An insightful take on the Tarot through the lens of the industrial Midwest, and a beautiful piece of nature writing in its own right.
What can the Tarot tell us about the flora and fauna of the industrial Midwest? In what ways might this ancient practice connect us to the Rust Belt today? Rust Belt Arcana uses the Tarot's time-tested structure to answer these questions, juxtaposing the characteristics of the cards with the creatures and plants that surround us every day. The twenty-two idiosyncratic essays here-one for every card in the Major Arcana-bridge biology, natural history, and the human condition. They tell stories of abundance and loss, and they remind us of the Rust Belt's persistent remnant wilderness, a landscape often dismissed as unremarkable.
A magical book both for Tarot enthusiasts and for those who are seeking to see beauty in a beleaguered landscape and define their remarkable place within it.
"Original and insightful. A vivid exploration of the beauty and brokenness of life's community. Stansberry's writing reveals the many surprising ecological, psychological, and cultural connections among human and beyond-human lives." -David George Haskell, Pulitzer finalist for The Forest Unseen
"A surprising, delightful book, filled with original insights about the rich diversity of nature in the Midwest. Highly recommended!" -Kenn Kaufman, author of Kingbird Highway
"The essays in Rust Belt Arcana are like meditations from a parallel world -a magical place of nature which persists against all odds alongside the cities and subdivisions and highway interchanges of the Great Lakes region." -David Beach, GreenCityBlueLake Institute, Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Autorentext
Matt Stansberry was born in Akron, Ohio and graduated from Kent State University. He writes about the intersection of natural history and myth. Matt spent six years in Oregon writing about wild trout and salmon and advocating for sustainable fisheries management. He currently lives in North Carolina with his wife and three sons.
Klappentext
A young bear-The Fool-is cast off from its mother in the spring to wander a fragmented suburban forest, to be harried by dogs and traffic, chased through golf courses and farms. An ocean-going trout climbs industrial, sewage-tainted rivers in the Midwest. The river is both sick and healthy, the trout, understood here as The Magician, is both wild and made. What does the Tarot have to tell us about the flora and fauna of the industrial Midwest? Rust Belt Arcana uses this time-tested structure to explain, juxtaposing the characteristics of the cards of the Tarot's Major Arcana to the creatures and plants around us. The idiosyncratic essays that result connect biology and natural history to the human condition; they are stories of abundance and loss, limning the persistent remnant wilderness of the Rust Belt. Exploring this natural history helps us to see beauty in a beleaguered landscape often dismissed as unremarkable, and to define our remarkable place in it.