Terry Tempest Williams is a writer, educator, and environmental activist known for her lyrical and impassioned prose in such creative nonfiction books as Refuge — An Unnatural History of Family and Place; The Open Space of Democracy, Finding Beauty in a Broken World; When Women Were Birds; and Erosion: Essays of Undoing. A Recipient of Guggenheim and Lannan literary fellowships, Ms. Williams’ work has been translated worldwide, and she is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School. On the occasion of the publication of her most recent book, The Glorians — Visitations from the Holy Ordinary (Spring 2026), she responded to Bioneers Co-Founder Nina Simons’ questions as they engaged in a deep conversation. 

NINA: I’ve always admired and respected deeply the ways that your life weaves together your art, your passion, your activism, and your spirituality. I wonder if you could tell a story of an event that you feel integrated those elements, among the many that you have lived and integrated learning through?

TERRY: Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find. I believe the power of art — be it literature, paintings, music, or dance — has the capacity to bypass rhetoric and pierce the heart. Especially now. I see an influx of students coming to the Harvard Divinity School not to become a priest or pastor or a scholar in religious studies, but rather they want to sharpen their skills and commitment to their crafts as artists. One artist in particular comes to mind: Maisie Luo. During the pandemic when galleries were largely closed, she committed to weekly “Art Walk Outs” whereby she would take one particular painting on a walk to the beach; to Rodeo Drive; or to the parking lot of an In-N-Out Burger. She wanted people to notice the paintings and feel something at a time when many of us were looking away from all that was breaking our hearts.  

When she returned to school, she had a dream: A dolphin inquired about the rise of the oceans and what their path might become in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A Northern Right Whale was also in the dream, carrying that same query. At that time, in 2021, it was estimated that there were only 300 to 400 Northern Right Whales left. When Maisie awoke, she made a vow to chart the future sea rise so the dolphins and whales could find their way.

Maisie bought an 8-foot door and turned it sideways and painted a Northern Right Whale beached, tangled in fishing net with a small portrait of herself kneeling trying to untangle what was binding the whale to shore, making the cetacean unable to swim freely. Maisie invited Brooke and me to join her on this “Art Walk Out.” She had found from scientific mapping how the sea would rise and how far it would inundate Cambridge. Harvard Yard would be underwater. 

Together, we carried the whale up Massachusetts Avenue, past the Cambridge Commons and cemetery, across the street through Harvard Yard, stopping momentarily in front of the John Harvard bronze statue. Dozens of students walked by us, not one student stopped to ask about this beached and confined Northern Right Whale. It was a disturbance. We continued carrying the whale past the Memorial Church, past the Museum of Natural History to the Divinity School. Once inside, we continued to carry the painting up two flights of stairs to the Associate Dean of Faculty and Students, Janet Gyatso’s office where the netted Right Whale was met by another Northern Right Whale breaching in a moment of joy.  A few days after this Art Walk Out with Maisie Luo, NPR reported that several whale calves had been born, a shift in the lack of births in the past few years. Coincidence? Synchronicity? Who can know the power of one heartfelt gesture made on behalf of another?

Nina: You’ve written and thought a lot about The Open Space of Democracy, including in a past talk at Bioneers. Now that our democratic institutions and norms are under such severe attack, and many of our cultural delusions shattered, revealing both the beauty of some of our people’s values, commitment and kindness, (think of the courage, and determination of the people of Minneapolis) and the rot that’s always been at the roots, how might you imagine that we’ll survive this painful yet perhaps necessary chapter? 

TERRY: We have made the mistake of confusing democracy with capitalism and have mistaken political engagement with a political machinery we all understand is corrupt. It is time to resist the simplistic utilitarian view that what is good for business is good for humanity in all its complex web of relationship — including the web of life for all species. Ecology reminds us again and again that the ecotones are where diversity flourishes — the edges where the forest meets the meadow; where the tides rush up to dune grasses on a sandy beach; where the edge of the river becomes a tributary that refreshes the wetlands. We, too, can be edgewalkers finding what binds us together rather than what tears us apart in these moments of great and grave uncertainty.  

The human heart is the first home of democracy. My edgewalking is the richest in the places I call home: the red rock desert of southern Utah and the shores of Great Salt Lake. Here, I see the beauty of erosion and retreat, both makers of beauty that take us to the essence of things.  Wind, water, and time create arches in sandstone; the retreat of a saline lake is inspiring the rise of unlikely allies who are committed to bring water to Great Salt Lake. Change is growth. We are growing and it is not easy. For me, there is something deeper than hope, and that is engagement. We are creating, together, a new way of being. Nature is in constant upheaval and renewal, as we are. This can be its own form of grace.

Nina: So what counsel do you offer, as you’ve witnessed so much ecological harm and destruction to wildlands and species in your life — to all of us who are feeling the immense grief of experiencing so much loss in this time? How do you manage to reclaim your sense of purpose and capacity to act on behalf of what you love and feel devoted to? 

TERRY: In the summer of 2024, our small community in southeastern Utah experienced 5 flash floods in a matter of weeks. Depending on our state of mind and frame of reference, those floods could be viewed as floods of devastation or floods of re-creation. I choose to see the latter. It has also been a physical point of reorientation as a community. We are asking different questions: Instead of asking, “How can we protect our individual property — and build berms and dams around our homes?” We are asking, “Where does the water want to go?” And can we imagine and create a community-wise climate plan for both the present and future?” We all grieved our loss of the land as we knew it. The floods carved a canyon in our backyard, 40 feet long, 12 feet wide, 10 feet high. Two years later, another flood and wild winds have filled it. We are in dynamic times, uncertain times. And regarding the Earth, that is always the way, it continues to be under construction as we are.  I take comfort in this, even among all we are losing. The Earth will survive us.  We are the ones being baptized by fire.

Grief is love. They are siblings. When we agree to open our hearts, they will be broken. The question then becomes “How do we live and love with a broken heart?” When we feel those sharp aches of grief, that is what love feels like — one cannot live and love without the gravity of grief. One informs the other. We can engage. We can choose to not look away.  There is still so much beauty that remains. If we are present, we will know what to do.  For me, we do our most beautiful work together in community because it asks that we listen to one another. And in these acts of listening, we expand our frames of reference. Empathy is fostered. New ideas emerge, even in conflict, especially in conflict. In community, we are engaging with shared imaginations — and suddenly, we see more possibilities than obstacles. What is possible becomes what is necessary.  We evolve.  We are evolving together now in our brokenness and love. 

Nina: I learned from a traditional Peruvian ceremonialist named Oscar Miro Quesada these nine words, which have had a profound effect in informing my life, ever since. They are “Consciousness creates matter. Language creates reality. Ritual creates relationship.” If language creates reality, then we who are alive in this precipitous and remarkable time will need to create or adapt some new or old words to reinvent a cultural reality that works for all of life. So please tell us about your new book, The Glorians — how it came about, why it’s the book you had to write now, and what the word means to you. 

Terry: One week after the world was in lockdown on March 13, 2020, due to a global pandemic, The Glorians came to me in a dream. The dream I had was this: 

I was walking through Harvard Yard. It was fall. The trees were resplendent: red maples, bronze oaks, yellow ash. I knew I had to get to the tower (there is no tower) and as I walked toward it, I saw there were two ways to get to the top: a direct staircase at the front of the tower; and a spiral staircase on the side. I chose to take the spiral staircase on the side. When I got to the top, I realized I was standing in the ruins of Cassandra’s Temple. I had the distinct feeling I had forgotten something. I heard my name called. I turned — and there was a woman professor with students behind her who had come up the direct staircase. The gate was locked in front of them.

“Terry — “ she said.  “Do you remember the vow you made to us?”

“Remind me,” I answered.

“Your vow is the epic documentation of the Glorians.”

And then, I woke up.   

What is a Glorian? This is the question I have been holding and paying attention to for the last six years. It is not so much something to be defined, as that which is calling to be noticed, the joy of being met when our focused attention merges with another. These are not distant deities, but the holy ordinary, often-overlooked presences — animal, plant, memory, moment — that reveal our shared vulnerability and interconnectedness with the natural world. A Glorian can be an ant ferrying a blossom to its queen and as commonplace and startling as a night sky of stars. It is that moment when time stops and we are present to something so much larger than ourselves.

I believe the Glorians are reaching out to us, inviting us to engage. They remind us of the power of contact between species and the meaning of reciprocity. They are calling us to attention, not as an army, but as fellow inhabitants of our sacred, threatened home — and the profound courage and awareness it will take to dream a more cohesive future into being.  

At a time of political fragility, wars, climate chaos, and seeking beauty and a calm heart wherever we can find it, the Glorians are with us. This book is my own spiritual awakening to a life of greater intention in the midst of epic changes. I am seeking grace.