As I was preparing to retire from teaching at the University of Minnesota Duluth, I looked around at the thousands of books on the shelves in my office and said aloud to the student who was sitting there with me, “What am I going to do with all of this knowledge?” What would become of all the insights, perspectives, and wisdom I had gleaned over the years from these thinkers and writers, many of whom had shaped my life and my being in the world? For years I had been passing the wisdom along to generation after generation of students. Now where would it go?
At about the same time, I had a similar conversation by the shores of Lake Superior with a very wise friend. She said to me, “You’ll do the work you’ve always done, except out in the world.” She was right of course. I have found various ways to pass the knowledge along – with people I companion in my spiritual direction practice; with people in the community eager to learn about feminism, women and the law, patriarchy, historical trauma, activism, and more; in sermons and talks I’ve been invited to give. But I had stopped writing, except in my journal and emails to friends.
For so long after I retired, people would ask, “Are you writing?” “No,” I would say, feeling I’d somehow let people down. Perhaps I was letting myself down. After all, I’d left college wanting nothing more than to be a writer. But after my last book, I had no desire to write. I had a project or two in mind, but none that took flight. Over the years I’ve found I need a few years between books – time to let thoughts and ideas gestate. Over the past few months, I’ve re-entered the world of academic writing, and found my appetite for the craft whetted once more. But as I readied a piece to send off to an academic journal, I found myself stopped by the thought of it being buried in some obscure corner of the academic feminist philosophy world. The piece begged for a wider audience.
“You’ll do the work you’ve always done, except out in the world.” My friend’s words return to me often. With her wisdom as my guidepost, I decided to begin this blog, to do my work out in the larger world. Perhaps it will go no farther than a few friends, but maybe these musings will prompt an idea, inspire an action, create change, catch fire.
As I look around at these volumes now, I see good friends – friends who put words to my truths, who challenged me, who introduced me to new ways of thinking, who widened my perception and deepened my understanding, who inspired me, and who have been some of my best companions in life. Among them – Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Susan Griffin, Albert Camus, Hannah Arendt, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Carol Christ, Gloria Anzaldúa, Maria Lugones, Linda Hogan, Sarah Grimké, and so many others. Topics may be as varied as the courses I taught – feminist theory, spirituality and religion, feminist activism, motherhood, ecofeminism, law and politics, war and peace; or pressing issues of our time – climate change, racism, indigenous rights, sexism, rights of nature, the pandemic, social and economic justice; or enduring ponderables and imponderables – love, wonder, beauty, evil, friendship, mortality, the meaning of life. And from time to time, I will simply follow the meanderings prompted by walks in the woods, time by the water, sunrises and starlight, and the wisdom of other beings. I look forward to the conversation.