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Listening to Stone Creek Woman by Pamela Hyde, Executive Director, Southwest Rivers I made my first raft trip down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon in 1993. It was one of the most magical experiences of my life, and launched me solidly into a career -no, a calling -as an environmental champion of the Colorado River. Early one morning on that trip, as I sat on a rock watching the bats catch a last meal over the placid river before finding a roost for the day, a voice entered my mind. "Help people see the beauty,"it said. Who was speaking to me, I wondered. Could the river and the canyon have such power that they actually placed this message in my head? Several years later I discovered a book called An Unspoken Hunger by Terry Tempest Williams, and an essay in it called "Stone Creek Woman". Terry tells of a river trip in Grand Canyon in which she visits the waterfall up in Stone Creek, and makes a discovery...
Of course. Stone Creek Woman. That was the voice that I had heard. The timeless essence of the Grand Canyon that lives in the unexpected, dazzling beauty of water and canyon. She speaks to those who open themselves to her. Terry celebrates Stone Creek Woman, and bids us to heed her message...
I, too, have heard Stone Creek Woman's message. Water is life. The beauty that is hidden away deep in the Grand Canyon, from the tiniest plant to the grandest vista, can help us see that the Colorado River and every seep, spring, creek, stream and river that feeds it holds the key to life in this arid landscape. You are a steward of the river, Stone Creek Woman whispers to me, but you can be more than that. You can be a window to the river's future. I am humbled, Stone Creek Woman. Copyright © 2002 by Pamela W. Hyde. All excerpts are from "Stone Creek Woman,"in An Unspoken Hunger, Terry Tempest Williams. Pantheon Books, New York. 1994.
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