Musings In The Third Dimension | by Amira K Makansi
Join me on my new Substack, THE ECOLOGY OF TOMORROW, where I share spicy reflections on the social, cultural, political, and philosophical intersections of the environmental movement. This was the introductory post, published last week. To get first access to all new posts, become a subscriber. In September of 2020, I was blocks away from…
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On Saturday, August 26, I hiked to Ramona Falls from the Ramona Falls Trailhead in the Mt. Hood Wilderness area. We did a “lollipop loop” that took the PCT along the Sandy River and up to the falls, and the Ramona Falls Return Loop Trail on the return, which then connected with the PCT to…
Read MoreI am publishing excerpts from past journal entries as a way to excavate my own history. These have been lightly edited for clarity. Edits are notated in the passages. A strange thought crossed my mind today. That despite all the vagaries of my love life and the occasional torment of work, these last six months…
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In the wake of 4th of July and the verdicts coming down from the Supreme Court, I have been reflecting on all that is happening in our world, especially the sense of doom and hopelessness felt by so many. There is a palpable sense that the world is heading downhill for good, that there’s nothing…
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Does anyone still read blog posts? Follow blog authors? Read individual posts that come across your feed that aren’t published by Politico or Mother Jones? Are blogs still a thing? It doesn’t seem like anyone reads blogs anymore. It seems like both readers and authors have abandoned blogs in favor of Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and…
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In the face of great collective loneliness during the pandemic, spending time running on trails has offered a different kind of solitude. 2020 was a year of reckoning: with society, with our government, with ourselves. As we turned inwards to combat the pandemic, stopped seeing our friends and families, and dramatically altered our social habits,…
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More than half a decade ago, a story was birthed here on this blog. For fans of Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman comes my newest novel, THE PATHS BETWEEN THE STARS, a genre-bending story about a young girl finding her way after a devastating loss. Due out in 2021, I’ll offer a complimentary copy to…
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On the lessons we learn as we age One of the interesting things about getting older is that you learn. You actually do learn. People older than you always talk about this learning experience, but it’s hard to believe until you see it for yourself. You actually learn things about the world as you grow…
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“Why does nobody believe that I saw the evil spirit that day? They make offerings to phantoms, and yet when I offer them actual proof of one, they laugh in my face!” Kinnara by Kevin Ansbro is a charming book with a delightful tone and a happy ending. It interweaves magical realism, mythology, and travel narrative…
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A music festival might not seem the ideal place to spend a lot of time thinking about writing, but that’s pretty much all I thought about while I was at Lightning in a Bottle, an electronic music festival at Lake San Antonio, California. Lightning in a Bottle is no ordinary music festival. It’s not like Sasquatch or…
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The Z-Axis 