Season 2, Episode 20: On Women, Fear and Nature with Erica Berry

Climate Change and Happiness

image credit| Elizaveta Dushechkina

Season 2, Episode 20: On Women, Fear and Nature with Erica Berry

Panu and Thomas spoke with Erica Berry, author of the recent memoir and natural history Wolfish. Join us as Erica eloquently discusses the relationships between womens’ fears and empowerment and the stories we tell about nature and predators, wild and human. Meta-themes included how we can face our fears and rewire our instincts about global threats like climate change and how we can see other species as beings in their own right, not just as symbols or repositories for our fears and dreams.

Links

• Erica Berry

• Wolfish excerpts:

  • What Our Fear of Wolves Tells Us About Ourselves

  • ‘A night for growing up’: how a terrifying college ‘prank’ taught me about fear

• Erica Berry (March 21, 2023). Climate Grief Was Clouding My Time Outside. So I Turned to Ecotherapy. [Describing walking therapy sessions with Thomas Doherty.] Outside Magazine Online.

• Erica Berry (September 2020). Here in fire-stricken Oregon, an old way of life is gone. The Guardian.

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Doherty: Well, hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast. The show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and environmental issues. We talk about our feelings. We talk about our emotions. We talk about our private lives, our relationships, our families. And today, we're very excited to have a guest with us.

Erica Berry: My name is Erica Berry. And I'm a writer and teacher based in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. My first book Wolfish: Wolf self and the Stories We Tell About Fear was recently released in the US and the UK.

Doherty: Yes. And I'm very lucky to share a hometown with Erica. And I've got a chance to meet Erica, and have some really nice conversations, and some walking with her in the forest. (Which recently turned into a story that Erica did for Outside Magazine.) So really glad to have her here. And a lot of neat themes. Erica's writing is - I highly recommend it. And she writes about relationships and gender. And being a woman in the wilderness. And about wolves and all kinds of things that are close to our hearts. And Panu, of course, coming from Finland has a lot of connections with wolves and the wilderness and from the Northern European context. So Panu, do you want to get us started with this conversation today?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome, Erica also, on my behalf, delighted to meet you. And as Thomas hinted, wolves are a hot topic in Finland also. And we have a very limited number of them. And no other predator encounters as much hatred as the wolves do in Finland. And I'm taking part in some research projects where we try to understand this better also from a more humanistic and critical theory viewpoint. And feminist perspectives have been part of them. But before going into that, would you like to share something, Erica about your journey towards this subject matter all together? You know, emotions and our relations with the more than human world?

Berry: Thank you. I think that now I realized that I became sort of interested in wolves, both real and symbolic around the same time. And I think it came from this sort of larger coming of age question of how do - what are the stories we tell about the things that scare us? And how do we live with that uncertainty? And I suppose I was always an anxious child, in a sense. But also one very full of curiosity and wonder. And I think, you know, a young wolf is born, afraid. And I recently was talking to a biologist who said, if a wolf hears something under a tree, they might be afraid, but they'll go investigate it. And I think, you know, I was very lucky to have that sort of childhood where I was, like, pushing out and wandering around in the forest. And my grandparents, both live rurally. And so I spent a lot of time in those spaces. And cared for them sort of deeply. And felt, personally, kind of my own sense of calm or peace that I found there was what was at threat, as sort of wildfires would come or these other sorts of environmental things that then brought me anxiety.

And so, you know, I think this question, when I started thinking about the presence of the wolf, both in our landscape and in our psyches, it felt like a more personal one where I was trying to reconcile a sort of hyper vigilance that had come over me. And I feel like that was both environmental. Quite anxious about climate change. And felt very swamped with a sort of grief about that. And at the same time, in day to day, human interactions, I had had some experiences as a woman that had made me pretty unsure how to move my body through the world. And that sense of uncertainty. I didn't know the limits of it, either in my body or sort of externally. And so became so many of the stories about the wolf, and the sort of idioms about the wolf we've inherited. This idea of the wolf at the door. Or throughout different countries, there's different stories that parents would tell their children that are basically about ‘here's what the wolf has to tell us about how to stay alive.’ How to survive. And I became interested in those stories because I felt so afraid for my life and the people around me. Somewhat irrationally, in a sort of hyper vigilant sense. And, yeah, so I guess anxiety and wonder were sort of two doors that led me to this.

Doherty: “Anxiety and wonder. Two doors.” That's great. Yeah, so many things we could talk about today. Before our conversation formally started, we were brainstorming about all the different directions we can go. And wolves have such a deep, you know, mythical history particularly in northern European, Anglo and Celtic and Finnish cultures and things like that. One of the things that came up with us, Erica, was just and I think you speak of this really eloquently, kind of knowing, I don't know, treading the difference, or knowing the difference between our own personal feelings and these global things. And, you know, that's one of the things I think comes up at ecotherapy. Kind of like the “Capital I” issues. Like the big things we're working on. And the lowercase I [personal] issues, you know. You seem to have insights about that, do you. Would you say a little bit more about that? Like, it's almost like a chicken and egg thing? What came first: my own temperamental anxiety or climate anxiety? Have you thought about that a little bit?

Berry: Yeah, I mean, I think, at some point when this sort of modern conception of what to do, if you're afraid, is to grow out of your fears. That was what I thought. That was, I felt like what the self help books were telling me. But I was more interested in how we grow into those fears. And the idea that we inherit, and are sort of sold these narratives often benefiting someone or an institution or something in power. And often also, there's a cost of carrying those narratives. And so I began to sort of question, you know, thinking of my brain as this vessel that had been filled with things without my sort of wanting to. Growing up you just inherit sort of imbibing these narratives and picking each of them up and sort of questioning them.

And I think, for example, with the wolf, I was thinking, like, when did this idea of the wolf, and this sort of violent man. This metaphor. There's a conflation there. And when did that start. And I sort of was looking linguistically. And you have ancient Norse, Sanskrit, Russian and Iranian. There are words for wolf that are also the words for robber or evil doer. And so you'd have these sorts of legacies, even in the very language that goes back so far. And I became interested then. And, you know, from my personal interaction, I didn't feel afraid of wolves when I was hiking. But I was thinking about the relationship between if I'm a woman walking alone, you know, my grandfather's farm, there has been a cougar, that was you'll sort of sometimes you're walking, and it's the cougar prints are in your prints afterwards. You know, and I was thinking about that feeling of being in a space sort of intimately with a wild predator.

And then my experiences, you know, I'd had an experience on the sidewalk where I'd been grabbed by a stranger, I didn't know. And that rewrote my experience of walking through these sorts of city landscapes. And I, at the same time, was very aware that I'd inherited this sort of Little Red Riding Hood story that told me I would be attacked there. And told me that to be a young woman is to potentially, you know, be prey. And I was really uncomfortable with that narrative. So I feel like at a certain time, I would sort of try to talk myself out of it on a very internal level. But ultimately realized, well, I have to like, take apart the wiring of these social narratives, that both do say, who can be predator, who can be prey. What it means to exist in those spaces. I didn't trust them. And I would say that, you know, this work is a balance of asking yourself these internal questions. When am I holding something? When am I sort of reacting to and trusting those gut instincts? But also felt like my gut instincts were sort of shaped by a world that had a lot of prejudice. And I didn't really trust my gut instincts. And I don't know, I guess that, you know, maybe this comes up in this sort of therapy world, like I felt like when it came to fear, I didn't trust what I should be afraid of. Because the stories that told me seem sort of bunk.

Doherty: Yeah. Well, I'll say one thing, and then I'll turn it over to Panu. But I do think that one thing that does happen in therapy paradoxically is that we learn not to trust our gut. Or we learn to test our gut because we think, you know, the real wisdom is always trust your gut. But if you had some negative wiring through your family, or a lot of people just have no understanding of animals and other species. It's all just abstract because they didn't grow up around wolves or coyotes or anything. And so there's a whole environmental identity piece. So some of our gut instincts are totally wrong. And we have to let them go and rewire. So.

Berry: I'm curious about how to sort of refind that instinct. You know, I feel like going back to some of these sort of archetypal or old stories, I felt like I was trying to excavate, what are my sort of gut self protective instincts that aren't going to be harmful or rooted and misapprehension? I guess that's just a larger, you know, the larger question or work is figuring out those instincts.

Pihkala: Very inspiring and fascinating. And I find this very important, also. The price of curiosity is anxiety. Would be a sort of paraphrasing of some of the work that Joanna Macy and others do at this work that reconnects things. And that was a helpful lesson for me sometimes, you know. Realizing that even though anxiety and worry and fear about what's going on in the world can be painful, it's also a sort of necessity, if you want to keep your sense of curiosity and wonder alive. So just echoing and commenting on some of the things you said quite early. There's a great book by a woman therapist, Miriam Greenspan. We've mentioned this at some very early episode called Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair.

And I find myself thinking a lot about that book when listening to you. And a book about the so-called negative emotions. Which are not negative in the value laden sense. And sometimes one hears phrases like, we should be fearless in the face of the climate crisis, for example. And I partly understand what you mean. But that's not the whole point. We should be courageous. And, you know, learn to feel fear, roughly the right amount at the right place. So, wisdom in fear is one of the themes that Greenspan very eloquently explores. And her book also features much of the discussion about this troubling power dynamics where women and the more than human will often end up suffering from sort of toxic forms of male aggression. So that's something I wanted to bring up.

Berry: Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think about this question of how to do fear, both in myself. And then I'm sort of imagining I don't have children, but I was thinking about the stories I'd inherit as a child. And the children I work with or teacher, if I do have children, like what are the stories that you give them to sort of the right amount of fear to stay alive or just to thrive. But also not to make your world too small, right. And I think that does tie to wolves, right? We need to have some both wolves. But wolves need to feel some fear of humans, just like humans need to feel some fear of wolves. And like that fear can be some respect. And maybe it's not fear of attack, but like where reverence and awe tip into fear. And, you know, I think that's true, too. Socially, I was very resistant to relating to the Little Red Riding Hood narrative growing up as a teenager. Like, I really did not want to be this idea of the victim. And I think only later, when I'd sort of had some of these encounters did I realize that I needed to have some fear, actually. I tried to live completely fearlessly.

And I'd sort of grown up in this very sort of empowered girl power era of the late 90s. And actually, I needed to, like, rewire some of that. And I do think there's a crossover. I mean, I think that the threat that an animal and human poses are totally different. And wolves. You know, I need to say that, like, I don't think. There's a great quote by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.

Yeah, it says something like the cruelty that a predator does, it's not cruelty what a predator does to a prey animal, right? It's instinct. And that's why metaphors about wolves will fall flat, right? At the same time, there is something about learning to walk among other bodies, that you don't know what they will do. And you can't anticipate. That is true. We're just animals. And, you know, we're an animal among animals.
And I feel like part of my work into fear has just been thinking about the fear responses on an animal level. And I talked to a biologist who said, you know, fear is not an emotion in my lab, it's a set of responses. Sort of like these dominoes that affect our behavior. And a plant will be a different plant after it experiences chronic stress and an animal will and a person will. And it was sort of helpful for me to rationalize, like, oh, this is on a biological level. I've experienced something. And that's changing my body. And I can talk about that, but I guess the relationship between our sort of biological and psychological conceptions of fear.

Doherty: Yeah. I was just searching for a quote as we were talking that I gathered recently from Pema Chondron: “fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth.” One of her quotes. And so all of this has a meta level of climate change. And societally we're working out. We're dosing our fear so that. We don't even really have to get into that too much, but that's a backdrop for a lot of our talk today is climate change.

Berry: Well and I think realizing that fear. I at some point realized, like, being afraid is being in love with things, right? The more afraid I am, the more I don't want to lose something. I felt most sort of afraid of flying on airplanes, when I was working on this book project. And I really wanted to finish it. And for some reason, that made me like, I can't. I've never really felt afraid of flying. And I felt extra, that sense of protectiveness. And so understanding that there's sort of the opposite on the color wheel of love and fear. And same with grief. And, you know, yeah, that very much ties to climate and sort of investing in the world around you, or recognizing the environmental world is tied to that.

Pihkala: Yeah, great stuff. And also guilt, I think. So it's interesting that many of these very common climate emotions and eco emotions, have their basis in love and care actually. Or our deepest values. You know, wanting to have something very important done. Echoing what you say about finishing the book. I've had the same feeling sometimes when working for a very long time with a book or a long article. And this like errr I need to get this finished. And that ties with sort of very deep themes around what might be called death anxiety or wrestling with knowledge of mortality. And I've noticed over the years also that I don't have very high levels of death anxiety, but when you are in those kinds of situations where you would like something to happen, that's a slight increase in at least my death anxiety. It doesn't limit my everyday functioning, but it speaks I think that this dynamic is here now. That's again, one topic, I think, very closely related to wolves, as you have hinted at yourself.

Berry: When I was doing the eco therapy sessions to write about for the magazine with Thomas, he mentioned, like that idea of playing out sort of this worst case scenario. Or like, sitting with that. And I've thought about that a lot since. And sort of the word fear has roots in the Latin word for ambush. And this idea that we fear the thing that we can't anticipate. And I've thought a lot, you know, like worry becomes a form of a sort of a prayer for something to happen, right? It's a fantasy place in a way. You're living in a projection. And what can sort of be defamed by just living it through. Going there. Imagining it, as you say. Death attacks something. And then sort of sitting with that. And okay, I've played it out. And now maybe I'm sort of free of it. And yeah, I guess I've thought about that in different contexts since our walk.

Doherty: Yeah. As people are listening out there, our listeners, just a lot of things were touching on. I think, just to kind of ground us in a kind of a map of what we're talking about. I mean, some of what we're talking about is just personal, how our nervous systems work, right? So our nervous systems get used to being a certain way. And we get afraid of things. And we want to avoid them. And so what Erica was just talking about is kind of what the therapist would call exposure. You know, graduated exposure, where we kind of bring these things into our minds. And sit with them. And that allows our body to our heart rate to settle on our blood pressure to settle. And we realize oh, okay, I can be with this. So that's a kind of a therapy thing.

And then it's all insight about ourselves. And how we grew up. Oh, this is how I operate in the world. And one of the things that I don't know if that's true for you, Erica, but this was true for me when I was younger was being counterphobic. So I like to purposely do things that are scary. And pushed myself almost just compulsively, you know. And kind of to get away from my family, in a way because my mother was quite fearful of the world. She was not an outdoors person at all. And she almost drowned when she was a teenager in the Niagara River. You know, with her father fishing. And she would always tell us the story of how she almost drowned. In a working class Polish family. And you know, she was all huddled on the bus going home in a blanket. And that was our introduction to water and swimming. You know, so for me, it was always well, I have to jump off a cliff then. And get into the water. And then realizing that's limited too. Because we're kind of white knuckling it. We're not actually really living our lives. We're just pushing ourselves into things.

But anyways, all great insight. And Erica, all your writings really are so insightful. But we got the mind body. We've got therapy. And then this whole environmental identity piece too. Because you grew up, you had some actual familiarity with coyotes and animals. A lot of people, it's totally abstract. So they have no. It's like two cultures. This is a bit off track, but I was watching the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, in the news. And people talking about the US going into Iraq. And just seeing images of these poor National Guard soldiers going around Baghdad. And totally being out of their element. And such a lack of any understanding of that culture. And then of course, if you don't understand something, it's very scary. And then if you have a bunch of firearms, you're going to kill it. And so many people do not understand the culture of wolves. And, you know, whereas native people would coexist. So there's a whole cultural piece about us not really understanding the ways of animals. So cougars or owls are whales they become, oddly, you know, anthropomorphized. But, you know, all the wildlife biology people in the audience are shaking their hands because these people don't understand. So there's a lot of levels, just to kind of situate us in the conversation.

Berry: Yeah. My relatives. My grandfather had a sheep farm. And I think he was also his brother who had been the head of the Sierra Club. A big organization doing a lot of environmental sort of landmark legislation in the 70s when he was the president. And so I sort of inherited this legacy of conservation. And thinking about protecting these wild spaces. And at the same time, because he was taking care of sheep, and sometimes the sheep would get attacked by the coyote. And he would bring them in and have to stitch them up. Or, you know, we'd be feeding a lamb in the bathtub. And, you know, understanding there's a story that he told that I had forgotten where essentially, I had cried wolf on his farm. And I'd said, oh, Grandpa, there's a wolf here. And I'd been quite afraid. And I don't remember this. I was probably three years old. And it was a coyote, but he trapped it. And he could hold somehow, as a, you know, he was a conservationist and a hiker. And yet also on the farm, he was this tender. And he was trapping a coyote. I tried to ask him for more details. And he's passed away now. You know, it was sort of towards the end of his life that he was telling me this story. But he said, You were convinced it was a wolf. And you were afraid. And I thought, it's because I'd heard so many stories about the wolf being the threat. And I loved the lambs in that context.

And, you know, that feeling that even I had “cried wolf.” As someone who was very primed to this. You know, I think we all cry wolf, sometimes when we mean to cry other things, right? Which is, there's an animal here. And it's in a trap. And it's scary. And I'm scared. And I don't know what that experience is as a toddler, right? And I don't know, I think about so many of the wolf stories that I encountered. You know, it's really hard to give language to some of these other emotions. And so we sort of make it animal as a way of trying to make it legible to ourselves. But behind that, you know, it's scarier to peel back like, what else was I seeing? At that moment, I saw an animal that was probably dying. That my grandfather was killing. And that's harder for me to confront, you know, to really think about that is almost more painful.

Pihkala: Yeah, this is [a] profound discussion. I find myself thinking about vulnerability. There's of course much dynamics of control and power. And in these discourses about predators. And how much they can be hated. It's difficult not to see elements of so-called human dominion thinking. And it's a threat when some creature still can show some power. But another theme related to this, which you hinted at, our pre discussion is scapegoating. Which I've been thinking about a lot lately because we've had in Finland, one another media attack on Greta Thunberg. The Swedish young climate activist. And the way she is treated as a prime example of what can be called scapegoat ecology. People trying to escape a difficult, ethical question where they have some complicity in by attacking the messenger. Or then, you know, loading an enormous amount of things and emotions and whatever into one creature.

And that happens, sadly, for Greta. But it often seems to happen for wolves also. And then it's quite clear that people are also projecting perhaps hidden parts of themselves into wolves. This is a very large topic. And I'm really looking forward to reading your book. But I still want to lift this up. And I think that one of the key elements is sorting together with others. Accepting vulnerability. Which is basically what you do when you hike. There is that element, but then if you are real about it, it's much more dangerous to go driving in a car than it is to go walking into the forest, in relation to predators, for example.

Berry: I love that. And I think, you know, it makes me think of a line Thomas from the paper that you've shared. Thomas had worked on a paper about carnivore sort of the actual risks of predation. And saying that, like, in a world, where we are living beside these creatures, we have to take some responsibility. Which is maybe supervising some young children or dogs. Or be sort of mindful when we're walking or biking. And that is implying not that we think we will be attacked, but that we understand that we're sharing the land, right? And having to act in different ways. And I think that we're sort of resistant to that idea in this very anthropomorphic way. Like I am the one in control of this space. I should be able to run or jog or do whatever I want here without this encroachment.

And at the same time, I think, as a woman, I've been doing that for so long. Like, of course, I'm not going to run in certain places. And, you know, it's been interesting with the book out, I get emails from men who say, oh, I've never really thought about this. I hike everywhere. And I love hiking. And I've never thought about the ways that you wouldn't hike somewhere. And I'm thinking like, really? This has always been part of my experience. And so many people, you know, maybe there is a relationship there again, with how do we be mindful of our vulnerability and also the power? You know, I studied mother wolves at one point. Stories about mother wolves. And the idea that they're so fierce. And they can be the fiercest sort of, they have so much to the stakes are high, right? So much to protect. And yet also there's this vulnerability and the ferocity are intertwined in ways that we don't always culturally see, right? We see them as two separate things. But in fact, yeah, there's an intimate link there.

Doherty: Yeah. So many levels of awareness. You know, yeah men just being aware of not even being aware that they are the Alpha predator, typically. So they don't have to worry about anything. And then, even if you're not when you're a young man being killed by an animal's glorious way to die, so why not? There's no loss either way.

But in our last part, Erica, you've hinted at this already with some of the letters you've gotten, but you know, you've been traveling the country, I guess. Sharing this really interesting book, right? Which is going to pull on city people and pull on rural people. And bring in young women, perhaps, that are building their ability to go on a solo hike. And then bringing in ranchers or environmentalists. Or even just city people who are just curious about this. So what are any interesting anecdotes or just insights you've got after doing these public talks and seeing people. I'm curious what people come up to you and say.

Berry: It was really interesting, because I just had a call with one of the ranchers who I talked to in the book. And he left me a message and he said, I'm halfway through your book. And it's very sociological. It's not just about real wolves. Which I sort of tried to explain, but it's a tricky concept of a book to explain to people. And so I called him back later. And he said, you know, I'm thinking about how I was a wolf when I was young. And he's had a livestock producer who's lost almost more livestock than most producers in Oregon to wolves. But what was really catching him was not the sort of the biological wolf, but like his own story. And he started talking about the sort of violence that women in his family had experienced. Processing almost in a sort of therapy-like way with me, on the phone.

And I think that is a sort of, that is a theme right now of people sharing stories of, especially women. Maybe there's this whole gray area of incidents where you don't know if you're technically at risk. I think that is one of the things that I became interested in is, you know, there are these encounters where you know, your life is in danger. But there are other encounters like this one where I had where I was grabbed on the street, where somebody else intervened. and you don't really know what it would have been like if there hadn't been that intervention. And so I didn't know how to narrate it. I didn't totally trust my fear. There were reasons why I felt bad for the man. He was inebriated, he was sort of crying as he was kind of attacking me. And, you know, I didn't have a language for that. And I think those are the moments that other people are also sort of saying, I have all these moments too, that are kind of like this.

And, you know, early on, I'd had a sort of advisor say, well, this moment in the book, in an early draft, is sort of a normal assault. I've thought about those two words together quite a lot since then. And the ways that what becomes normal. What becomes normalized. What sorts of violence become normalized. And so yeah, it's quite interesting to hear. I was troubled by that, of course. And wanted to sort of be able to shine a light on these more quotidian moments of violence or unrest or “unsafeness” that maybe we feel or internalize and carry with us. And so, yeah, a number of people sharing those with me, which I think, you know, is a gift that it's giving them space to think it through. And also, you know, there's a sadness to understanding how many people move through the world with this sort of awareness.

Doherty: Yeah. We're coming toward the end of our time. And I think listeners are taking this in all different directions. We have a number of really juicy, you know, items to put in our show notes. Links to some excerpts from Erica's book and some of her other writings. and some stuff that Panu has. And some things that I have even about just basic research about animal tax. So there's a lot of directions to go with this. And we'll want to keep in touch. Keep in touch Erica. You kind of put yourself as this cultural therapist here, in your book readings here. Yeah, let's wrap it up, Panu, Erica. Where do we want to go as we take it away? Or what messages do you want to leave with the listeners,

Berry: I think one thing that I've just thought about, again, is this idea that fear is not necessarily a bad thing, you know. And I go back to research I did with some ecology of fear biologists who sort of study these landscapes of fear. And the sort of psychological topographies of fear. And I've really started thinking about that in human contexts. And, you know, this idea of moving through the world without fear, again. Go back to maybe what brought me into this is also what brings me out of it. Which is like the relationship between curiosity and inquiry and uncertainty. And those things, you know, as the writing I do is grounded in not knowing. And feeling somewhat provoked often. And that becomes a gateway to something generative.

And so I think the generative impulses behind this. And, at the same time, I'm a much less fearful person after doing this work. And thinking really deeply about the stories I'd inherited about wolves, both real and symbolic. And sort of the legacy and lineage around this predator. Which is code for something else. And so much of the sort of Western culture I'd inherited. I am less afraid. And so I guess I would encourage other people who might be in a similar spot of hypervigilance. Or whatever that I really felt like I was quite steeped in, to think about that idea of sort of like unplugging the wiring. And thinking about how did your parents teach you about fear? What were the stories that you believed about what would happen to your body in the wilderness? Or who you would encounter there. And sort of that has been so generative for me. And ultimately, not a way of making my world smaller, but making it bigger.

Pihkala: Thanks for that, also. This has been a delightful conversation. And it leaves many images and words. I've been thinking and musing about how one level would be a united approach of staying with the animals as symbols in combination with them as real others. Partly unknown others, and also symbols. And I really look forward to thinking more about that when reading your book. And I think this idea of encountering our wolf side. Both light and shadow are terribly important for contemporary times. Most of all, thanks for the great conversation.

Berry: Thank you so much for having me here. It's such a pleasure.

Doherty: Yes. Thank you so much, Erica. I look forward to more connections. And so yes, listeners, we have another episode with Susan Bodner, where she was talking about New York City, her perspective on the outdoors, which will pair well with our conversation. And you can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. And please support us at our Patreon. And all of us, you all and listeners, you all have a good rest of your day. Take care.

Doherty: The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.