Author Archives: Jeff Conant

Words won’t save us. All the Holy Lands are up in flame. Yesterday, a dozen trees came down around my house, the bones of their bodies – cherry and black birch, white pine, white birch – lie on the cold earth, twisted and silent. All the birds are flung from their nests. I paid theContinue reading “A Sunday Morning at Home During Israel’s Assault on Gaza”

First published, Oct 06, 2023 in Common Dreams When confronting the climate emergency, rampant consumption of fossil fuels is top of mind—and rightly so—as tens of thousands of activists recently reminded us in the streets of New York City. But the second leading driver of the climate crisis is the rapid destruction of our planet’s forests. GlobalContinue reading “New York Can Tackle Deforestation and Jumpstart A Historic Path To Climate Justice”

Pre-face: What makes poetry the most liberating of the literary arts is, you can do anything you want, without reason, though ideally with some rhythm or even, god forbid, some rhyme. I spent an eerily balmy September weekend walking the streets of London and, inspired by some works at the Tate Modern – a vastContinue reading “Undone: 14 Poems of London”

(Note: the following post is not your typical blog post, but a longish work of fiction in the genre you might call “speculative genoeology”. Enjoy. And, if you read it, please send feedback.) *** Lot’s Relation Being the Account of an Olde Settler in the Colony of New England & of His Travails Among theContinue reading “Lot’s Relation”

A few years ago I began keeping a list of the books I’d read each year, and posting it on social media in the event that others would find it handy, as I find inspiration in the booklists of friends and colleagues. This year, as December rain comes down on my little house in theContinue reading “2022: My Year in Books”

The village of Air Pahlawan in Sumatra, Indonesia sits amid steep jungled hills two hours’ ride by motorbike up long slopes from the sprawling shore of the Indian Ocean. Home to several dozen families, some whose roots are here and others whose parents or grandparents migrated from West Java in search of fertile land, theContinue reading “Sowing the Seeds of a Tropical Village Economy in the Mountains of Sumatra“

On a chill morning in November 2021 about a dozen people are circled up in a clearing atop a high hill in Massachusetts, the paper brown leaves of oaks and beeches crackling lightly in the wind. Nearby a white dome three-stories high rises from the earth, pale as a cloud, its base ringed with sculptedContinue reading “Prayer Walks on Ghost Roads: Re-Enchanting New England with the Monks of Nipponzan-Myōhōji  “

A reflection on the COP26 deforestation commitments in light of global policy efforts [Note: It’s been rare for me to post articles to this blog related to the ‘professional’ side of my work, as it feels a bit disjunctive to the tone I want to maintain here; but then, it’s been rare for me toContinue reading “Financial Incentives To Slow Deforestation Are Helpful – But Public Policies To Stop It Are Essential”

Part One: Summer Into Autumn September 1 2021 We’ve been a month in the new house, in the new state. August in New England is lush and sweet, the nights hot, the days moist. It’s a good thing the nights are hot because the movers still haven’t delivered our belongings. We sleep on mattresses kindlyContinue reading “Massachusetts Diary”