Water in the Desert

Gary Paul Nabhan is an Arab American ethnobotanist, desert ecologist, and coastal wetlands restorationist, known to the Ecumenical Franciscan Order as Brother Coyote. Among our most celebrated thinkers and activists, he has authored dozens of books, been described as the “father of the local food movement” (Time) and our “lyrical poet of biodiversity” (Mother Jones), and been awarded a MacArthur “genius grant.”

In this story of a truly singular life, Nabhan describes his childhood in the dunes along the southern shore of Lake Michigan, and the initial experiences of what will become a deep, lifelong attraction to wetlands, shorelines, and wild creatures. As a boy, school is excruciating and symptoms of neurodivergence are diagnosed as disabilities and dysfunctions. In college, Nabhan gravitates to the thinkers now associated with the dawn of ecology as a discipline, writes poetry, and travels to Baja California, where he first encounters the Indigenous communities who come to play a significant role in his life and work. His interest in earth-based spiritual practices leads him to take vows as an Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, an experience that helps open his “mind to what the heart already knew: that the earth itself—creation, for that matter—was the original scripture, the one that humans had nearly forgotten how to read.” Late in life, he returns to the land of his ancestors, finding points of resonance for a transformative vision of human culture as integrated with ecologies of interactions and reciprocities. And finally, when construction of the southern border wall begins, he collaborates with religious leaders to affirm Indigenous rights to the sacred places threatened by construction.

At once a refreshingly humble account of the development of a profoundly ecological consciousness and an inspiring guide to the inclusive ethic and practice of care that will be required if we are to flourish in kinship on Earth, Water in the Desert is truly a book for our time.