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Talking on the Water: Conversations About Nature and Creativity
Since 1983, the Resource Institute, headed by Jonathan White, has held an ongoing series of "floating seminars" aboard a 65-foot schooner, events led by leading thinkers and artists in a broad array of disciplines. Ten years in the making, here is a sparkling collection of interviews, conducted by White, with the writers, scientists, environmentalists, and poets that gathered on board to explore our relationship to the wild.
Readers can listen to science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin discuss the nature of language; microbiologist Lynn Margulis contemplate Darwin's career and the many meanings of evolution and anthropologist Richard Nelson talk about the spiritual life of Alaska's native people. Rounding out the group are such visionaries as writers Gretel Ehrlich, Paul Shepard, and Peter Matthiessen, conservationists David Brower and Roger Payne, theologian Matthew Fox, activist Janet McCloud, Jungian analyst James Hillman, poet Gary Snyder, and ecologist Dolores LaChapelle. By identifying the common link between these conversations, we embark on the search for a deeper and more meaningful understanding of ourselves and the environment.
Readers can listen to science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin discuss the nature of language; microbiologist Lynn Margulis contemplate Darwin's career and the many meanings of evolution and anthropologist Richard Nelson talk about the spiritual life of Alaska's native people. Rounding out the group are such visionaries as writers Gretel Ehrlich, Paul Shepard, and Peter Matthiessen, conservationists David Brower and Roger Payne, theologian Matthew Fox, activist Janet McCloud, Jungian analyst James Hillman, poet Gary Snyder, and ecologist Dolores LaChapelle. By identifying the common link between these conversations, we embark on the search for a deeper and more meaningful understanding of ourselves and the environment.
271 pages, Paperback
First published May 10, 1994
27 people are currently reading
350 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan White
2 books36 followersJonathan’s love for the sea is lifelong. He grew up on the beaches of southern California. He’s built and sailed many boats, logged more than a hundred thousand miles on the Pacific and Atlantic, and surfed all over the world. He has served on numerous conservation boards and committees, including the San Juan Preservation Trust, the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee, and the Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Initiative.
As founder and former director of the Resource Institute, a nonprofit educational organization based in Seattle, Washington, he spent eleven years building a seminar program aboard the schooner Crusader in the Pacific Northwest, from Puget Sound to Southeast Alaska. Resource Institute sponsored weeklong seminars aboard the sixty-five-foot schooner, with subjects ranging from navigation, anthropology, and whale research to poetry, writing, music, and photography. Psychologist James Hillman taught a seminar on the role of animals in dreams; scientist Lynn Margulis discussed the Gaia Hypothesis; poet Gary Snyder pondered the role of killer whales and bears in Haida mythology. Robert Bly, Gretel Ehrlich, Richard Nelson, Paul Winter, Art Wolfe, and William Stafford were among the many others who taught aboard Crusader. Jonathan’s first book, "Talking on the Water," grew out of these experiences.
While on a seminar in Southeast Alaska, Crusader ran aground on a spring tide. After nearly losing the boat, Jonathan vowed to learn more about this mysterious and implacable force. Ten years of research took him to five continents where he saw the largest, fastest, scariest and most amazing tides in the world. With Lukasi Nappaaluk, an Inuit elder, he slithered through a hole in the arctic ice and gathered mussels in the dark cavities left behind by a dropping tide. In China, he witnessed the world’s largest tidal bore, a 25-foot wave that charges upriver at twenty miles an hour. And at the Royal Society of London, he learned that Plato and Aristotle, Leonardo de Vinci, Newton, Descartes, and many other noted thinkers had been captivated – and befuddled — by the tide’s mystery. The book that led to Galileo’s arrest for heresy by the Catholic Church, in fact, was a treatise originally called “The Flux and Reflux of the Tides.” It’s been that important to mankind for centuries. But the story has never been properly told.
As founder and former director of the Resource Institute, a nonprofit educational organization based in Seattle, Washington, he spent eleven years building a seminar program aboard the schooner Crusader in the Pacific Northwest, from Puget Sound to Southeast Alaska. Resource Institute sponsored weeklong seminars aboard the sixty-five-foot schooner, with subjects ranging from navigation, anthropology, and whale research to poetry, writing, music, and photography. Psychologist James Hillman taught a seminar on the role of animals in dreams; scientist Lynn Margulis discussed the Gaia Hypothesis; poet Gary Snyder pondered the role of killer whales and bears in Haida mythology. Robert Bly, Gretel Ehrlich, Richard Nelson, Paul Winter, Art Wolfe, and William Stafford were among the many others who taught aboard Crusader. Jonathan’s first book, "Talking on the Water," grew out of these experiences.
While on a seminar in Southeast Alaska, Crusader ran aground on a spring tide. After nearly losing the boat, Jonathan vowed to learn more about this mysterious and implacable force. Ten years of research took him to five continents where he saw the largest, fastest, scariest and most amazing tides in the world. With Lukasi Nappaaluk, an Inuit elder, he slithered through a hole in the arctic ice and gathered mussels in the dark cavities left behind by a dropping tide. In China, he witnessed the world’s largest tidal bore, a 25-foot wave that charges upriver at twenty miles an hour. And at the Royal Society of London, he learned that Plato and Aristotle, Leonardo de Vinci, Newton, Descartes, and many other noted thinkers had been captivated – and befuddled — by the tide’s mystery. The book that led to Galileo’s arrest for heresy by the Catholic Church, in fact, was a treatise originally called “The Flux and Reflux of the Tides.” It’s been that important to mankind for centuries. But the story has never been properly told.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 15, 2018
solid collection of conversations about eco-philosophy had on board a restored sailboat as it sailed (mostly around) Southeast Alaska. many beautiful passages by a wide range of people including poets, ecologists, novelists, activists, even a theologian and a psychoanalyst. i read this slowly, pencil in hand. JoAnn R-C, do you happen to have a copy of this on your boat..?
December 16, 2022
Lots of speaking on behalf of populations, and treating a number of populations as monoliths. Specifically, almost all of the interviewees at some point spoke on behalf of people indigenous to a number of lands—in ways that, to me, transcended discussion of the interviewees experiences studying or living with them.
There were great nuggets on the environment and ecologies—for me it was if non-human beings, land, and ecologies were treated with more nuance than the people referred to.
There were great nuggets on the environment and ecologies—for me it was if non-human beings, land, and ecologies were treated with more nuance than the people referred to.
March 18, 2023
3.5 stars
This book has not necessarily aged well. Written in 1990s, I believe many of those interviewed would have evolved their thinking in the last 30 years, especially around native cultures.
I picked it up because it contains an interview with Ursula K LeGuin, who is a personal hero. Some of the other interviews/chapters are more interesting than others, but there was at least one nugget about ecology or nature or philosophy that I pulled out of each of them.
This book has not necessarily aged well. Written in 1990s, I believe many of those interviewed would have evolved their thinking in the last 30 years, especially around native cultures.
I picked it up because it contains an interview with Ursula K LeGuin, who is a personal hero. Some of the other interviews/chapters are more interesting than others, but there was at least one nugget about ecology or nature or philosophy that I pulled out of each of them.
July 26, 2024
I came upon this wonderful book at a second hand store while in a camping trip. Sadly, many of the books they refer to are no longer in print and hard to find. This is a beautiful book with an amazing collection of interviews.
November 1, 2024
In koyukon, bik’ugnaatltonh means “something took care of him”. I love the idea, hunters goes out gets a moose or something, people will say bik’uhnaatltohn
June 17, 2025
amazing collection of essays on nature, spirituality, creativity, being human, ecology, anthropology.... book of the year so far!
February 17, 2017
In the 1980s and 1990s the author interviewed a diverse group of thinkers and writers (Ursula Le Guin, Gretel Ehrlich, Matthew Fox, Gary Snyder, etc) about their relationship with the natural world. Their conversations were held on a wooden schooner.
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March 21, 2019Storytelling is a tool for knowing who we are and what we want, too. If we never find our experience described in poetry or stories, we assume that our experience is insignificant.
Art of the storytelling is so significant that what we read books on politics or fiction are all story. History is in toto storytelling and history itself is reflection of art of storytelling. Without equipping oneself with this art a person is dumb.
If you want to cultivate your art of storytelling read Jonathan White's Talking on the Water.
Art of the storytelling is so significant that what we read books on politics or fiction are all story. History is in toto storytelling and history itself is reflection of art of storytelling. Without equipping oneself with this art a person is dumb.
If you want to cultivate your art of storytelling read Jonathan White's Talking on the Water.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews