A Walk with Obi and Wade
NEW DATE: Sept. 30 | 7 p.m. | Virtual
$10 | wildboundlive.com
I open the field atlas, “The Forests of California,” and hold it in my hand. It’s weighty. The soft cover is reminiscent of a canvas and bears the artist’s rendering of a green forest with a purple owl flying overhead. I fan through it. A drawing of yet another owl stares back at me.
The book contains stunning works of art: trees, birds and animals, anchored by author Obi Kaufmann‘s poetry and prose. The son of an astrophysicist and clinical psychologist, Kaufmann studied mathematics. While at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Kaufmann spent time backpacking the Santa Ynez mountains and studied the rich, colorful rock paintings of the Chumash people. It was here that he had an epiphany of sorts.
“We will have the opportunity to perhaps, in light of climate breakdown, see ourselves more connected. The land becomes more and more connected to one another. The future is unwritten. Let’s get to work.”
–Obi Kaufmann
“My mind was open to the power of painting, the power of storytelling. And seeing back then, in the 90s, when we were on the cusp of this burgeoning science of climate change or as I call it in the book, climate breakdown by way of anthropogenic global warming, that California has been wounded by 150 years of Euro-American settlement,” says Kaufmann.
The continued consumption of California’s resources eventually became the subject for his study.
Kaufmann is not only an author and artist, he is a naturalist. He leans into science and in his words: “takes great pride in deferring to science and the scientific method to uncover some approximation of objective truth. The human mind, human consciousness, the grand mythic imagination in this capacity, needs tending to, as well.”
Kaufmann acknowledges that we must consider our sustainability and sustainability of this modern culture in what he says is a sort of urbanized veneer that we’ve erected over the top of this natural character of California. What is the nature of that natural character? Where did it come from? What is the state of it now? And what will it be in the future? These are deep, thoughtful questions that Kaufmann lays for us to contemplate and consider. How can we all be stewards of the state? How can we contribute to the whole in both small ways and more considerable collective ways?
“All of these problems we’re having — the fires are related to the water, which is related to the air, which ultimately is related to the earth, as well. So, there’s this platonic element that always comes into play in my work, as well — how they all move together with these grand living networks to coalesce into this greater reality that is California,” he says.
A passion for the environment
When Kaufmann met Wade Crowfoot, California’s Secretary of Natural Resources, they struck up a deep friendship based on their mutual passion for California and the environment.
“Wade’s greatest strength as our current State Secretary of Natural Resources is his ability to apprehend nuance, which is the heart, the core of the matter when you’re talking about fire in California and how we’re going to establish a new policy,” says Kaufmann.
In June, Kaufmann and Crowfoot met for a camping trip in the Sierra Buttes. They followed the footsteps of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt and explored California’s nature. They engaged in deep conversation on urgent topics, including wildfires, water shortage, climate change and an action plan to be better stewards of the Golden State’s biodiversity. The trip was filmed and will premiere via livestream on Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. The event, a walk with Obi Kaufmann and Wade Crowfoot, inspires us to look deeper, think harder and make a difference.
“There is magic in the well. The more I dig from it, the more water there is in the world to learn from,” says Kaufmann.
He is deep, thoughtful and inspiring. He gives hope in a world that is challenged. And in those challenges, particularly in California, he says there is an opportunity that offers us a new vision of California. And while fires rage across the state, he says there is opportunity.
“The opportunity is to reset, just like what’s happening in the forests right now. The forests are in this process of reset,” he says. “The trees pass in order for new growth. Things are getting worse and they’re getting better at the same time. We will have the opportunity to perhaps, in light of climate breakdown, see ourselves more connected. The land becomes more and more connected to one another. The future is unwritten. Let’s get to work.”
Kaufmann’s next book, “The Coasts of California,” will be released in April. | coyoteandthunder.com, wildboundlive.com
