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WOMAN AND NATURE -- THE ROARING INSIDE HER |
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The ways of thought are never simple to trace; all along, my thinking has been part of the thinking of other women. (And in this I use "think" as it is constructed in Chinese calligraphy: "brain" and "heart" together.) * What I learned of the necessities of daily life from the women of my family, the work necessary to keep house together and raise children -- all that women know of naming feeling while we live in a culture that misnames and mistakes what we experience -- goes into this book. In particular this book was generated in the midst of a time and space defined by the words and images of other women and this as part of a feminist movement which has made such a time and space possible. This book could not have been written otherwise. And so my greatest debt is to women who are part of this movement, now and a hundred or many hundred years ago. I will name a few who helped me with this writing. My editor, Fran McCullogh, has been wise and supportive throughout this writing and I am deeply grateful for her brilliance and her grace; Adrienne Rich, through her work and her profoundly generous friendship and her insight, has been present in all this writing, and these two women in the sometimes very difficult years of writing the book truly sustained this effort. Let me also thank Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie for their warm friendship and constant encouragement, and their continually inspiring turns of mind. This must be said also for Frances Jaffe and Mark Linenthal and Beverly Dahlen. June Jordan has been deeply understanding and supportive. Tillie Olsen, Kathleen Barry, Kathleen Fraser, Rena Rosenwasser, Pat Loomes, Karen Petersen, J. J. Wilson, Thalia Kitrilakis, Barbara Christian, Gloria Bowles, Carol Murray, Valerie Miner, Mary Mackey, Kate Millett, Alta, Ruth Rosen, Nancy Scott, Helene Wenzel, Joan Levinson, Harriet Whitehead, Sandy Boucher, Barbara McClandish, Nancy Snow, Judith Van Allen and Eve Merriam all read parts of the manuscript, and gave me both encouraging and helpful critical response. I want especially to thank Michelle Cliff for her understanding of this work and her close readings of it, and for her continual kind support. Carol Smith Rosenberg has also been deeply supportive and her scholarship and writing on the history of women has been illuminating; she directed me to important sources, as did Robin Morgan. Conversations with Claire Fischer and with Florence Rush were very helpful to me. Both Nancy Reeves and Mary Felstiner spoke with me about the history of science. Carolyn Iltis, a science historian with brilliant insights, shared some of her knowledge with me and gave me courage by the example of her work. This book could not exist had I not read Mary Daly's Beyond God the Father, which opened ways of thinking for me. And I thank her for her reading of my manuscript and for wonderful and amazing dialogues. Audre Lorde's essay "Poems Are Not Luxuries," published in Chrysalis magazine, had a deep influence, as did conversations with Susan Sherman. Monique Wittig aided me with a translation, and through her own work and thought. Let me thank Ellen Lewin for her help with medical research and Charlene Spretnak for providing me with clippings and references. Wendell and Tanya Berry discussed this question of woman and nature with me and generously helped me in my efforts to observe the effects of strip mines in Kentucky. The editors of the Mountain Eagle showed me some of the damage from the strip mines in the Cumberland Mountains. Joan Medlin helped me with preparing the footnotes and bibliography for this work. I wish also to thank Fanchon Lewis for her fine typing of the manuscript, and her patience. And I must thank the instructors for "Environmental Issues," a course in the Department of Agriculture at the University of California at Berkeley, for asking me, almost four years ago, to deliver a lecture on women and ecology, thus beginning my thinking in this direction. And I thank the National Endowment for the Arts for a grant which allowed me the time and space to do much of this writing. Finally, there is much work and writing by women that is not mentioned directly in these pages but has shaped these words. I think especially of the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, the novels of Virginia Woolf, the poetry of Josephine Miles, so often hearing on these concerns; of Diane di Prima, Joanna Griffin, the writing of Annie Dillard. There is so much that is not visible from others in this book that still is here, and I thank those spirits. _______________ * I owe this observation to Diane Wolff, Chinese Writing (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1975).
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