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- [00:00]
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- [00:15]
Rachel Martin
What's something you still feel you need to prove to people you meet?
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Terry Tempest Williams
What comes into my mind, if I'm honest, the minute you ask that question, is that I'm not crazy. We all have powers, and I. We all tamp them down so that we're not too big, we're not too much, we're not too smart, we're not too sensitive. So I think just being a woman in a misogynist culture, I think. I don't know if we have to prove we're not crazy, but we're always being asked if we are. Yeah. Or treated as if we are.
- [01:00]
Rachel Martin
Hi, I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. Questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one question back on me. My guest this week is the writer Terry Tempest Williams.
- [01:18]
Terry Tempest Williams
I called my father, you know, a month before the book came out, and I said, dad, I'm so worried it will be read as gossip in our neighborhood. You know, it's, have I told things I shouldn't have about the church and about family? I'm so nervous. And he goes, worry about it. No one's going to read it anyway.
- [01:34]
Rachel Martin
I first met Terry Tempest Williams about 25 years ago at a writers conference I was covering as a young reporter. Terry was raised in the Mormon Church, but she had created a more expansive kind of spirituality for herself that made a huge impression on me. To this day, Terry's writing always reorients me towards what is good, what is beautiful, and what is true. Her new book is called the Glorians. And I am so very happy to welcome Terry Tempest Williams to Wildcard.
- [02:01]
Terry Tempest Williams
Hi. Hi, Rachel. It's so good to see you. It's so good to see you. I have on my cowboy boots in honor of our shared Interior West.
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Rachel Martin
Interior West. Okay, so we're gonna get right into it. Memories. Round one. Terry, I'm gonna hold up three cards. You just pick randomly.
- [02:20]
Terry Tempest Williams
Okay.
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Rachel Martin
One, two, or three. However the spirit moves you. One, two, three.
- [02:25]
Terry Tempest Williams
Hmm. Let's say one. Let's do it.
- [02:29]
Rachel Martin
What activity gave you a sense of freedom as a kid?
- [02:35]
Terry Tempest Williams
Watching clouds. Watching clouds. I don't know if that would be viewed as an activity in terms of physicality. But I do remember lying on our front lawn for hours, watching clouds really and just shape shift. And seeing animals morph into birds, morph into fish, alligators, you know, profiles of people that I knew. It was a companion to my imagination. And I felt completely free.
- [03:07]
Rachel Martin
Did a grown up show you how to do that? Or do you remember being instructed in some way about how to use your imagination? Or is it just. You just saw things?
- [03:21]
Terry Tempest Williams
It wasn't an instruction. It was being pulled upward, you know. But I do remember my grandmother. We called her Mimi. We would always lay on what she called the. It was like a chaise lounge, you know, on her couches. And we would listen to music or we would listen to bird calls. She was quite extraordinary. And then one day, I remember she. She said, terry, just let your mind go blank. And I tried so hard, Rachel, and my mind would not go blank. And I thought, what is wrong with me? And I just said, mimi, I can't quiet my mind. I can't. It doesn't go blank. And I don't remember what she said, but I think it somehow connected to the clouds. Because when I was watching clouds shape shift, my mind was completely present and focused. And that was the closest I could come to having an empty mind.
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NPR Sponsor Announcer
Yeah.
- [04:26]
Rachel Martin
Okay, let's keep going. Three more cards. One. Two or three?
- [04:31]
Terry Tempest Williams
Three.
- [04:33]
Rachel Martin
Were you obsessed with a particular cosmic question as a kid?
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Terry Tempest Williams
Was I obsessed with a particular cosmic question?
- [04:46]
Rachel Martin
You can define cosmic however you want.
- [04:50]
Terry Tempest Williams
I was incapacitated by ritual.
- [04:54]
Rachel Martin
Incapacitated by ritual.
- [04:57]
Terry Tempest Williams
I had to perform my own rituals, or I felt the world would be out of balance, or something would happen to our family. We would go to Capistrano every year, like the swallows. We would return, and before we left, I just remember my father honking or my uncle honking with all the kids in the station wagons because I knew I had to be the last one. And I would go down to the water and I would perform these hand patterns at the edge of the sea. And then I would know that we could return again. And if I didn't, something would happen.
- [05:30]
Rachel Martin
So this is borderline superstitious.
- [05:34]
Terry Tempest Williams
It was not even superstitious. It was. This was my belief.
- [05:37]
Rachel Martin
This was your belief?
- [05:39]
Terry Tempest Williams
Yeah. As a child, I really paid attention to those rituals, those patterns. I had a secret life, I think.
- [05:48]
Rachel Martin
Yeah. And you just learned how to make your own meaning at such a young age. Because isn't this how we all make meaning in our life? We give significance to certain things and create rituals that make that moment stand out and held in stark Relief to every other banality in our life. And you learned how to do that so young.
- [06:09]
Terry Tempest Williams
I think that's right. And that there's a reciprocity between our outer world and our inner world and that it's deeply personal. I also have to say that Mormonism is a very cosmic religion. We're taught early on that you have the capacity to have your own visions. I mean, the church is predicated on a 14 year old boy that had a vision in the sacred grove so that trees had standing. I think our whole family, whether it was the religion, whether it was our own tendencies being out in nature, where, I mean, that in itself is filled with rituals. You know, as a family, we would every fall go listen to the elk bugle in Grand Teton National Park. I've heard that. So I think ritual, tradition, reciprocity, generosity, all centers around these practices. Hmm,
- [07:06]
Rachel Martin
that's a good one. Three more cards. One, two or three?
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Terry Tempest Williams
Two.
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Rachel Martin
Two. How do you consciously try to emulate your parents?
- [07:19]
Terry Tempest Williams
How do I consciously try to emulate my parents? My mother was full of grace. She had a wicked sense of humor. I think those are two qualities that I would hope to emulate from her. She was very self contained, very private. Sometimes I wish she hadn't been so private until at the end, when she was dying, I think much was revealed. That's where she found her freedom was, I think through her illness. Where then she could proclaim her own voice, her own truth. Before my mother died, she said to her, I'm leaving you all my journals. And she told me where they were exactly. And I remember being in bed with her, rubbing her back, and it was a wicked storm outside. She died a week later under a full moon. And about three weeks later, I went and found her journals exactly where she said they would be. Three shelves full, each one beautifully individual, leather, fabric, painted. I opened the first one, it was empty. I opened the second one, it was empty. The third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. Shelf after shelf after shelf, all my mother's journals were blank. What? I don't get it. I didn't either. It was like she died twice. And I remember thinking, why would she consciously tell me she left me her journals and then only to find all her journals were blank? Was she saying, please write? Was she saying, the two things the Mormon Church asks of women is that you keep a journal and bear children? And that was her protest.
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Rachel Martin
Wow.
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Terry Tempest Williams
Or was she living so fully that she didn't have time to write when she kept hunting?
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Rachel Martin
She collected books.
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Terry Tempest Williams
That one after Another physical journals that were blank, Blank, every one of them blank. Every one of them beautiful. And I remember being so stunned. No one was in the house. My father was gone. My brothers were gone. I just gathered them all in my arms like babies and. And put them in the back of my Subaru and drove home, put them on the shelf and filled them with the exception of one that I wanted to remember. And it wasn't until I was 54, the age my mother was, that she died that I even remembered, that I buried it so deep. So when you ask, you know, what do I emulate? It became even more important as a woman to speak. To speak the language women speak when there's no one there to correct us, to write what scares us. What did you fill her journals with?
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Rachel Martin
Because you were. Presumably you were keeping journals of your own.
- [10:32]
Terry Tempest Williams
Have you always been. That's the one thing I've been faithful to. Yeah. You know, my journal, That's I live twice, I live in the world. And then I record it, so it's a mirror. What did I write about? I wrote about grocery lists. I wrote about the birds I saw. I wrote about what Brooke and I did. Just day to day things, nothing profound. And then a phrase came to me and I think it had everything to do with voice. When women were birds, you know, birdsong, morning, evening, vespers, you know, how do we as women find our voice? Use our voice, keep our voice. And when we lose it, how do we retrieve it? So that's what my mother gave me. I think her silence became her voice and that became an urgency in my own with my father. I think what I emulate about my father is he's so honest. He's so. He's very. He's all about earth, dirt shovel, you know, and he's still around, right? He's 92. And I can tell you two accounts. One, I wrote a book called Refuge, and it was about the rise of Great Salt Lake and the death of my mother. And I called my father, you know, a month before the book came out. And I said, dad, I'm so worried it will be read as gossip in our neighborhood. You know, have I told things I shouldn't have about the church and about family? I'm so nervous. And he goes, don't worry about it. No one's going to read it anyway. And you know, or at a Thanksgiving when we were giving blessings and it actually was comforting, I thought, you're right. You know, who cares? And then I remember at Christmas, actually it was Thanksgiving one year. And he just turned to me and we were talking about what we were grateful for. And he turned to me and he said, terry, I'm so glad you have a hobby. And I thought golf, croquet, you know, he meant writing.
- [12:45]
Rachel Martin
You meant your life's work.
- [12:46]
Terry Tempest Williams
You meant writing. And then my favorite is with this last book called the Glorians, I gave my father a copy. There's a chapter in there called My father's roses at 92. That's his joy. And I handed it to him very reverentially. And he picks it up and he looks at it, turns it upside down, turns over like he's checking machinery, you know, kind of kicks the tires, looks at the covers, opens it, you know, flips through the pages, reads a paragraph or two, closes it, and he goes, you know, Terry, every writer deserves a clunker.
- [13:24]
Rachel Martin
Come on. But doesn't this hurt you?
- [13:27]
Terry Tempest Williams
No, I think it's hilarious, you know, and it's just, you know this as well as I do. Living in Idaho, born in Salt Lake City, you can't. In the west, you can't take yourself so seriously.
- [13:42]
Terry Gross
That's true.
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Terry Tempest Williams
You can take.
- [13:43]
Rachel Martin
And if you do, there will be someone right next to you who's gonna knock you right down.
- [13:47]
Terry Tempest Williams
I mean, with real stuff and real work, you know, and it always kept me in check. And I think my father is a great leveler. That's the kind way about it. He hurt me in other ways, you know, in terms of anger. And you can't have a name like Tempest and be very calm, you know, but it gave me a sense of humor. It kept me in check. And it's humbling to work alongside my brothers who've given their bodies to pipelines and gas lines and water lines and sewage lines, and watching how their body breaks down, how they're working, you know, 12 hours a day, 16 hours a day, in brutal weather, brutal heat. My job is really pretty cushy, and they remind me of that
- [14:40]
NPR Sponsor Announcer
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- [15:14]
Member NYSE, SIPIC this message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more@capella.edu. this message comes from BetterHelp. People talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000Americans and found that 85% believe getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com NPR you
- [16:02]
Rachel Martin
let's talk more about your newest book, the Glorians, which is one of these words that I read it and I'm like that, that is a word that I haven't heard before, and yet it has a quality that feels like it's always been a word. You know, it felt very familiar. It felt like it should have been, it should already exist, but I'd never heard it. Which is sort of what you're doing in your examination of life through this framework of Glorians. Can I guess we just start by having you define what that means? What is a Glorian?
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Terry Tempest Williams
You know, I think it's not so much how to define a Glorian, what a glorian is, as much as it is to pay attention to what is calling us or what is calling us to attention. And to me it's a Glorian is when energies are fused or you are met by another and you are fully present with each other.
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Rachel Martin
And there are so many different kinds of Glorians that you include in your book, Very Special Tree at Harvard, the Divinity Tree. A dear friend of yours, a Ukrainian writer who was poet, who was a dear friend of yours who was trying to document war crimes in Ukraine. She was killed in a strike. Another Glory in youn cat Jade. I mean, these there's such disparate on the face of it, there's such disparate beings, and yet there's a through line that connects them. That seems to me, you tell me if I'm wrong, it's just about being awake to life, just being aware of being aware of the natural world, being aware of sacrifices that people are making. There's an awareness that undergirds your epic documentation of the Glorians.
- [18:15]
Terry Tempest Williams
And I appreciate you seeing it that way. You know, in my mind, it's really an answer to Simone Weil when she says attention is a prayer. I think if we are present, we will know what to do. And at a time when there's so much uncertainty in the world. And I don't know about you, but there are days I think, can I even get up and I realized my own privilege. But I think we're all struggling on some level. Are we reading the Onion or are we reading the New York Times? Is this Saturday Night Live, or is it the inaugural address? I hardly know where we are at any given moment. And in the midst of the chaos, there is this pulse of the holy ordinary, be it an aunt, be it like you say, Jade, a kitten that I had while I was at Harvard.
- [19:09]
Rachel Martin
I love the expression. I love that articulation. The holy ordinary.
- [19:12]
Terry Tempest Williams
Yeah. You know, and that is going on all the time. And I think it is by paying attention to realize the gift of water in drought. A flash flood in the desert, a body of water, Great Salt Lake, that no one can drink and now is in retreat. It's everywhere. It's all around us. It's birdsong in the morning, the robins. It's being in New York City and seeing the leaves coming out and drawing the warblers in on migration. Everywhere we look, there is beauty. And living in the desert, it's beautiful. Particularly poignant right now because we are in drought. And two summers ago we had five flash floods in a matter of weeks. And how do you make sense of that? What do you do with that? I can tell you that our landscape around our home, in our community of 250 people, you could say it was devastated. You could also say it was transformed. And I choose to see it as being transformed. And I think that if we are living a sensorial life, if we are living a life of our senses, then that demands that we be present. And if we're present, we will know how to act, we will know how to respond to the holy ordinary around us. Nothing is more ordinary in the desert where I live than flash floods, than wind, water and time. And that very. That erosional landscape that drew us there, we've been there 30 years. May be the very qualities that forces us to leave. So we are in times of immense radical change. Maybe we always have been. But I think with climate, we're particularly aware and acute to that. So how do we see it? As a time of transformation and evolution rather than devastation and despair. I think the holy ordinary, the world around us, shows us that again and again and again.
- [21:28]
Rachel Martin
Round two insights. Three new cards. 1, 2 or 3?
- [21:36]
Terry Tempest Williams
2. 2.
- [21:39]
Rachel Martin
During which season do you feel most yourself?
- [21:47]
Terry Tempest Williams
It used to be fall.
- [21:49]
Rachel Martin
Yeah.
- [21:50]
Terry Tempest Williams
Well, it's changed. My birthday's in the fall. I love the change. I love the colors. I love the drama of it. I love the quiet of it. But I think now as I'm getting older, I love the spring. There's something about the new growth, the promise of life out of the snow, out of the winters. Maybe it's because I've been living in Boston, and so when you see spring, you just say hallelujah, even if it's snowing in April. But I couldn't really. I think summer's my least favorite. I will say that. And that could be desert, because, you know, 52 days of 100 degrees and 116. Last summer, walking back, we had a friend come over, and I walked her to her car. And as I was rocking back, I thought, what is that flapping sound? And my sandals were delaminating, you know? But why is summer your least favorite?
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Rachel Martin
Oh, yeah. I'm just hot. I'm just too hot, Terry. I'm too. I'm always too hot. I'm so hot all the time. Humidity.
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Terry Tempest Williams
I hate humidity.
- [23:03]
Rachel Martin
And I just. I like transitional seasons. I love change. My husband's from San Diego. I could never, ever live there. I need the markers. I need the external natural world to shift around me. So I always love spring and fall. Always.
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Terry Tempest Williams
You know, and maybe that's the truth, is that maybe as Westerners, we get a chance every four times a year to change ourselves, you know? And there's something about the. The cusp that. It's. It's the. It's. It's like the ecotone, you know, between the forest and the meadow. It's the cusp, isn't it?
- [23:39]
Rachel Martin
I'm with you on spring. Okay, three new cards. One, two or three?
- [23:46]
Terry Tempest Williams
I just keep seeing two as turquoise.
- [23:48]
Rachel Martin
I like it.
- [23:49]
Terry Tempest Williams
Let's go.
- [23:51]
Rachel Martin
What's something you still feel you need to prove to people you meet?
- [23:57]
Terry Tempest Williams
What a wild question. Isn't it, though?
- [24:01]
Rachel Martin
There's an assumption baked in there that you still feel the need.
- [24:05]
Terry Tempest Williams
Maybe don't read the question again.
- [24:10]
Rachel Martin
What's something you still feel you need to prove to people you meet?
- [24:18]
Terry Tempest Williams
I mean, on one hand, I don't think I have to prove anything at this age. But I'll tell you what's in my mind, which is sort of sad. Tell me. What comes into my mind, if I'm honest. The minute you ask that question is that I'm not crazy. Because I think when you live on the edge and when you see things and feel things and are as porous as I believe we all are, I'm just aware of my own porosity. I think people think you're crazy. And I think as women who have certain powers, we all have powers. And I think we all tamp them down so that we're not too big, we're not too much, we're not too smart, we're not too sensitive. So I think just being a woman in a misogynist culture, I think. I don't know if we have to prove we're not crazy, but we're always being asked if we are or treated as if we are. So that's the honest answer. It's not about proving, but it's understanding that. That people just say, well, it's her. It's Terri. She's having a vision again. Or she's had some peak experience or a mystical experience. It's not anything special. It's just, if we pay attention, if we are in love with the world, if we recognize the power of an ant or horny toads, horned lizards that can squirt blood from their eyes. Don't mess with me. We're not crazy. We're just alive. So I think maybe. Maybe it's proving to people we are alive. We feel things, we can tell the truth and we can ask questions. And it makes you unemployable. Unemployable.
- [26:30]
Rachel Martin
I mean, let's be clear. If we lived in a different time in these United States, you would have been, like, put into the ocean with a stone wrapped around your foot and drowned as a witch or burnt at the stake, because, yeah, you were in my.
- [26:48]
Terry Tempest Williams
And there's metaphors for that. Yeah.
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Rachel Martin
But you are a woman who is tapped into the world, and the men who ruled the thing back in the day weren't so keen on those kind of people.
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Terry Tempest Williams
Well, Rachel, you know, you were born in Salt Lake City. I've lived in Salt Lake City, and that's a tough town to be a strong woman, you know, And I think it's what I've had to fight against.
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Rachel Martin
Last one in this round. 1. 2 or 3?
- [27:23]
Terry Tempest Williams
3. How are you with authority?
- [27:29]
Rachel Martin
Terry Tempest Williams.
- [27:32]
Terry Tempest Williams
I love that. I. That's my favorite question. Oh, I'm very good. I'm very good with authority.
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Rachel Martin
You're lying.
- [27:43]
Terry Tempest Williams
I love authority. I know enough about you. So that's just a hilarious question.
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Rachel Martin
Give me an example of your relationship with authority, how it may or may not have changed over time.
- [27:57]
Terry Tempest Williams
How long is your program? You know, this would be the question I would pass on, because it's just hilarious.
- [28:07]
Terry Gross
Let's pause it.
- [28:07]
Terry Tempest Williams
Let's pause it. I do not have a healthy respect for authority. And let me just put it this way, it's gotten me in A lot of trouble. I've been to jail many times. Climate protests, some by climate, some by. Protesting the Iraq war and one for speeding in Soda Springs, Idaho.
- [28:34]
Rachel Martin
You went to jail for speeding?
- [28:37]
Terry Tempest Williams
Uh huh. 38 miles per hour in a 25 miles hour zone. Sunday morning, I'm in my best clothes. I've come from a funeral and yeah, taken to jail, put in an orange suit. Anyway, it's a long story, but I ended up. They give you paper and a Bic pen without the plastic. And I met some of the most powerful women I've ever met. And we wrote together.
- [29:08]
Rachel Martin
Really?
- [29:09]
Terry Tempest Williams
And I remember saying, what do we all have in common? And one woman said, we all have orange. And I remember we all wrote essays on orange. And some of them. Why do I hate the color orange when red and yellow are my favorite colors? Orange, ice, the lipstick I had to clean off my mother's martini glasses every morning. I mean it was, that's a diversion. But authority, those women, none of those women had. Those women were in jail because of circumstances, not because they did anything wrong. And I just think when you go back to what authority? Where is our authority? I do have a problem with authority and I fight it because I was raised with it. And I saw how unjust it was, whether it was the Mormon Church saying women could not hold the priesthood, whether it was calling native people Lamanites. I think there's an anger that burns in me about what authority can and does do to people.
- [30:30]
NPR Sponsor Announcer
Yeah.
- [30:31]
Rachel Martin
And how that power can be abused.
- [30:33]
Terry Tempest Williams
You've seen it went from the last term to what I call sacred rage. That is highly motivating. I think it's why I write. Rachel,
- [30:44]
Rachel Martin
you didn't want to answer this question and it's actually so fundamental to
- [30:47]
Terry Tempest Williams
who you are, you know, that's why it's a good thing to pass on those, you know.
- [31:06]
NPR Sponsor Announcer
This message comes from NPR sponsor Raymond James, a financial firm offering wealth management, banking and capital markets services that are inspired by people. Before Raymond James. Financial advisors build plans, they build relationships so they can craft individual strategies designed to achieve priorities and pursue what's possible. That's the power of personal disclosures. At raymondjames.com, raymond James Associates, Inc. Member NYSE SIPIC.
- [31:35]
This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's Flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more@capella.edu.
- [31:49]
Terry Gross
hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. Hey, take A break from the 24 hour news cycle with us and listen to long form interviews with your favorite authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians and musicians. The people making the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times. So listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.
- [32:11]
Terry Tempest Williams
Every episode of It's Been a Minute. NPR's what's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who, how? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it at npr.
- [32:23]
Rachel Martin
We stand for your right to be
- [32:24]
Terry Tempest Williams
curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you get your podcasts and we'll break down the zeitgeisty topics that are filling your feed
- [32:36]
Rachel Martin
Beliefs I did not mean to match my T shirt to these cards,
- [32:42]
Terry Tempest Williams
but now speaking of orange, they feel camouflaged. Yes.
- [32:46]
Rachel Martin
Okay. Beliefs, Terry. One, two or three?
- [32:51]
Terry Tempest Williams
One.
- [32:53]
Rachel Martin
Are you preoccupied with the past, the future, or neither?
- [32:58]
Terry Tempest Williams
I think I'm preoccupied with the present.
- [33:00]
Rachel Martin
Yeah.
- [33:01]
Terry Tempest Williams
You know, what are we going to do today? What does today's choreography look like? I'm here with you. Nothing else is happening today. Just this.
- [33:12]
Rachel Martin
Are you truly good at? I mean, of course you are. That is what your writing is. It's again, it's like awareness. It's being, being present to your current circumstances and who's in front of you.
- [33:23]
Terry Tempest Williams
And I think I learned that early on. There's been a lot of illness in my family and if I looked back it was too sad and if I looked forward, it was terrifying because the people I loved wouldn't be there. So I learned very quickly, if I'm present, if it's here, then that's what we can trust and it will take care of us. So I think the present moment allows us to trust what will follow and to trust that the past brought us here. You know, I remember when I was, when I turned 50, I was in Rugerrero, a genocide survivors village in Rwanda. And we had just painted the village with the children. It was an unspeakable sadness in the village. And Lily Yeh, an artist, barefoot artist, brought all these paints. We were in there to help with the Red cross and creating with the village a genocide memorial. And after the village had been painted, it was motorcycles, it was five legged cows with huge udders. You know, it was flowers. All the children started dancing and singing. And I remember dancing and singing with 50 children. You know, just, it was, I've never known such joy in the midst of such unspeakable loss. And I thought, here we are. This is the present moment. This is what the children know. And I thought, what in my life has ever brought me here? And how can I worry about the future when every day is a gift? And you can't foresee the future because it's made of these moments now, here, nothing else.
- [35:26]
Rachel Martin
How do you reconcile that with climate change? With your work on raising the red flag about what we have wrought and the consequences of our action and inaction? I mean, so much of that work is about the future,
- [35:51]
Terry Tempest Williams
but I also think it's how we're living now. You know, we can't change the future if we don't change where we are, right here, right now, together. So it's interconnected. I don't see the separation. It's not past, it's not future, it's not present. It's right here, right now. The past brought us here. If we make a future, it will be because of the decisions we make now. So I see it as an interweaving again. It's an ecological point of view. You know, it's where all we all have our niche again. It's the holy ordinary. It's. It's seamless. Yeah. I also was just thinking the other day, Rachel, time is so strange, isn't it? In the desert, you're living in time, deep time. You're part of geologic time. But I was thinking, when I'm present, we have all the time in the world. And when I'm not present, it's like time goes so slow. I just think, really, it's been five minutes, whereas if I'm present, it's both endless. And it's like, really, we've been talking for five hours. You know, it's like that. Yeah, it's like that, yeah. Three new cards.
- [37:05]
Rachel Martin
1, 2 or 3?
- [37:08]
Terry Tempest Williams
2.
- [37:11]
Rachel Martin
Have you made peace with mortality?
- [37:15]
Terry Tempest Williams
Yes. Yes. I just turned 70. And there's a horizon. There's a horizon now, speaking of future. But I have been with the people I've loved the most in their passing. I was breathing with my mother as she was dying and saw that last breath and saw her look at my father when he walked in and their eyes met. I've been a witness to death. I was with my brother, as was our family. My brother's death by suicide, you know, we watched and participated in his cremation, even the grinding of his bones and feeling the last heat of his life. And I remember as Mr. Rabe, who oversaw the cremation, when he poured the bone and ash into this box and we weighed it, it was 8 pound, 4 ounces. The same weight that my brother's birth weight was, you know, And I was with my grandparents when they died and holding Mimi's hand as she was dying. She looked like Socrates. You know, she had cancer. She had no hair. But I. But I looked at her, I said, mimi, you look like Socrates. And she just smiled. And then she looked up and she said, oh, oh, can't you show Terry? She would be so excited, you know, I don't know what she was seeing. I don't know if it was in her mind. I don't know if it was God. I don't know. I don't know any of it. But I knew she wanted to share it in that moment, you know? And I'm not afraid of death.
- [39:10]
Rachel Martin
That's what I was going to ask. It sounds like fear is not a part of your thought process. When it comes.
- [39:16]
Terry Tempest Williams
I'm afraid of this interview, you know, I'm afraid of, you know, getting in trouble. You know, at Harvard, I'm afraid of a million things. I'm always afraid, but it doesn't stop me. But I'm not afraid of death because death is life, and death is the tree that's. That's merging into the ground. You know, it's the dust that I want to rub all over. When I was. I was just in the redwoods, and I. You know, I watched this huge tree just disintegrating horizontally, and there was this fine, fine powder, and I just. I picked up some, and I. My instinct, I just wanted to rub it all over my face, my arms, you know, it's like, what can this tree tell me in death so that I might live more fully?
- [40:01]
Rachel Martin
I'm just curious. This is a highly personal question, but do you want to be cremated?
- [40:07]
Terry Tempest Williams
I don't. You don't? I don't. It was like rocket fuel, you know, when we carried my brother's body, Hank and I, my youngest brother, into the retort and closed that door and locked it. And then Mr. Rabe turned on those engines. It was like rocket fuel. And not fun.
- [40:30]
Rachel Martin
Natural.
- [40:31]
Terry Tempest Williams
Yeah. And the energy use, you know, we tend to think that's. But we live in a place where we have green burial laws. And so Brooke and I have our Pendleton blankets picked out. You know, I just want to be wrapped in a blanket and put in the ground. And if a flash flood carries me away, my neighbors will know and they'll just put me back in the ground. And I also. We picked our plots during the pandemic. We thought, you know, we may go. I mean, so we might as well know where we're going to be. So we bought two plots in the Castle Valley Cemetery. And Brooke said it was $500 each. They're very inexpensive. And Brooke said, how will we know? And I said, we'll know. We'll just know.
- [41:21]
Rachel Martin
Like, how will you know which site? Yeah.
- [41:24]
Terry Tempest Williams
Brooke said, I liked these people. I'd like to be in their neighborhood, you know. And I said, well, I'm really much more solitary. I want to be on the edge with a good view. So we had these discuss and we walk in, and all of a sudden we both just went here. And it was on the edge in the corner, but they'd already been dug by badgers. And I just thought, we don't even have to dig, you know, it's just all there. And so it was a wonderful way. It wasn't even about the afterlife. It was about the underground. So we know where we'll be buried.
- [41:59]
Rachel Martin
Last 1, 1, 2, or 3.
- [42:02]
Terry Tempest Williams
Will you pick one for me? Yep, that's the one.
- [42:07]
Rachel Martin
I want to ask you. Is there anything in your life that feels like praying.
- [42:17]
Terry Tempest Williams
On a good day? Writing, listening, listening, feels like praying to me.
- [42:29]
Rachel Martin
What about praying?
- [42:34]
Terry Tempest Williams
When I went to the Divinity School, I learned how to pray again. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. And what I. I got on my knees. And what I learned was that praying wasn't about asking or even gratitude, but really listening. And so I think the decade that I've spent at the Harvard Divinity School, I realized how much I don't know. And in many ways, what I know isn't valued in the same way, because what I know are the names of birds, because that's what I cared about when I was young, and I still do. And the birds to me are the links to everything else, whether it's women's voice, whether it's ecological health, or whether it's looking upward at a night sky of stars, birds. But I think prayer to me is about listening. Listening to voices beyond ourselves, listening to the voices within ourselves, and I do think it's plural. And listening to one's deepest questions that no one else can answer except for by living an authentic life.
- [44:06]
Rachel Martin
This is also highly personal question, but I'm just going to ask anyway.
- [44:10]
Terry Tempest Williams
What.
- [44:12]
Rachel Martin
What specific. What are your prayers today? What do you. What feels urgent to you?
- [44:25]
Terry Tempest Williams
Can we love ourselves enough to change? Can we love each other enough to change? Can we embrace change in all of its manifestations? That's my prayer. And can we create the kind of changes necessary together to thrive on this planet, the only planet that we will ever call home. That's my prayer that we can realize all that binds us together rather than what tears us apart. And that we can have the hard conversations, that we can ask the difficult questions, and that we can listen and that we can be changed by one another.
- [45:16]
Rachel Martin
Terry Tempest Williams we end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine. In the memory time machine, you go back and revisit one moment from your past. It's not a moment you want to change anything about. It's just a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. And I'm sure you have many. But what is the memory that comes to the fore?
- [45:44]
Terry Tempest Williams
Honestly, it's sitting on the river with Brook and we watched a hatch of mayflies and we realized they would only live one day. And in that moment, it was perfect.
- [46:08]
Rachel Martin
Terry Tempest Williams her newest book is called the Glorians. It was such my pleasure to get to do this with you. Thank you.
- [46:17]
Terry Tempest Williams
Thank you so much and take special care.
- [46:24]
Rachel Martin
Thank you so much for listening. If you found yourself smiling at the way Terry Tempest Williams imbues even the most ordinary of things, like a tree, with the kind of sacred quality, you should go back and listen to my conversation with Suleka Jawad. As an artist, a writer, and someone living through cancer, Suleika, too, can draw your attention to the smallest moments in your life and turn them into something magical. This episode was produced by Alicia Zhang and Lee Hale. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and mastered by Andy Huether. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni and our theme music is by Ramtin Arablouei. You can reach out to us@wildcardnpr.org we'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.
- [47:10]
Terry Gross
Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of FRESH AIR. Hey, take a break from the 24 hour news cycle with us and listen to long form interviews with your favorite authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians and musicians. The people making the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times. So listen to the FRESH AIR podcast from NPR and whyy.
- [47:31]
Rachel Martin
This week on Short Wave, could your next ride to the airport be in a flying taxi? So you open up your Uber app and you've got Uberx and Uber Pet
- [47:41]
Terry Tempest Williams
and now there'll be Uber Air.
- [47:42]
Rachel Martin
That reality may be only a few years away, but how is this futuristic travel possible? Find out on Short Wave NPR Science Podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.