Category: Health and Wellness

The Path We Choose

On By Susan FeathersIn Citizen Action, Culture, Democracy, Health and Wellness, Nature, Politics, Spiritual2 Comments
Paths We Trek
Paths We Trek
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Book Sales and Readings in Tucson

On By Susan FeathersIn Books, Citizen Science, Community, Culture, Frank Waters Foundation, Health and Wellness, Nature, Sustainable Food Production, Sustainable Society, University Research, Youth EmpowermentLeave a comment

Tomorrow I will be a Bookman’s on Wilmot and Speedway from Noon to 2 pm for their Authors’ Fair. Hope you can drop by and chat and take a look at Threshold.

If you have a church group or book club that might wish to read a story about Tucson, with familiar settings and characters, give me a call at: 520-400-4117 or email me at susanleefeathers@gmail.com

Threshold makes an enormous contribution to contemporary literature by teaching readers—in engaging and utterly consumable terms—about the physics of “the planet’s human induced fever.” Susan Feathers stages the need to know as part of the narrative dynamic. Key characters —academics, school teachers, museum biologists—understand only too well the processes by which the earth is growing hotter, while others don’t. The latter are in some cases too young or inexperienced to know; in other cases they’re complacent or too far in denial to face them. Those who know teach those who don’t. Through lively dialogues concerning, for example, how sunlight gets converted to electricity; or how oceans absorb solar energy; or how neighborhoods can set up electrical generating systems, we learn along with the characters. We’re invited to go through the same processes of recognition and assimilation that the various students in the story experience. READ A REVIEW     ~ Mary Lawlor, Muhlenberg College

 

Threshold – Readings Scheduled in Tucson

On By Susan FeathersIn Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community, Environment, Ethics, Health and WellnessLeave a comment

Starting in November, I will be reading from Threshold, my new novel published by Fireship Press. I hope to schedule many kinds of readings from bookstores, to organizations, to private book clubs in Tucson, Phoenix, and the region. I am also happy to talk with nonprofit groups working toward similar goals who may wish to fund raise with the boo–a portion of the book sales to go to your mission.

November 12 I will read and discuss the book at the Annual Membership Meeting of the Tucson Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, PSA Chapter Arizona, to be held at the Amity Foundation.

PSR Arizona works toward a sustainable society, mitigating climate change through clean energy production, resiliency building among neighborhoods, and a nuclear weapon-free world.  PSR developed Climate Smart Southwest, a training program for neighborhood leaders and associations to begin to build relationships and knowledge in their residents for combat climate change and also to work toward more sustaining ways of living. Clean energy, local food production, and emergency procedures are all part of the training. The hope is that Tucson and the region will  respond to climate change with a blend of old and new technologies that will protect people’s health while building a sustainable future in the Southwest.

In Threshold characters are dealing with impending water shortage while managing frequent power failures in the Southwest during increasingly hot temperatures. Hyperthermia and heat stroke are common, and without specific knowledge and action on the part of citizens, an increase in fatalities shocks the community. As the story progresses characters make decisions, allowing readers to consider what they might do in similar conditions, or how their own community can plan to mitigate climate change in their own region.

Other Scheduled Readings:

November – Reading at Private Home with Neighbors and Book Club

November 12 – Annual Meeting of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, Tucson Chapter, at the Amity Foundation

November 19, 12- 2 pm, Bookman’s, Tucson at Speedway and Wilmot

November 26 – COAS Bookstore, Las Cruces, Book Signing

December 19 – National Writers Union, Tucson Chapter at Bookman’s

March – Date TBA – Mission Garden, Tucson’s Birthplace

 

This September of Our Lives

On By Susan FeathersIn Art and Culture, Childhood, Health and Wellness, Science and Mind, Spiritual2 Comments
Petroglyph
Petroglyph

My cultural heritage is one of linearity. Americans progress, move forward, dream of the future and its possibilities. Yet, this conceptualization of time is not shared by many cultures on earth.

Now, some westerners are reconsidering whether time is linear. Einstein demonstrated that space and time bend at certain velocities of light. Physicists document the structure of the universe as part of “parallel universes.” It might be possible one day to travel in a worm hole to other times, future or past.

In Threshold, Luna Lopez, a Tohono O’odham youth, is learning basket-making from an elder. She discovers the recurring pattern of a maze on her teacher’s baskets and queries what it means. Rather than tell her outright, Mrs. Romero tells an old Pima story. Luna is left to interpret it in her own life.

As the narrative unfolds, Luna recognizes circularity in things around her: seasons, natural history of trees and plants, and her own circulation system. She begins to intuit that the “man in the maze” is about her inner life.

Does time bend each September allowing us to return to it, to perhaps increase our understanding? If so, let us approach it with reverence.

 

 

Threshold: Waatteerr!

On By Susan FeathersIn Climate Change, Health and WellnessLeave a comment

water imageNumerous American films portray the desert as a place where victims crawl across the sand, silently screaming –  “WAAATTTERRRR!”

There is nothing worse, or more dangerous, than thirst. Without enough water, anyone crossing or living in a desert region will become dehydrated. Athletes have to pay attention to the hydration of their body or risk serious health risks. If the weather or climate is also hot and dry, it is even easier to become dangerously overheated.

How much water do we need each day? We have all been advised to drink 8 glasses of water per day. Another rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces. Most of us do not drink that amount. We walk around dehydrated and functioning below our maximum energy level.

Heat stroke or hyperthermia has been identified as the two most dangerous health impacts of climate change on populations living in hot, dryland habitat. See how Tucson, Arizona professional community is addressing this with citizens:

citizens-guide-resilience-climate-extremes