A Pagan Polemic curates the evolving perspective of Jack Loeffler--itinerant wanderer, environmental warrior, storyteller, and story collector--whose true education began when he was marched into the Nevada desert one day at dawn to play "The Stars and Stripes Forever" during an atomic bomb test a scant few miles away. Since that day in 1957, Jack's mission in life has been to record peoples of the borderlands and to bring "Indigenous mindedness" to the forefront of the conversation about our precarious environments and our decaying planet. A Pagan Polemic is a sweeping manifesto of Jack's core beliefs and long experience as a fierce (and funny) advocate for Nature and Nature-mindedness and against poisonous politics and policies.
Jack Loeffler is a writer, aural historian, and radio producer in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a winner of a 2008 Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts for ethnomusicology and writing.
"Here in one volume is a virtually complete account of the history of water and environmental issues in the American Southwest. Jack Loeffler is always arguing in favor of the great work of wild nature and the consciousness of serious nature scientists and scholars. He wrote a series of books, gave talks and lectures, climbed mountains and ran rivers, and knew everybody. Here is a lot of the story of those years--and we are lucky to have it."--Gary Snyder, author of The Practice of the Wild: Essays
"Loeffler takes the reader on a deep dive into nature-driven philosophies through the voices of many diverse thinkers, including his own strong, playful, and crucial voice."--Craig Leland Childs, author of Stone Desert: A Naturalist's Exploration of Canyonlands National Park
"No one listens to the Southwest like Jack Loeffler. This collection of essays constitutes a perfect guide to the life's work of an unsurpassed student of the Arid Lands."--William deBuys, author of The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss
Prologue. Rambling Reflections of the Reservoir of Memory 1. Our Window: An Editorial--1972 2. The Practice of Aural History 3. Native Windows into the Natural World 4. Aldo Leopold in the Southwest 5. Averting Dystopia 6. LUCA's Dream 7. Conflicting Ideologies 8. Counterculture in the Land of Clear Light 9. In Praise of Restoration Ecology 10. Nature Abhors a Maximum 11. A Sonoran Illumination 12. Thinking Like a Watershed 13. The Colorado River Compact Is 100 Years Old 14. On Direct Action 15. A Case for Naturist Anarchism 16. Naturizing Consciousness 17. Seeking Coherence 18. Lingering Speculations Conclusion. Invigorating Metamorphosis
