Added to the sky-rocketing sales of virtual war games like “Medal of Honor,” which is advertised as “authentically” set in Afghanistan, there is a truly disturbing (and highly marketable) series of war videos based on the violent End Times novels by Tim LeHaye. “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” is religious warfare in the streets of post-apocalyptic New York. Virtual warriors can command their fundamentalist paramilitary armies to convert opponents. Sound like the Crusades in cyberspace? Pray or die.

At least there is some real emotion in the screenshot below from Left Behind: Eternal Forces. But the battle armor and the other images of paramilitary forces battling for souls with automatic weapons is disturbing.

(screenshot from left Behind: Eternal Forces)

There was much criticism when these “Left Behind” war games were first released in 2006, especially when reports that this Christian fundamentalist game was actually being provided to American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan – Muslim nations.

Religious war, with its simplistic “God on our Side” morality is the most toxic of all. So why recreate it in our virtual imaginations? What does this kind of religious insensitivity and intolerance say about Americans – the demographic who most buys video war games?

After the media got wind of the Pentagon's plans to distribute to troops in the field, the "Left Behind" war games of Armageddon battles and soldiers fighting the AntiChrist -- something wonderful happened. The "Left Behind" games garnered intense criticism. Left Behind games stocks tanked and there were even a few firings. Thank God. Here's a link to that controversy at the excellent website: Talk to Action:

But the fact still remains, as the 9.11 anniversary September 12, 2010 issue of New York Times magazines reveals, that war video games are still reaping huge profits.

And the military has sent off its soldiers with video war games like "Conflict: Desert Storm" in their backpacks. Are war games being used as a recruiting tool for young men who believe they will triumphantly march from virtual victory to real war?

A media report "War Games: Thinking Critically About Video Games That Play at War" offers in-class discussion of how these games might be "propaganda" and asks "what information or aspects of war do these images ignore or gloss over?"

Is it war profiteering? And when these war games are marketed to teenagers, like Freddie, how does it shape their ability to face conflict in their real worlds? Does it limit their options, their survival skills? And what about bullying – the bane of school poltics?

We’ve come a long way from the Civil Wars of my childhood, the tree forts and acorns and Yankee-Rebel battles. One of my therapist friends tells me that he always asks his clients:

“If you had to describe your inner wars, what historic war would it most resemble?”

“The Revolutionary War,” a majority of his teenage clients answered who were struggling for their own independence.

“Oh, the Civil War, for sure,” those clients who were more mature responded.

They realized that the most intimate evil and most elusive enemies are often hidden in one’s own shadows. These clients were engaged in the difficult and brave art of not projecting their own demons onto the outside world or The Other.

After all these decades, I’m still fighting the Civil War, but I realize it is a life-long internal struggle. My wars are within me. Just like God.~

“War Games,” New York Times magazine link:

“War as Entertainment: The Real, the Game, and the Ugly Truth” on Huffington Post:Huffington Post

Media Education Foundation "War Games: Thinking Critically About Video Games That Play at War" download pdf.

"Healing Visual Violence" by Brenda Peterson, New Age Journal, December, 1996