Advance Praise for Creeksong…
Wendy’s unique take on this global problem emerges from a deep personal inquiry into the meaning of a right relationship with the natural world. It was my privilege to supervise her PhD. And it is my delight, as an IPCC Member, to recommend Creeksong, her inspirational book about the most significant problem faced by Earth’s communities. Wendy’s midlife research journey culminates in a courageous call to arms from an inspired elder.
Professor Peter Newman, AO, Co-ordinating Lead Author, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University, Western Australia
This extraordinary memoir is at last published! I’ve been a close friend of Wendy’s for 50 years, watching and helping a little as her stories have come to life. This book transports us into Wendy’s development with remarkable depth and understanding, and the images and writing are remarkable.
I’ve always been well along the materialist spectrum from Wendy’s spiritual insights, though, like anyone, I have my own spiritual life. Wendy’s writing gives us all bright access into her numinous world. I strongly recommend that those of a skeptical, “mainstream” bent read it. Not least, for her courage, thoughtfulness, and grounding on an earth in danger—lessons for us all. And it’s a very good story. This book takes us along a life of continuing transformation, through landscapes painted in many colors, by a writer with a fearless mind and a boundless heart.
Emeritus Professor David Wilmoth, Director, Learning Cities International
Creeksong is a personal journey of discovery and enlightenment. Urban Wendy moves from the constraints of life as an academic wife to become a brilliant student and then a highly successful community planner and consultant. Then she sadly realizes that ecology and environmental ethics are missing in many important decisions affecting life on Earth. She faces many challenges in her solo year in “the bush,” living in a tropical alternative community and learning to become environmentally literate. There, in surroundings teeming with wildlife, mosquito swarms, unusual plants, and the ever-present fear of wildfire, she encounters six distinct seasons (well known to First Nations inhabitants).
Creeksong is a gripping story of Wendy’s growing understanding of and relationship with nature, interspersed with the unique characters in the remote and crazy world of the Australian Top End. This inspirational book sends a strong message about the urgent need for humans to re-connect with and value nature to rectify the assaults on the very essence of the Earth that sustains human life. And all life.
Joc Schmiechen, wilderness guide and rock art researcher, School of Humanities, Flinders University, Adelaide
Moving seamlessly between a suspenseful narrative and scientific facts, Creeksong shows us the real costs of climate change. Sarkissian also demonstrates the courage it takes to love deeply and to work with urgency to heal mother earth.
Louise Nayer, educator and author of Burned: A Memoir, an Oprah Great Read
Creeksong is a courageous and moving tribute to life, death, healing, and the natural world. It is, at heart, an initiatory journey of a woman, weaving a tale that spans decades and continents, and captures the innocence and hopefulness of a child, the passion of a woman, and the wise humility of an elder.
Yollana Shore, Executive Coach, Awakening Leadership, Australia
Earth is a tiny planet. I met Wendy first in California and we attended an anti-nuclear protest together. We stayed in touch over the years, which became decades, then a new millennium. Wendy has a rare ability to capture the micro-detail of a landscape, tap deep into the minds she meets, and channel her energy into effective outrage at the abuse of the Only One Earth and its peoples.
Our pathways continued to intersect. When I read Wendy’s account, it’s as if I am there again, breathing in the intensely personal, intensely political life we lived together. Thank you, Wendy. You are one of the Oracles creating the global noosphere, which will address the global problems we have created collectively. This book is a portal into that world in the making.
Peter Hayes, PhD, Co-founder, Friends of the Earth Australia/International, MacArthur Fellow, Director, Nautilus Institute
Wendy Sarkissian has been a leader in community engagement in Australia for half a century. Now, in Creeksong, she blends her passion for community engagement with her spirituality and a deep love of Nature in a hard-hitting, timely book. Wendy’s heartfelt reflections on the culpability of planning practice make her book a must-read for anyone working in the spheres of planning and community engagement. Her infinite wisdom continues to inspire me.
Becky Hirst, FRSA, author of For the Love of Community Engagement and community engagement practitioner: Becky Hirst Consulting
Light a red candle for courage–terror essential–inside the inside of Creeksong’s ephemeral wadi–macro lens on fire ecology–I am the only being in this forest that does not know its place–cyclone advice–through tantric opening and beauty and fear and grief–one woman’s authentic transformation–redefine ideas about intelligence, relationship, trust, healing, ecology–a path of hidden waters as everything changes.
Ours is a friendship spanning 68 years and half the world. Wendy Sarkissian and I were two round-faced girls in 7th grade at Hamilton Junior High in North Vancouver. We’ve seen each other through thick and thin. She typed my first book of poems. She’s always been brilliant and unique. This is her life. Read it. Come as close as another can get to living it. What can I do for our Earth and all who live with me on it?
Dr. Jane Munro, poet and educator, author of Blue Sonoma, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize 2015. Jane Munro
Creeksong is remarkable. Spun from the life of a leading feminist, planner, and eco-activist, this book is charming, wise, and surprising. Best of all, it is life-affirming as it helps us face dark clouds ahead.
This book is not an example of the narrow humanism that emerged out of the Enlightenment. It is a recognition that disciplined thought brings out new human possibility to inhabit the world differently.
Aidan Davison, PhD, Associate Professor of human geography and environmental studies, University of Tasmania
