Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Nature and Me Make Two: The Genesis of Biophilia
By Dennis Liu: While the identities we don are deeply personal, their effects resonate in public, profoundly impacting our families and friends, our communities, and ultimately nations and societies. Two twentieth-century scholars, German-US social psychologist Erich Fromm (1900–1980) and US biologist E. O. Wilson (1930–2022), despite highly divergent backgrounds and training, converged on the importance…
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The Great Blasket Island, Storytelling, and the Environment
By Matthias Egeler & Anna Pilz: We are standing on the headland of Dunmore Head on the western edge of Dingle Peninsula, on the western edge of Ireland, on the western edge of Europe. One moment, the slope is speckled with light, the next it is in the shadow of a heavy rain cloud. Then…
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Insects as Inspiration
By Jan Goedbloed My name is Jan, I am now 67 years old. I studied biology between 1969 and 1976, and then could not find a job. I helped start a bird hospital, and then worked as an educational assistant in a natural history museum where I tried to incorporate nature meditation.
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Overcoming the Fear Factor: Teaching and Learning about Insects and Biodiversity
By Tony Weis Insects have fascinated Nina Zitani for as long as she can remember. She vividly recalls making her first bug collection at age five, and searching for insects and other arthropods in her backyard and nearby forests in Moorestown, New Jersey, throughout her childhood.
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Feeling Eco-Adventurous? An Interview with Author John Morano
John Morano is a professor of journalism at Monmouth University in New Jersey. He has written four novels in his Eco-Adventure Series, as well as a textbook for film critics, Don’t Tell Me the Ending! He is currently working on his fifth novel, a story about endangered wolves. What motivated your transition from journalism to…
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The Last Kindred Spirit of Moths and Butterflies
By Susanne Schmitt and Birgit Müller We are standing in a hallway across from a hidden treasure: the world’s largest collection of butterflies and moths, holding about 13 million specimens. Some parts of the collection date back to the 1760s; some historic sections have been carefully gathered and annotated by the likes of explorer and…
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Where Have All the Insects Gone?
For many of us, engaging with insects doesn’t extend much beyond swatting away flies and mosquitoes, or calling on bigger and braver friends to deposit unwanted “visitors†outside. And yet, as E.O. Wilson observed, it is we who are the visitors in “a primarily invertebrate world.â€
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Making Tracks: Chris Cokinos
By Chris Cokinos Intention is a funny thing, especially when it comes to creative work. Intention can become something forced; it can become an attachment to outcome at the expense of actually giving into the work itself. There’s a phrase from Taoist philosophy—wu wei. Wu wei means working without effort. Flow.