On Gretel Ehrlich (Julie Matysek)
     Natural Space
    Gretel states that "Space is an arena where the rowdy particles  that are the building blocks of life perform their antics"in her piece, "Spring."  After reading Gretel, I came under the impression if ever a woman cowboy existed, it would be her. She has lived on a six thousand acre mountain pasture raising cattle and riding horses throughout her life. She prefers a more natural existence and denies many of the practicalities of civilization.  She mocks the comforts of the modern day home.  To her, home is a place that exists in her heart, through her language, her bond with nature, and the perception of place.  In her journal "Life at Close Range,"  Gretel states that "place ultimately become a mirror of the mind."  A statement which may refer to the feeling of home that she gives in "Architecture." Her home is natural, a piece of the topography an existence that  blends into the space around her, like her ranch, a blending piece of the landscape.

    "Architecture" takes place in Wyoming along the rugged mountains and plains. She uses the idea of home and reconstructs it to the  basics.  Like everything she seems to do in her writing, her home and others is inspected at close range.  She "dismisses the idiotic idea of human dominance over nature.  Its Physically and intellectually absurd."  I can imagine Gretel getting on her hands and knees to inspect the lichen on the surface of the granite boulder covered in green and black .  Noticing  how there home is so much smaller than ours and inspecting a smaller type of life. Life is something that seems to be an amazing concept.

    In her "Life at Close Range" she states that "From dividing into the midst of other lives,  in nature and the human realm, working as a nuturer, student, midwife, I've stumbled on the liberating sense of equality that exists everywhere...With equality comes a sense of holinesssacred or secular of every animate and inanimate thing."  Her admiration of home is equal at every level of life.  The home of a bear is equally important to the home of an ant.  Similar to the ideas of Thoreau. Home is a place to"let nature in", not keep it out.  It amazes me that she can see a boulder crashing down her walls and say that it was a perfectly natural event, and in a way, was expected.

    Gretel Ehrlich has a great need to understand nature and her writing. She likes to "Scrutinize and savor the constructs of language the points at which ideas, ethics, sensations meet or collide."  She is greatly influenced by the Japanese poet Basho.  A different type of naturalist that has opened her eyes to something totally different.  She searches for"unseen truths," not just literal truths.  She does not always see the hiding dear in the woods, but she knows that they are there. She states "Life at Close Range" that "nature experiments with me." A type of remark that illustrates the humble outlook that she has on her place in nature. Gretel is quietly aware that she is interconnected into the web of life.

    The descriptions given are very detailed. Only the smallest things may  define the whole.  I like her idea of home.  "the house should not be separate, a hollow sculpture conforming to the architect's ego.  Rather, it should invoke something of how a human moves and breathes; it should be the flexible casing for metabolism. "  Her space or home is an" arena" for existence.  She can be called a dreamer stating that "every atom is once inside of a star." Her true home would be outside, laying on a bed of grass, looking up at the universe wondering which star she belongs to.

    There is a wholeness to Gretel's work.  Something a little more emotional and attached to the idea of nature and home.  The "body and mind" are united and combined.  She states in "Life at close Range"  that "  After all,  the breath that starts the song of a poem, or the symphony of a novel the same breath that lifts me into the saddle starts in the body, and the same time enlivens the mind." Her blueprint would be, no blueprint at all.  Her mind perceives the world and takes into account the appreciation of each breath, each moment.  Her home is a combination of the organic, the surreal and the intellect. Her home is nature but with a type of consciousness that exists in her writings.

    Bibliography

    Ehrlich, Gretel.  Islands, the Universe, Home. New York. Penguin Books, 1991.

    Sternburg, Janet.  The Writer on Her Work, Vol II.  New    York. Norton & Co., 1991.