A year and a half ago, I accompanied my friend and botanist Peri Lee Pipkin as they worked to collect samples of the extensive rare plants slated for removal through the creation of a new lithium mine in The Silver Peak Valley. Their multi-year thesis project, a historic botanical survey of a 450 square mile valley whose plants had barely been documented but whose geologically elemental yields had been written about in countless volumes, has provided an incredible case for the crucial biodiversity. I wrote this essay over a year ago and pitched it to multiple magazines, with the hopes that some interest in or knowledge of this stunning and special place could protect it. No publications were interested in the story. So I’m posting it here now, with the aspiration of opening up more conversation about our lithium dependance and put the spotlight on the fallacy of greenwashing within the extractive industries.

“…There is an entire universe within us. Drugs stimulate the chemicals that are already there. The shifts in hormones, adrenaline, joy, sadness—these take more care, attention and complex analysis than a vision. They are not the prophecies of a dream, they are the continual tides heaving, thrashing, pooling, foaming, calmly lapping, existence as our human selves. I think about almanacs, about the life and death inherent to seafaring, the miraculous gravitational defiance of riding waves, of the detailed acquired knowledge of catching fish…these require sensitivity to ebb and flow. Our bodies are like this too…”

“…In Judaism we cherish the maxim of L’dor V’dor, literally “from generation to generation”, also translated as “what we pass on.” In this time of year for ancestral reverence, in this time of closer relationship to the ones we have lost, in this moment of wishing peace to the souls of so many innocent people slain by the hubris and power of a few sickening men, I have been locating myself on a map of past and future. What legacies of my ancestors do I want to continue? What new paths do I want to forge for whoever follows in my footsteps? I have been remembering, I have been tracing...”

“…Crunchtown isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s gloriously imperfect: wigs fall off, people forget their lines, actors break character. Nothing we ever make as humans will be perfect–and what a tremendous blessing that is. It’s important to take creative risks even if we fail (especially if we fail!) because that is, in fact, the real roadmap that can lead us where we want to go. It is so deeply important to stumble into dangerous territory with intention, humility and consistent communication. Safety and comfort don’t often get us to new places. No budget, limited time and conflicting schedules means we can never make our ideal conceptual or creative decisions–but there is never enough time or money for perfection, and all we have is Right Now. Doing the damn thing with what we’ve got is our best chance in this world, again and again. In the words of the narrator CJ, written by the enormously multi-talented Dietz, ‘We don’t have it all figured out just yet Ms. Mona, but we came out here to tell y’all that we’re fixin’ to try!’”

“…There were two things that I remember so fondly from that period of time: being respected for my creative opinions and ideas, and going running through the jungle every morning at dawn. I get to know so many places by running through them. I’m not good at it–I don’t go very fast nor terribly far, but it allows me to enter a romantic trance state where I am able to notice things I wouldn’t otherwise. I would wake up and go running along a trail into the mountains where I would see old men fishing + old ladies doing qi gong and little street dogs with prayers tied around their collars. I would run until the top where I could look out over the city. On my way down I would visit a tiny Buddhist temple tucked away in the woods for a little morning offering. I did so much thinking about my life on this run—who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. I look back 10 years later and see how much of those things I did in fact accomplish and how I became so much of the person I sought out to be…”