“For bighorns, topography is memory, enhanced by acute vision. They can anticipate the land's every contour--when to leap, where to climb, when to turn, which footholds will support their muscular bodies. To survive, this is what the band would have… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
There are people who have no engaged conversation with the land whatsoever, no sense of its beauty or extremes or limits and therefore no… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“Everyone will tell you that genealogy serves two purposes: self-knowledge and social status, some sort of pedigree divined from names, locations, and achievements of… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“Breathing, it seemed to me, was a proper attribute for the mountains... mountains that quietly functioned as a single thing with a rhythmic inhale-exhale… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“ Homo sapiens have left themselves few places and scant ways to witness other species in their own worlds, an estrangement that leaves us… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“Each of us possesses five fundamental, enthralling maps to the natural world: sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell. As we unravel the threads that bind… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
The complex human eye harvests light. It perceives seven to ten million colors through a synaptic flash: one-tenth of a second from retina to… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“I was a lowly puddle of plasma, trading “I am alive” for a vague “I tend to exist” and weeping for joy over the… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
...to slip beneath the surface and soar along the silent bottom of the sea agile and shining in water honeycombed with light. — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“A cavalry of sweaty but righteous blond gods chased pesky, unkempt people across an annoyingly leaky Mexican border. A grimy cowboy with a headdress… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“How do I stop this misery?” I groaned, scanning the shelves for a cure. “Don’t go out there,” he said flatly. I contemplated this… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“ In genealogy you might say that interest lies in the eye of the gene holder. The actual descendants are far more intrigued with… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“This deranged jungle of ironies coinhabits my skull like feathers and fireworks. My heart fills with stones. I am the mad aunt who laughs… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“Its beauty stirs the imagination, and I wonder if the last refuge of all that is truly wild lies not on earth but in… — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
“In the hallowed tradition of squishy doughball liberals, I believe that science, reason, kindness, and understanding—maybe a little food—can set the world right. B” — Ellen Meloy Copy Share Image
