Williams connects two catastrophic events: living downwind of atomic nuclear testing in the deserts of Utah and the record breaking flooding of the Great Salt Lake. These events have deeply affected her sense of the need for refuge. She poetically conveys to us her personal perspectives on grief, love, and the spirituality of nature, lake and desert.

Terry takes us on a whirlwind tour of what it means to give voice to our own authenticity. It requires deep listening and fertile silences. She encourages us to speak "Mother Tongue" - speaking from the belly rather than the mind. She laments that in Western culture "the language of economics has power, the language of the law has power, the language of science has power. But an intelligence of the heart, an emotional intelligence, or a poetic sensibility,...

Environmental politics becomes a matter of sensual passion rather than political correctness in this rich, colorful mosaic of thoughts on wildness, landscape, animals, and humans. It sparkles with gems of insight mined from Williams' own profound sense of belonging in nature and includes the voice of the late Edward Abbey, maverick environmentalist and friend of hers.