Page 162 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

crust, and more healing plants emerge. People are inspired to tear up paving wherever they find

it.

And on it goes, as the oysters multiply. The Chesapeake is well pleased that she and her rivers

run clear again. The cormorants and osprey, herons and geese and Monarchs once again fill

the skies. The blue crabs thrive because the grasses have grown thick. Even the rockfish and

the sturgeon return in great numbers. And we do not blush to bless a glass of water before

drinking it nor find it strange to sit in hushed stillness under the sky that arcs over the Mother of

Waters, bowing our heads in thanks as day becomes night.

Julie Gabrielli has practiced and taught architecture

with a focus on sustainable design for over twenty-five

years. She was a faculty advisor for the University of

Maryland’s 2007 Solar Decathlon entry, LEAFHouse,

which place second overall, first in the U.S. The

essays and paintings on her blog, Thriving on the

explore the both/and territory of living
Threshold,

between cultural stories. In her Restorying retreats,

participants experience sensory and imaginative

kinship with the wild, animate world and practice

listening for stories from the land. Her writing has been

published online, in magazines including Ecological

Home Ideas and Urbanite, and in the Dark Mountain

Journal #6 and #8. She counts on her teenage son

and her novel-in-progress for frequent lessons in

humility.

juliegabrielli.com

*”Jimmy” is the waterman's term for male crab. “Sook” is a female crab

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