Welcome to Wonder Cabinet.
I'm Anne Strain-Champs.
And I'm Steve Paulson.
Where do you turn when wonder feels out of reach?
When your country's at war with itself?
When American cities look like they are under siege,
and you feel helpless even while you're glued to the news.
At times like these, wonder can seem like a trivial emotion.
Irrelevant, even escapist.
But maybe it can also be a doorway to a better future.
Today, writer and activist Rebecca Solnit joins us to talk about
the moral value of wonder and a long arc of progress.
You know, we had a profound cultural change,
which was so slow and incremental.
It often feels like nobody really noticed.
And I feel like the opposite of a Paul Revere,
not running around saying something just happened,
but saying something has been slowly happening,
and this moment is radically different than 30 or 50 or 100 years ago.
Okay, let's pause for a sec.
We should remind people who Rebecca Solnit is.
Right.
She's a writer and public intellectual and activist
who has been involved in environmental and human rights issues
for more than three decades.
I'd say she's one of the most influential writers on the left.
She's written more than 20 books.
Some of them are famous.
Hope in the Dark, The Field Guide to Getting Lost,
Men Explain Things to Me.
She writes about feminism, popular protest,
walking and wandering, the history of the American West.
I mean, I know her books, but you follow her online, I think.
I do, especially at times like this,
when I'm really looking for a critical analysis
of what our government is doing.
She's one of the people I turn to,
and Solnit has this really uncanny ability
to bring together what I would call up-to-the-minute journalism
with this broader historical view.
And there's a distinguished tradition of people who write like this.
Barbara Ehrenreich was one,
and one of her own personal heroes, George Orwell.
But you really pushed to have her on Wonder Cabinet.
Why was that so important to you?
Two things.
Because we live, you and I, five hours from Minneapolis.
And those videos of masked federal agents
kitted out as if they're going into battle in Fallujah,
smashing windshields and breaking down doors,
that has all been happening on streets that look like ours.
And I know that the shock and the horror is intentional,
that the terror is the point,
but it has really felt like beauty and decency
and the ability even to have a sense of wonder is under attack.
And then here's the second reason
that I wanted to talk to Rebecca Solnit.
I keep remembering this conversation we had about her last book,
Orwell's Roses.
And this is the book in which she talks about
beauty and gardens and roses
and all those small everyday joys
as a form of resistance,
as fundamentally anti-totalitarian.
And so I wanted to know how that idea would hold up today,
if it would.
And it turns out she has a book coming out in March
that is absolutely of this moment
and yet profoundly hopeful.
Really hopeful?
You'd think it would be anything but?
Well, it's a nuanced hope.
Okay.
But the clue is in the title.
The beginning comes after the end.
Okay.
So I know there is that old line from Antonio Gramsci's
prison notebooks where he says that
the old world is dying
and the new world struggles to be born.
That's the reference?
That's the reference.
And she is using it to reframe
America's authoritarian turn
as the last gasp of a dying worldview.
You know, so she's writing against
the tone of apocalyptic dread
that suffuses so much commentary today
and in a voice of hope and wonder.
Okay.
Let's listen.
I thought we could start with the story you tell
at the beginning of the book
just because I love the scene.
It was this October morning, 2024.
You're on a California hill
looking over the ocean.
Could you take us there and paint that picture
and then tell me why you wanted to begin the book there?
Yeah.
It was a really windy day
which made it hard to hear anybody.
The landscape felt almost scorched
from the dry summer
as California does before the rains come back
and it wasn't a dramatically glamorous place.
It wasn't the top of half dome
or giant redwood trees
or what the same place might look like in spring
but it was a miraculous place
because I was at a land back ceremony
for a tribe that didn't have federal recognition
until the year 2000
and so a number of miraculous things had to happen
that put us in a place
that was unimaginable before.
I grew up very near this place
at the northernmost tip of Marin County
and when I grew up in that place
people had nothing to say about Native Californians,
ignored them altogether
or asserted that they were all gone
and something that I think is really remarkable
is that people who were told
that they were over,
they were anachronistic,
they were extinct
have become in many ways
the visions and the voices
leading us into a sustainable, viable future.
So everything has changed
and it's changed in complex ways,
subtle ways, slow ways, incremental ways
that so often haven't been recognized
which made me feel like
I needed to write a book
just describing the change.
What you're saying is so welcome
and also such a contrast
to the mood right now.
I mean, we are talking the same week
when Renee Goode was shot and killed by ice.
To say that many of us feel completely overwhelmed
is an understatement
and in the face of this
you're writing very intentionally
against despair
and I wonder
why is that despair story
so sticky?
I totally understand
and share some of the feeling of horror
that people have in this moment
and fear
but I think the big story
and this is really a story
that the right is telling us
if we listen carefully enough
what I hear the right saying
is you all are very powerful
you have changed the world profoundly
all this stuff you have done
whether it's marriage equality
or women's rights
or environmental protection
or telling the real history
of this country
are all connected.
We hate it
we want to reverse it
we want to hit rewind on the VCR
and something that I believe is true
is you can change laws
but you can't change beliefs as readily
you can take away reproductive rights
but you can't take away the belief
that we deserve reproductive rights
and wanting people
to just take more nuanced
complex and patient views
rather than being
the people I so often run into
who are like
we had a protest on Tuesday
and the government didn't drop to its knees
and hand us everything on Wednesday
so nothing happened
you know
you get this impatience
this oversimplification
this inability to see change itself
that I think really feeds the defeatism
and I'm here to feed the hope
realistic hope
pragmatic hope
engaged hope
because we live in a world
that has changed in ways
that we now barely see
but that's actually really awesome.
While you were talking
I was remembering
something that British activist
and song collector Sam Lee
likes to say
culture eats politics for breakfast.
I think of politics
as like this kind of scum
on top of the deep strata
that our culture
culture shapes politics
it reshapes politics
ideas really matter
and we're often told
that artists, musicians, writers
educators, educators, historians
are somehow lightweight
trivial
insignificant people
but when you change the story
everything changes
they're trying to change the story
which they're not very good at
they're not going to make people believe
slavery was a good thing
especially black people
things mostly change incrementally
and the Berlin Wall falls
but there's a build up to it
you know
marriage equality comes about
11 years ago
but there's a long long campaign
of changing the way
the rest of us
think about queer people
about rights
and about the institution of marriage
that makes this sudden thing possible
I was actually thinking this morning
about how when I was a kid
a huge number of Americans
believed that they didn't know
anybody gay or lesbian
yeah
and which is you know
which when you add it all up
I think is 10% of the population
and you know
I don't think we'll ever live
in a world where people think
they don't know anybody
queer anymore
and it does feel like
that long view
is a bit countercultural
in the sense that
so many of the stories
that we are surrounded by
are so now now now
you know
what just happened
today
this hour
yesterday
so trying to hold on
to that bigger picture
gets harder and harder
for a reason
yeah
and it's actually really
handicapped us
when it comes to understanding
a lot of incremental change
for the better or worse
climate change
has been really hard
for people
to wrap their minds around
because it's a very
incremental global process
with many causes
and many solutions
but to your larger point
I wrote a piece
for The Guardian
a few years ago
whose opening line
I'm very fond of
I said
I often feel like
a tortoise
at a mayfly party
you know
tortoises can live
for 170 years
mayflies actually
live a long time
in their larval stage
but in their adult stage
live for a day or two
and I move around
feeling like
I understand
how successful
feminism has been
because I remember
how grim
and repressive
and equal
the status of women was
including my own mother
in the world
I was born into
64 years ago
and so yeah
we've lost some things
in recent years
but it sure as hell
isn't 1961 again
and I don't think
it ever will be
I remember saying
something
some young woman
saying well
of course
I didn't play sports
when I was growing up
and they said
oh why not
and I said
well everything changed
after Title IX
and they said
what was Title IX
so it's like
we just forget
yeah people forget
all that stuff
there's a wonderful
sentence or pair of sentences
by the theologian
Walter Brueggemann
where he says
amnesia breeds despair
the way that memory
breeds hope
and people think
hope is about the future
but the future
is unknown
it doesn't exist
we're making it
in the present
which is actually
a really hopeful reality
people pretend
we know the future
which is usually
what I call
upper middle class
peasant fatalism
it will never
it will never work
I know exactly
what will happen
it's this bizarre way
people allocate
themselves
a power they don't have
to know the future
to abandon
the power they do have
which is also
a responsibility
to make the future
but the past
is what gives us
the templates
the examples
the understanding
of the trajectories
the forces
if you know the past
you can see change
and often that requires
being slow
and it's not just
you know
do we know
and value history
some of it is
some of these changes
you know
you make this point
some of these changes
happen off camera
in a way
you've got a lovely
section on
the move
to renewable energy
which I confess
I did not know
until I read that section
in your book
just the extraordinary
strides
that have been made
in the last
10 years
renewables
well to frame it
for this show
fill me with wonder
and it really took me
reading a book
about the history
of coal
written at the end
of the 20th century
to realize
wow when this book
was written
we really did not
have an alternative
to fossil fuel
because wind and solar
were primitive
expensive
utterly inadequate
technologies
and then to realize
oh my god
we've had an energy
revolution
and then it took
a few more years
to realize
like no
we're actually
in the early stages
of an energy revolution
wind
sun
batteries
maybe tidal power
what else is coming
and that changes
everything
and there's a
mindset
very stuck
in the kind of
Al Gore
Prius compact
fluorescent light bulb
era that thinks
that it's all
got to be
a kind of
thrift
conservation
austerity
and so we live
in a completely
different set
of possibilities
than we did
even 10 or 15
years ago
and every prediction
about the price
of solar
and its proliferation
has been an
underestimate
because any
accurate estimate
would have seemed
insane
at the time
it was made
and then it
became reality
and this is part
of what people
don't remember
is before the
Berlin Wall
falls
before marriage
equality
before California
becomes a place
that's dropped
its use of
natural gas
by 40%
because renewables
these things
seem
inconceivable
impossible
and so I want
people to see
that as equipment
to face
an absolutely
difficult
and scary
present
but to face
it with
a kind of
resoluteness
and confidence
in our own
power
we've been
talking about
hope
making the case
for this
very realistic
pragmatic hope
but I want to
shift and ask you
about a related
emotion
at least
which I think
is related
wonder
and you know
when Steve and I
started this podcast
I was worried
that wonder
might seem
kind of like
a recipe
for irrelevance
like hope
it is not
a very prevalent
emotion
right now
in the zeitgeist
and I was
a little worried
that this would
come across
as escapist
or elitist
but I have
this stubborn
view that
having a sense
of wonder
does matter
not just
spiritually
but politically
morally
and I hope
you'd help us
think about that
I take it
you've read
Dr. Keltner's
book
Awe
which is
basically
another word
for wonder
I really thought
it was going
to be kind
of about
aesthetic
epiphanies
which I have
all the time
in the natural
world
but his first
category
is moral
beauty
being deeply
moved
by people
doing things
exactly like
the people
of Minneapolis
are doing
in the streets
to stand up
for their
immigrant and
refugee
and brown
and black
neighbors
and of course
those people
are standing
up for themselves
as well
I think
wonder
is very
woven
into
our lives
in a lot
of important
ways
I think
recognizing
that even
our species
is small
in the cosmic
scheme
of things
I think
pleasure
and joy
are important
emotions
for keeping
your bearings
and not
becoming
grim
from thinking
about nothing
but what's
bad and wrong
and I wrote
the book
Orwell's Roses
because it was
so exciting
to recognize
that George
Orwell
the 20th
century's
most prominent
anti-fascist
somebody who
faced unpleasant
facts
actually took
a bullet
through the neck
fighting
fascism
with a rifle
on the front
in Spain
also spent
a lot
of time
cultivating
a garden
taking pleasure
in roses
and the
natural world
and everyday
things like
a good cup
of tea
or a good
mug of beer
I think
we anchor
ourselves
in pleasure
in joy
in friendship
in love
so yeah
I think
wonder is
important
and I think
part of what
keeps me
what would
you call
it
relatively
cheerful
in the face
of all
this
is just
like I
am a
tortoise
at the
mayfly
party
with a
long
sense
of time
and change
so I
retain
wonder
about the
miraculous
things that
happened
and one
of the
great
influences
on my
life
was the
way
Eastern
Europe
liberated
itself
in the
fall
of 1989
something
nobody
including
the
Western
European
or Eastern
European
regimes
really
anticipated
how magically
would happen
how you
know half
a dozen
countries
that have
been
totalitarian
since the
second world
war would
through largely
non-violent
means change
themselves
so you have
to trace
the threads
and the threads
are long
threads
but when you
do you see
the tapestry
and it can
be quite
exciting
and back
to your
frame fill
you with
wonder
and so
I think
I go
around
in a
state
of wonder
a lot
of the
time
well the
other thing
that I
hear you
pointing to
that I
think is
related to
wonder
is
mystery
these moments
where like
nobody could
have predicted
or we
didn't know
how this
would go
so it's
holding on
to this
potency
of the
unknown
against our
own potency
which people
pretend to
have when
they make
these
pseudo-authoritative
proclamations
about what
can and
can't
will and
won't
happen
Albert
Einstein
really kind
of got
stuck
after the
theory of
relativity
if I
remember my
physics
history right
and when
quantum physics
came along
he said
God does
not play
dice
and one
of my
favorite
physicists
Niels Bohr
who was
Danish
part Jewish
a hero
of the
resistance
a remarkable
man in
many ways
with a
kind of
poetic
soul
said
it is
not for
us to
tell God
what he
may or
may not
do
but yeah
I think
that there's
something
essentially
mysterious
and that's
actually
beautiful
and that's
also the
terrain of
possibility
of recognizing
we don't
know what
will happen
because we're
deciding it
in the
present
and I
also thought
in 1989
Nelson Mandela
would spend
his whole
life in
jail
and I
didn't have
any estimate
that apartheid
would be
disbanded
the regime
would end
and Mandela
rather than
spending his
life
you know
on robber's
island
would become
president
of a
new
South Africa
and we're
close to a
cure for
AIDS
speaking of
who thought
that was
going to
happen
maybe there's
a connection
thinking about
that darkness
the mystery
that we were
alluding to
and if you
bear with me
this isn't
really well
thought out
but the
new book
is at least
being talked
about as a
sequel to one
of your best
loved books
hope in the
dark
and that
title to me
always meant
hope in
terrible times
but I heard a
conversation with
you recently
that made me
realize that is
a misreading
of what you
meant and you
were actually
writing to
reframe not
only hope
but also
darkness
am I right
you are
totally right
and we
use this
good versus
evil
horrible
binary of
light equals
good and
anybody who's
you know
picture an
interrogation
chamber with
the thousand
watt bulbs
shining in
your eyes
the prisoners
who aren't
allowed any
darkness
etc
light is not
all good
and a
summer in
Iceland made
me fall in
love with
night in a
new way
the sensuality
of the way
your other
senses wake
up because
your vision
doesn't work
so well
and now I
crave the
deep darkness
where you
see the
Milky Way
but I also
found the
equation of
dark with
bad things
only too
readily takes
on racial
overtones that
I am not
interested in
participating in
but for me
hope in the
dark
partly comes
from a
wonderful line
of Virginia
Wolfe's
the future
is dark
which is on
the whole the
best thing it
can be I
think and
of course
it's in her
diary not
long after
one of her
breakdowns
during the
First World
War not
an easy or
great time
for her
but I
feel like
in its
essence
it invites
us to
know that
we don't
know
you know
knowing you
don't know
is the real
beginning of
wisdom and
we can equate
that unknowing
to darkness
but also see
that it's
erotic it's
fruitful it's
generative
well yeah
I'm also
thinking about
you know
how often
experiences of
disaster when
we think it's
the worst
thing possible
and there's
nothing to do
but run into
it and help
other people
those are often
some of the
most beautiful
experiences of
humanity
I mean like
you I like
history so
when things get
bad I go back
to read about
London during
the blitz I
just find it
very very
comforting but
you know I
could just as
well say you
know remember
New York
after 9-11
when I live
in Madison
Wisconsin I
knew people
who packed
their cars
and drove
to New York
to help
so that's
another way of
thinking about
what shadow
experiences bring
out
you probably
know I wrote
a whole book
that has the
blitz 9-11
at Hurricane
Katrina and
some other
disasters and
at A Paradise
Built in Hell
where I was
interested in
the way people
not just rise
to the occasion
not just are
heroic and
generous and
altruistic and
brave and all
that good stuff
as they take
care of each
other in an
emergency but
what was
remarkable to
me when I
wrote that
book when I
read all those
first-hand
accounts for
older disasters
when I talked
to people who
had been in
the great Mexico
city earthquake
of 85 in
Katrina in
9-11 they
lit up they
found a joy
and a meaning
and a purpose
and a connection
that was missing
from everyday
life in some
ways everyday
life under
capitalism
produces a
lot of
anomie and
isolation a
kind of lack
of agency
connection
meaning and
in those
moments of
disaster people
often find
them which is
so meaningful
so important
to them that
even you know
their own
house has
collapsed or
burned down
everything is
uncertain death
is all around
they often live
more vividly and
find something
remarkable in
it and again
it goes to
something about
this political
crisis we are
not who we're
told we are
it is useful
for consumerism
capitalism
authoritarianism
elites to say
that ordinary
people are
selfish greedy
and cowardly
and in
Minneapolis you
know a woman
just got shot
three times in
the face
and under that
theory about
cowardly and
selfish everyone
should be staying
home for
self-preservation
but the amazing
people of
Minneapolis and
surroundings are
still showing up
and a lot of
them are not
people like
Renee Good who
are themselves
under threat from
ICE they're people
standing up for
other people
we've been
talking about
other things but
we could have
had a whole
conversation about
these versions of
human nature
and I think
those have
actually changed
a lot in our
lifetime from
the kind of
selfish individualism
the social
Darwinism to
recognizing a
world that is
more collaborative
symbiotic
relational more
full of mutual
aid and
connection than
we used to
recognize
I'm talking with
writer and
activist Rebecca
Solnit and
so what is
the future she
thinks is being
born right now
that's my next
question right
after this break
you
Hey, it's Steve.
I want to invite you to visit our Wonder Cabinet website,
where you will find more information about the show and Anne and me.
And I really hope you'll subscribe to our newsletter.
We'll tell you the story behind the name of this podcast
and some of the amazing guests we'll be talking with in future episodes.
You can find us at wondercabinetproductions.com.
And please, tell your friends about Wonder Cabinet.
This is a brand new podcast, and we'd love your help in getting the word out.
This is Wonder Cabinet, and we're talking with Rebecca Solnit about her new book,
due out in March, called The Beginning Comes After the End.
You like that quotation from Antonio Gramsci, the old world is dying and the new has not yet
been born, and something I've noticed, and I think you pulled this together, is the beginning
of this new narrative that was coming out of the sciences. I mean, my kind of shorthand for it is
Gaia 2.0, but it's, you know, the idea that the earth systems and species are all completely
interconnected at every level, that our lives are interwoven with the lives of insects and plants
and the microbiome. And what you do that I like so much is say, no, it's not just in the sciences.
This is the new paradigm that is becoming. Can you say a little more about that, sketch it a little
bit? Yeah. I think the life sciences have been extraordinary in their transformative vision,
recognizing that nature is far more symbiotic, interconnected, systemic than the previous
versions. And one of the great test cases is reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone, which
chased elk, which kept the elk from chewing down all the saplings by the waterways, which allowed
beavers to return and build ponds and riparian habitat to grow richer, and the whole ecology to
get richer, which when all that happened was kind of a hot, controversial new idea in the 90s.
My great niece got taught it in fifth grade, because now it's just accepted how things work.
But the sciences have really shifted at every level. You can talk about that our own body is seen as
full of non-human DNA of all those microbes in your intestines and elsewhere necessary to your survival.
So you're really kind of a lurching pile of plurality, not a single individual.
You can look at maybe the most famous of all these, Suzanne Simard, and a lot of the brilliant thinkers have
been women, recognizing that a forest is a community. And I juxtapose Margaret Thatcher's famous,
there is no such thing as society, against Suzanne Simard, recognizing that even without human beings,
there's society because a forest is a society. Or you can throw in Jane Goodall, who broke down the
divide that biologists, zoologists wanted there to be between the human and the non-human.
And so going back to that idea that culture changes long before politics does, you know,
So we're talking about the culture of science and this new scientific story infiltrating the culture.
What do you think, what kind of changes would you predict are going to come from that in other
spheres, in the political sphere, for instance?
Well, I'm being long-winded, but something I think is essential is all these new ideas
actually align really beautifully with what a lot of Indigenous people,
certainly many that we know in North America have been telling us, which is seeing a world of deep
relationship and interconnection is true and necessary and important for acting meaningfully
and sustainably in the world. And so I find it also very exciting that these new scientific ideas
actually line up with the oldest ideas.
Wow. So maybe there's a future in which Western industrialized capitalism was a blip.
That's something I propose in the book because, you know, we grew up with the idea that sort of
Eurocentric, industrialized, capitalist culture was the true, right, smart, white guy way to do everything.
And now I think we're going to look at it as kind of a detour, a certain part of humanity made from
the really old ways and whilst others never forgot them, never stopped practicing them.
It's so much fun to talk about these big sweeping ideas with you, but I'm curious about
you and your own personal experience. You know, you've written about being raised in difficult
circumstances. You've said you had a kind of inside out childhood in the sense that outdoors was safer
than inside your home. What would you say are the experiences that pulled you outside that small self
and into wonder or mystery or hope?
Well, in many ways, I'm living a life better than anybody told me I was ever going to have.
Lots of different people told me to have very low expectations for myself and there were low
expectations for girls. You know, I have more friends and better friends and this writing thing
has turned out pretty well for me, which also lots of people told me was not really going to work out
for me. And I live in a world that's just a much better world to be a woman in. Marriage and children
is not the only form of relationality or love out there. I've been hugely shaped by growing up really
since I was 18 in San Francisco, surrounded by gay men and queer culture. And, you know, a lot of it,
I think, is intellectual excitement and adventure. I was part of the Western Shoshone Defense Project.
I've slept on the sands of the Arctic Ocean. I floated down rivers. You know, I've gotten to see
transformation itself. And that's what I think the long view lets you see. You can see change.
And to see something like the arrival of Buddhism in the West and its transformative possibility is
so exciting. And so the personal and the public are not that separate for me. But even as a kid,
you know, I had a kind of bleak childhood in terms of violence and a pretty cold home, etc. But I also
was in love with books and stories on the natural world around me. And I took refuge in them. And I'm also
an ex-punk rocker, which was very helpful in that difficult youth of mine. And there's a certain
never surrender defiance about that. Our enemies would love us to surrender. They'd love us to say
we have no power and they won and we're giving up. And why the hell would I ever give them the
satisfaction, even if I thought it was true? And it's not true. So if you can't be an angel of hope,
just be a punk rocker. And actually, I think there's a great mashup of that in hope punk right
now.
Oh, I don't even know about hope punk.
Oh, yeah. There's this great hope punk thing, which I think is about being hopeful without being
sappy, wishy-washy.
Oh, I love it.
Being fiercely hopeful, defiantly hopeful, hopeful with an attitude.
That also sounds very much like you.
Yeah. And here I sit before you, not that the listeners will see me. I've been joking lately
that I've made a graceful transition from punk rock black to Buddhist black with a slight
sprinkling of Sicilian Widow. And yeah, no, punk rock was huge for me too.
Did you have a favorite song or favorite band?
I didn't really like Black Flag because all these jock-like Southern California hardcore bands
came in. And for all us nerdy people, suddenly what had been slam dancing became thrash and
the mosh pit and it became too violent for scrawny people like me. But I will say Black Flags,
Rise Above is one of the great anthems.
What do you listen to today?
Things with cellos in them.
Music played on instruments made by my friend Hans Johansson. He's a master
instrument maker in Reykjavik. He just posted a video of somebody playing 50 minutes of music
in a cathedral on one of his violins. And I listen to lots of different things. I still
love roots and country music and Emmylou Harris and Patti Smith and this and that. It's fairly random.
Okay. So I've got just two last questions. I know I'm keeping you.
No worries.
So one is, we've been talking about this long view that we often don't see because we're so
mired in the moment. Can you paint a long view picture of the future? Doesn't mean it's going
to happen, but you know, there's a lot of value in imagining future possibilities.
I actually, I can't because I really don't do that. But something I'm really excited about
is Afrofuturism, Latino Futurism, Indigenous Futurism. There's a new kind of utopianism that's
not everything will be hunky-dory and all our problems will be over and we'll arrive in some
sort of future so perfect that we'll just have to impose authoritarianism to maintain it in exactly
that way forever, which is what utopias often look like from Thomas More's Utopia on. But what they
see, and I think also Corey, doctor of science fiction, sees this, well, we could solve a lot
of the problems we have in the present or move beyond a lot of the problems we have in the present
and then we'll have new and interesting problems. We will always be in some degree in struggle. We
will always be in problems. But no, I think there's so many different possible futures and my version
of imagining one would make me feel like I had dismissed all the others as though I knew which
seeds we planted would bear fruit. And, you know, we just have to keep planting seeds and know that
we don't know which ones will bear fruit, who will harvest them, and what they'll do with that fruit.
More fun to see what's going to come out of that fertile, rich darkness. So, last question. If we
were going to create a new wonder cabinet for the modern age and you could put anything in it,
what would you like to add to it?
The videotape of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's expression when she realized she won the primary,
a chunk of the Berlin Wall, maybe something about Nelson Mandela's presidential election,
the marriage equality decision in the Supreme Court in 2015.
Oh my God, we're going to give you your own drawer. It's the Rebecca Solomon drawer you could
pull out.
Yeah. Here's something that would be wonderful in a wonder cabinet. I only realized writing for
World AIDS Day that not only was Rosa Parks the instigator of the Montgomery bus boycott that got
the civil rights movement going, but she was a brilliant seamstress and she actually sewed squares
for the AIDS quilt. And I loved seeing that her commitment to liberation didn't stop with Black
liberation or racial justice. That as an older woman in the 80s or the 90s who had sewn quilts for
people she cared about as well as sewing for a living when she was younger, she made patches for
people who died of AIDS for the AIDS quilt. That single act of care, of love, of craft connected to
very different movements in ways I hadn't imagined. Let's talk about indirect consequences.
Wow. Yeah.
Oh, thank you so much. This was a beautiful conversation. It was a pleasure talking with you.
The same. Hope, courage, generosity are contagious. And I love that you've decided to make wonder
contagious, the best contagions, even as we face the worst.
That's Rebecca Solnit, writer, activist, and voice of conscience. She's written more than 20 books and
she has a new one due out in March called The Beginning Comes After the End. I'm Anne Strangehamps.
And I'm Steve Paulson. On our next episode, I'll talk with novelist George Saunders about creating
imaginative worlds filled with ghosts and angels and why dying may be the ultimate experience of wonder.
Thanks to our audio engineer, Steve Gotcher, and to digital producer, Mark Rickers. I hope you'll
join Wonder Cabinet on your podcast platform of choice and sign up for the newsletter so you never
miss an episode. You'll find it all at wondercabinetproductions.com. Until next time.