Litchfield Country Journal:
Notes on Wildness Around Us
by Edwin Matthews, with drawings by Banjie Getsinger Nicolas.
Purchased books will be mailed as soon as they arrive from printer in July. The book will be available in the Hickory Stick Book Store in Washington Depot and in other book stores in New England.
Purchase price hard cover $25
If you are a reseller and wish to obtain copies for resale, register now.
By selecting one of the following organizations, five dollars will be contributed by the author for each purchase:
350.org
Grass roots fighting climate change.
Activism for the earth.
Probono lawfirm for the environment.
In these essays Edwin Matthews explores the wholeness and complexity of life, in the remarkable phenomena that take place in wild nature in which he has discovered a source of wonder and love. He writes:
“The existential predicament of all life on earth is that we are together, all refugees on this solitary planet spinning in space and that there is no other place. This predicament is no less descriptive in my comparatively domesticated corner of Northwest Connecticut that it is in the most remote wildness on earth. It is no less true now when I program my smart phone that it was when our ancestors picked up that first stone tool.
“So, I have sought to learn from, and find wonder in, the wildness around me. . . By paying attention, all of us, even those of us living in great cities, we can find wildness close at hand. There may be a chance, albeit remote, that we may now love wildness enough to save it.”
Edwin Matthews grew up in Northern Idaho and went on to study History, Science and Law. For many years he practiced law in New York, Paris and San Francisco.
He was a founder of Friends of the Earth, a world-wide environmental organization now in seventy-five countries. He has been active in the defense of the Shepaug, a wild and scenic river in Litchfield Country and in other conservation causes. He is a life trustee of Earthjustice, a not-for-profit law firm for the environment.
His experience as a mountaineer, ocean sailor and explorer of wild places fuels these essays.
Mr. Matthews lives on a farm in Washington, Connecticut where, without much success, he is trying to teach his Labrador to value squirrels in the ecosystem.
This is his first collection of essays on nature.
Banjie Getsinger Nicolas is an artist, natural science illustrator and teacher. She has lived much of her life in Litchfield County, Connecticut.
For over twenty years, she was a wild bird rehabilitator. The year round observation of New England’s songbirds has been her delight. A deep appreciation of the natural world informs her work as an artist.
