Goodreads asked Trebbe Johnson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Trebbe Johnson For many years I was inspired to find a way to live and express a stunning idea that a man from the Oneida Nation had passed along to me many years earlier when I made a video about him. Speaking of the steel waste he had received a National Science Foundation grant to recycle, he said, "I realized that the waste wasn't an enemy, it was an orphan that had gotten separated from the circle of life." The idea of waste places as orphans knocked me over! What did such a mental switch mean? How could we stop thinking of clearcut forests, polluted rivers, dying coral reefs as eyesores but as loved life forms that still have an emotional effect on those who love them? How can we deal with our grief about what's happened to them and then, instead of moving on to other things, how do we maintain an attachment to these places through art, storytelling, attention, and ceremony? How does the place then change? And how do we change in startling ways? What I discovered—and how it's vital at this particular time in our global history—comprise the contents of this book.

flag