Cacao to Chocolate - Agricultural Commodity Chain

What is Eco Criticism?

Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology

What we read influences how we interact with the natural world. Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment,  an earth-focused view of literary scholarship.

The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment  (ASLE) is dedicated to environmental literature and culture.  The organization offers grants, conferences and advocacy opportunities for advancing the protection of the environment, the planet and its creatures through literature and writing.

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWWP) is a advocacy union of thousands of independent writers, teachers and college and university based writing programs.

Where the Wild Creatures Roam :: Is It Sustainable?

Wildlife Tourism 

What can we do to prevent the massacre of wild animals?  Do humans actually still get a thrill from shooting wild animals?  What streak of evil condones and continues that practice?
Does wildlife tourism help stamp out the killing of animals in the wild for sport or promote and encourage it by creating tourism infrastructure in remote areas?

Here are a few articles reporting the repulsive human tendency to shoot, poison or terrorize animals and a couple of articles examining the reasons why the polar bear population is in grave decline and whales are beaching regularly.


Elephants Everywhere

Animals Slaughtered in a U.S. Zoo

Tigers in India

Salmon in Kamchatka

Wolves in Alaska

Giraffe Massacre in a Czech Zoo

Polar Bear Population Decline

Whales Dying on Beaches

Goddess of Travel

Western Hemisphere 

Trivia, a Roman diety, is said to be the goddess of commerce and travel.  She is an aspect of Artemis/Diana with three heads to represent the place where three roads meet or the triune goddess of  earth, heaven and the underworld. During a life cycle, we travel through those worlds.  Her Latin name is  Taurian Artemis.  Another form of the name is Termemina which protects the life and death cycle.

Ayizan, in the Haitian symbolic tradition, is the first ‘mat’ laid on original water represented by a palm leaf.  She takes the form of serpent, protects the marketplace, roads, doorways and gates.  Her alternate name is Ayizan Velequete.

Eastern Hemisphere

Inari of Japan is a Shinto goddess described as a vixen associated with commerce and travel, life and death cycle, sexuality, wealth, hunting and wild animals.  These are also attributes of Artemis/Diana in the Greco-Roman tradition.  And like Artemis, this icon protects prosperity bringing long life.  She is affiliated with rice and fertility.  

Poi-Soya-Un-Mat, from the Ainu province of Japan, is the woman of Poi Soya who raised herself above the gods, dressed like a man to go hunting and sailing like a trader.

Tian-Fei  is the sailor’s goddess of navigation and safe passage.  The Celestial Spouse originates in Chinese tradition to protect travel and commerce.

Doumou, or Toumo is the goddess of the Northstar, and she also originates in China. Buddhists and Daoists invoke her while traveling and for protection from disease and war. It’s possible that she is affiliated with Marichi from India and also Buddhist goddesses Guan yin and Maritchi the Queen of heaven, a Buddhist dawn goddess of three faces, who is not known to offer travel protection. 

Sacred Sites

So you believe there are places that shelter spiritual energy.  Are these locations protected?



Executive Order concerning Sacred Sites, May 24 1996

Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights, Journal of Material Culture, V.9: N. 3, 237-261 (2004)

Residencies for Nature and Outdoors Writers

Spring Creek - University of Oregon - writer in residence program

Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes Station, California - writer's residency

Taos Summer Writer's Conference - fiction and non-fiction writing conference

Voices of the Wilderness  - artist's residency

Island Institute, Sitka, Alaska - resident fellowships

Sitka Center - residency programs for artists, writers, natural science scholars, musicians


National Park Service Residency Programs on Cape Cod - for artists and writers

Cowboy Poets

Mythmakers of the west and cowboy poets still roll their own and tie a shake a mean lariat.
Join the Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering in August, 2012.

Keep in mind the next cowboy poets festival in Arizona February 2013.

And what about those cowgirl poets? Don't forget them!  Cowgirl poets wowed the crowd at the Alpine, Texas show reports the  live.work.dream blog.   Go get 'em Billy Jean.