My introduction was at a multidisciplinary conference at Fort Warden State Park in Port Townsend, Washington, in the late ‘70s. Lopez had just published his celebrated Of Wolves and Men, and this was a weeklong gathering of writers, naturalists, scientists, and a few others.
Three of his smaller, later books have especially held my attention: Desert Notes, Arctic Dreams, and Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter, presenting Native American mythology, especially the Trickster figure, Coyote. These volumes are sometimes classified as fiction, but they really straddle genres.
Maybe that’s why I return to Lopez more than to Rachel Carson or Annie Dillard or even Henry David Thoreau.
He did serve as an inspiration for two of the novellas that appear in my book, The Secret Side of Jaya. Well, maybe even the third one, too.
I had already drafted my longpoem, Recovering Olympus, as well as probing Native American lore since my years in the ashram, where Asian mythology also started infusing my awareness.
Lopez, though, had some serious fieldwork to support his visions.
Jnana's Red Barn 