Discuss: Spectral Light

Amy, your article is beautiful. I hope it is read by many. I will certainly bookmark and forward it to others.

I loved reading this article by Amy Irvine and appreciate her ability to hold the tension of the opposites - between the Old and New West, the wild and domestic, light and shadow. Reminds me of Carl Jung’s notion of the “Transcendent Function” which he refers to as the mediating force between oppositions within the psyche. According to Jung, by resisting the urge to identify with one side or the other, a third, completely unexpected image, and one that unites the two in a creative new way, comes into view. This article expresses this so viscerally and shows its importance for our world today. Thank you!

What a wonderful, remarkable articulation of the need to look for both/and, rather than either/or solutions to problems;
to recognize that some problems, rather than requiring solutions, are simply dilemmas to be held in tension. Well done, Amy.

Betsy and Craig seem right on target here.  Great comments.  If you haven’t read Amy Irvine’s book, Trespass, run out and get it tonight! Like Bobbie in comment #1, I really enjoyed “Spectral Light”—it stuck with me all day today, challenging me to consider the areas of tension in my own suburban existence.  Thanks, Amy.  And thanks, Orion, for amplifying voices like Amy Irvine’s.

I’ve heard Amy tell this story a few times, and looked forward to the day I could read it when she had time to collect her thoughts and words.  It brings forth for me several conversations we’ve been having over the past few years, in the midst of inventing a new advocacy for southeast Utah, about coming to terms with the contradictions of the west.  As usual, Amy has found our soul in her honest and soulful words.

Thank you, Amy Irvine, for setting an example, because all of us inhabit “edges of sorts” and all of us are called to be bridges—to bend and to be strong. Yes and yes.

Hey Amy - you’ve given us a beautifully written bit disgraceful account!  How about you stop rationalizing your presence in a place you don’t belong.  NO BUILDING OUTSIDE THE CITY LIMITS! especially for the ignorant and childlike.  What your husband did to that bear is disgusting.  For three days you say you allowed it to roam around your intrusion of a home, suffering, agonizing a slow and disgraced death.  Shame on you!  Colorado is lost!

Loved this. Loved the Fitzgerald quote - I’ll hang onto it when I drive by my coyote hunting neighbors who festoon their kids orange Fisher-Price basketball hoop with the bodies of 20 coyotes. All to decorate the parka hoods at LL Bean? Won’t mention watching the hunters hanging out drinking beer along the roadside with their antennas and radios, what a sport.
But honestly, your article helped. I’ll try and see the other side.