SPRING 2020 – WANT TO GET AWAY?
And why wouldn’t you? Since shortly before spring arrived and continuing to today, we have experienced:
* A pandemic
* A hotspot
* Sheltering in place for weeks on end
* An earthquake here in central Idaho. Aftershocks continue from the second largest quake ever in Idaho.
* Snow in June
* Police killings around the country
* Armed protests against safety measures
* Obliteration of protections for animals and birds.
But some good things have happened, too:
* People working together to stay safe, wear masks, wash hands, social distance, and be kind
* Flattening of our coronavirus curve
* No spring flooding in Idaho
* People around the world protesting police killings and urging Black Lives Matter
Many of us have been reading in place, a way to get away without actually leaving our homes. Books can take us around the world, into space, underwater, into the future, into the past, into the imagination. Books may be the original and best way to travel for most of us. Today, I have just one book to recommend. It will take you into the Southwest, into the deep past and the near past, into other people’s lives, and into space, or at least the amazing night sky. It will introduce you to animals, flowers, rocks, gulches, cliffs, mountains and deserts. It is:
THE MAGICAL UNIVERSE OF THE ANCIENTS: A DESERT JOURNAL
Text by Julie Whitesel Weston
Photographs by Gerry Morrison
Our official publication date is June 16, 2020. We had planned a book tour through Utah and into New Mexico and Arizona, and then back to our mainstays in Idaho and Washington with a foray into Oregon. The pandemic has caused many displacements in all of our lives. This is one in ours. We may “get away” to bookstores, parks and monuments before the year is out. In the meantime, YOU can get away by ordering our book and enjoying the visit to the Four Corners of the Southwest in this, our first coffee table book, published by Big Wood Books, LLC.
Mystery haunts the desert Southwest, in drawings by people who lived millennia ago, in dwellings built of mud and willow and rock, in potsherds and yucca twine, and in turkey feather remnants. Painted skinhead masks chill the viewer and etched hunters slay bighorn sheep forever. Deep in red rock country at the base of cliffs pocked by water and time, lives a magical universe of spirits, masks, lion tracks, and kivas protected by overhangs and shamans.
My journal and Gerry’s photographs comprise the written Magical Universe. We traveled by auto, 
on foot, and with llamas through the desert landscape, recording the sights, sounds, scents and textures of the ancient and natural worlds of the Four Corners—Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado.
We are keenly aware of the attacks on wilderness in this area (as well as others). Oil interests, mining companies, and developers seek to drill, frack, commercialize, and destroy grounds around our national parks. The Secretary of the Interior has proposed reducing to almost eliminating national monuments established in years past. We want to protect the environment. We hope you do, too. We want our book to reveal what could be tarnished with drill rigs and ruined by roads and mechanized machinery, what might be trampled upon, what might be destroyed. We want to protect this magical universe.
Please visit our website https://bigwoodbooks.com to order a book on the Contact page. It is available in paperback or hard cover. If you want a copy signed by Gerry and me or want five or more books, please email us at bigwoodbooks1@gmail.com .
Be safe. Stay healthy. Wear a mask. Social distance. We will get through this and we hope into a better world of inclusion, kindness, neighborliness, respect for each other, and love.
BOOKS: I can’t not recommend another book or three or more:
* The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre
* Persistence of Memory and Other Stories by Jan Maher
* A Hundred Little Pieces on the End of the World by John Rember
* The Other Americans by L. Lalami
* Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapki Kassabova
Other (exciting) news:
Melanie Weston, my daughter, is opening an art gallery in Salem, Oregon. The name of the gallery is Salem on the Edge at 156 Liberty Street NE. If you get to Portland, go a little farther to visit her around the end of July. You can read about it on Instagram – Salem on the Edge!
All photographs by Gerry Morrison (except one)
Wonderful blog, Julie. Yes, our lives are certainly different this year. I’ve had several spring events cancelled, events that I usually do quite well. But we’ve been healthy and that’s the important thing. Your new book sounds wonderful. I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you, Mary. Let’s all stay healthy! The cancellation of spring events has hit authors hard, I think. But we will persevere!!
Thanks for writing about all this, Julie. The pandemic struck just as I was about to leave for a trip to AZ/NM and I’ve missed a second trip since then. As a traveler, I’m hurting, but you’ve mentioned the important things–a great reminder as to what really matters.
Thank you Andrea! I am so sorry your trips have been cancelled. We can probably do our book tour this fall, which isn’t all bad. I hope you can re-up on your travel plans too. I do hope to get to Colorado for WWW. Maybe we’ll see each other then.
I’m glad you shared these reminders, Julie, of all that is taking place in the world right now, creating a “new normal” in which we have to traverse unknown avenues in our lives. Reminders that we must pay heed to all. Your upcoming coffee table book sounds so wonderful that I wish you and Gerry all the best on getting it “out there.”
Thank you, Alice! I think we have more to learn about our “new normal,” one of them being book tours! Stay well, my friend.
I’ll have to check out the gallery. I live only 15 miles from Salem
Hi Sue, I do hope you get to see Melanie’s gallery. She says mid- to end of July. She is working hard on getting it ready and finding artists to show. We hope to get there toward the end of July too. Maybe we can meet at the gallery!
I always enjoy your blog.. in these strange and challenging times, you articulate issues which crowd our thoughts.
I look forward to your new book. It looks beautiful and certainly is timely. Congratulations!
Your book recommendations are always interesting. I love all the Ben McIntyre spy books.
Thank you, Elise! We are pleased with the book and are working on getting it out there without a book tour. I enjoy Ben McIntyre spy books as well. He writes with such detail and flair. I am always on the edge of my seat, even if I know the outcome!
Your book arrived. It’s beautiful and fill s with word magic as well as photo magic. Thanks tons for writing it and for sharing images.
Thank you, Jane. I am so glad our book arrived safely and you enjoyed it. Gerry’s “photo magic” is always beautiful to me, too. I hope Jerry is doing better. Stay well, you two, and I look forward to your new book as well!
Hi Julie
I posted a review on Google Books. Feel free to lift it and use it anywhere. We are really enjoying it! Coffee table classic! And congratulations on Moonscape’s award!
A beautiful and heartfelt reminder that we are survivors and forward thinking humans. Your journey into the wilderness is the perfect antidote to the fear and dread of current times. Thank you for offering an alternative. Stunning photos.
Anne, thank you! Yes, we are survivors and I hope forward thinking people. I appreciate your words so much!
Congratulations finally on your book! Can’t wait for a signed copy. And you must be thrilled for Melanie. And thanks for calling attention to these special places that should be preserved.
Nancy, thank you! These special places are in such trouble. I hope readers will help us all preserve them. I included a list of organizations who are working hard on the parks and monuments and wilderness preservation. We’ll get a signed copy to you soon!