The Dark Mountain Project - Walking on Lava: Selected Works for Uncivilised Times

Praise for Walking on Lava

Dont read this book if youre not willing to be shaken and unsettled. Unflinching and unafraid!

Bill McKibben , author of The End of Nature

This book changed my life. It puts into words the sense of utter hopelessness I feel about the fate of the world as we have known it. And yet, miraculously, it gives me hope beyond hope for what lies ahead. The Dark Mountaineers are blazing new trails into, and through, the hot lava of our uncertain future.

Eric Utne , founder of Utne Reader

We humans are in trouble, and because of us, most of our fellow species are also in trouble. All of the planets life-support systems are under stress or collapsing because of our unchecked appetites and swelling population. To find our way through the ruins and beyond, we need more than clever technology and magical markets. We need an alternative to the industrial mindset, which views Earth as raw material for human consumption and as a dump for our waste. We need the kind of diverse, clear-eyed, ecologically wise imagining gathered in this book. A bow of gratitude to the denizens of Dark Mountain.

Scott Russell Sanders , author of Dancing in Dreamtime

A collection by turns magical, brave, earnest, and mournful but truthful throughout. The authors point the way down a faint but still visible trail beyond domination and back to our once and future place as humble animals in love with our world.

Lierre Keith , author of The Vegetarian Myth ; coauthor of Deep Green Resistance

This medley of entrancing, soul-enhancing, exciting stories will stir your creaturely blood from the very depths of our sainted Earth. You will feel enlivened in ways you had forgotten; you will breathe in the wildness of the world; a holy wind will heal you. You will journey to your wider Self to Great Gaia, Mother of All. This Dark Mountain book will do all this for you, and more. When youve read it, its words coursing through your veins, more animal now, more alive go and do something wholesome for the more-than-youness that youve discovered, and, at last, come home.

Dr. Stephan Harding , resident ecologist, Schumacher College; author of Animate Earth

Dark Mountains call to uncivilisation is not about unravelling the survival structures of our society. It is something much deeper, putting new survival structures in place by calling back the soul. I hope that this anthology will thrill you on that journey.

Alastair McIntosh , PhD, author of Spiritual Activism and Poachers Pilgrimage

In a culture killing the planet, and in a culture based on denial, I am grateful that the authors in this volume acknowledge the horrors we face. I hope that people will read this book, and armed with its important analysis, they will then act decisively to protect the planet that is our only home.

Derrick Jensen , author of A Language Older Than Words , The Culture of Make Believe , Endgame , and many other books

Its wonderful that with this book an outsider can finally see all the things the Dark Mountain Project has been doing all these years. Probably wont avert civilizations collapse, but its good to have.

Kirkpatrick Sale , author of Human Scale Revisited

The Dark Mountain Project has at last arrived in the United States with this splendidly ecological book, one to which Rachel Carson, Ed Abbey, and Aldo Leopold would have been proud to contribute. Urgently recommended!

Lawrence Millman , author of At the End of the World

In a world of disintegrating certainties, the vacuum left behind is terrifying. Yet the Dark Mountain Project insists on exploring this space, which the mainstream bids us ignore. For that alone it is invaluable. And when we are brave enough to open our eyes, Walking on Lava reveals that we are not alone. What new stories might we tell, together?

Shaun Chamberlin , author of The Transition Timeline ; editor of Lean Logic and Surviving the Future

Copyright 2017 by The Dark Mountain Project, Ltd.

All rights reserved.

Cover photograph by Garrett Hupe Where to? Where from? Mount Patterson of the Watupik Range, Alberta, Canada Issue 7, Spring 2015

How many ages, how many generations has this great being seen? How many photographs? How many sunsets? How many trees have passed like water beneath its shadow? A mountain just is. Beauty put it there for time to watch. garrett.hupe@gmail.com

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Project Manager: Alexander Bullett

Project Editor: Brianne Goodspeed

Proofreader: Laura Jorstad

Designer: Melissa Jacobson

Printed in the United States of America.

First printing July, 2017.

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Our Commitment to Green Publishing

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because it was printed on paper that contains recycled fiber, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative ( www.greenpressinitiative.org ), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Walking on Lava was printed on paper supplied by Thomson-Shore that contains 100 % postconsumer recycled fiber.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dark Mountain Project, author. | DuCann, Charlotte, editor. | Hine, Dougald, editor. | Hunt, Nick, editor. | Kingsnorth, Paul, 1972 editor.

Title: Walking on lava : selected works for uncivilised times / The Dark Mountain Project ; edited by Charlotte DuCann, Dougald Hine, Nick Hunt and Paul Kingsnorth.

Description: White River Junction, Vermont : Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017011225| ISBN 9781603587419 (paperback) | ISBN 9781603587426 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: NatureLiterary collections. | EcologyLiterary collections. | Environmental protectionLiterary collections. | Ecocriticism. | BISAC: NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection. | NATURE / Ecology. | SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Future Studies. | LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General.

Classification: LCC PS509.N3 D37 2017 | DDC 810.8/036dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011225

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White River Junction, VT 05001

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Contents

CHRISTOS GALANIS The Time I Shot the Iliad (2 of 5) New Mexico, USA Issue 11, Spring 2017

The Time I Shot the Iliad is part of a series of shot books I created in the deserts of New Mexico that began as both an interrogation of US gun culture, and the role of books in the development and dominance of civilisation. These dusty discarded books mined from charity shops eventually became sites for reinscribing contemporary narratives of contraction and loss. Their desecrated pages are perhaps the visceral embodiment of a more faithful articulation of the arc of time we are living through.