This Event has Passed
Encountering Dragonfly: Author Brooke Williams at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Sept 2, 2025
Author Brooke Williams (Mary Jane Wild, Open Midnight) and Harvard Professor Dan Schrag will present a lively and timely conversation about what it means to “re-enchant” our relationship with the natural world: seeing nature through a lens that accounts for and embraces myth, dream, imagination, and our collective cultural experience.
The conversation is in celebration of Brooke’s new book, Encountering Dragonfly, and will include an audience Q&A and be followed by a book signing.
About the book:
Years ago, Brooke Williams had a powerful dream about a dragonfly, a dream that cracked open his world by giving rise to a steady stream of dragonfly encounters in his waking life. Since then, he has delved deeply into the intricate and nuanced natural history of dragonflies while also exploring their symbolic meaning and cultural significance.
Encountering Dragonfly is Brooke’s account of becoming an “imaginal ecologist” i.e. allowing archetypal and symbolic dimensions to stand alongside an organism’s biological and behavioral traits. Brooke has come to believe that seeing dragonflies both in and out of that dream marked his personal “re-enchantment,” changing his relationship with the natural world from one that is primarily ecological/biological to one that includes myth and dream and collective unconscious. His experience leads him to wonder about the implications of following a path toward greater enchantment and whether viewing nature through a less materialist lens can foster a healthier relationship between our culture and our planet.
About the speakers:
Brooke Williams has spent the last forty years advocating for wilderness and has served on the board of multiple environmental organizations including Western Environmental Legal Center, Center for Humans and Nature, and Utah Rivers Council. His writing about evolution, consciousness, and his own adventures exploring both the inner and outer wilderness has appeared in Orion, Outside, Huffington Post, and numerous other publications, and has been anthologized in Best American Essays. Brooke’s books include Open Midnight: Where Wilderness and Ancestors Meet (Trinity University Press, 2017), Mary Jane Wild: Two Walks and a Rant (Homebound Publications, 2020), and Encountering Dragonfly: Notes on the Practice of Re-Enchantment (Uphill Books, 2025). He lives with the writer, Terry Tempest Williams, and two cats near Moab, Utah, where they watch light and wait for rain.
Dan Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. He also co-directs the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3186350-0
