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| Kate exploring the botanical mysteries of the Grand Canyon. |
BA, Sociology, Wheaton College
Through a collection of five personal essays I explored the experience of community in an essentially wild place: the Grand Canyon. This is a landscape in which I have lived and worked for the past 10 years. As a national park, the Grand Canyon invites humans to discover unique relationships with a wild place. For those of us who participate in the ephemeral human community of the Grand Canyon as botanists, trail crew workers and restorationists, I ask: what is our responsibility to this place? What are our stories at the confluence of these communities—the human and the wild?
This vast landscape appears to be the epitome of wilderness. As wild and uninhabitable to humans as it seems, it supports a community of people both above and below the rim who make their livelihoods working to study, preserve, restore and/or maintain it in a variety of ways. How do people find themselves at home in such a place? How can the dynamics of a human community in a wild place help us better understand notions of sustainability in our "non-wild" homes and neighborhoods?
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| Kate relaxing (what an idea!) |
Through my thesis I sought to answer the following questions: How do we bring this experience of epic proportion back into our relatively small lives? How does our connection to place serve as our map to becoming ourselves? What have I discovered about my own sense of family, community and the natural world? What has devotion to a place taught me about the value of wild land and how does this relationship to land embody wildness in ourselves?
The MLS program provided an essential stepping stone from hard labor and the occasional poem written in a journal to a career in biology and taking myself seriously as a writer. The flexibility and largeness of the program's vision allowed me to combine many disciplines: writing, botany and conservation biology to create a program of study that suited my interests. Through MLS I also was connected to mentors who ushered me along my path. I am eternally grateful for their ideas and support.
Email: katewatters@msn.com
Phone: 928.522.8822
My textile design business Web site: www.agavemaria.com