Articles

ARTICLES (selected list):

DISTINCTLY MONTANA MAGAZINE: Christopher Paolini, Deborah ButterfielD
Biographies in Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-75 (I'm also a subject), University of Illinois Press, 2006
Audubon’s Life List Journal, “Birds in Mythology,...Art” (Artisan Publishers 1999)
NEW YORK TIMES: Delinquent Fathers, Suffering Families
HARPER'S MAGAZINE: Women Share Secrets
MS. MAGAZINE: What is Holistic Healing?
MEN'S JOURNAL: On Fathering
Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbols, 4 contributions
New-Works Magazine, Recommended:Therapy for Our Relationship with Animals
ADVOCATE: Management and the Mind
CAMERA 35: The Legacy of Minor White
WOMAN: The Inner Journey (monthly column on dreams)
AUDUBON ACTIVIST: Our Planet, Ourselves
ANNALS OF EARTH: Interview with Jan Beyea
ENVIRONMENT: Nuclear Energy
HUMANIC ARTS (U of S.Carolina): Interview with Ira Progoff
AUDUBON ACTIVIST: Creating a Wildlife Habitat in Your Backyard
SMITH COLLEGE ALUMNAE MAGAZINE: The New Woman Traveler
PILGRIMAGE, A Psychotherapy Journal: The Inner Lover
ANAIS JOURNAL: Anais Nin & Henry Miller; Memoir of Frances Steloff
MBI,INC: Notes to Famous Editions of Cyrano deBergerac and Swann's Way
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: Baltimore County Investment Sparks Weston Woods Line
WOMEN'S DIARIES: Anais Nin's Early Diaries
COUNTY MAGAZINE: Holistic Healing; Independent Publishers
WESTON: Elvis Before He Became Famous
CONNECTICUT WOMAN: Marketing to Women
PARENT'S CHOICE: Interviews with Ruth Krauss, Ann McGovern, Arthur L.Klein


SPECIAL LINKS

* My papers are archived at Smith College’s Sophia Smith Collection:www.smith.edu/libraries/ssc/collection.html

“Recommended: Therapy for Our Relationship with Animals” at www.new-works.org

“Creative Journaling” online chat with Kristi Holl at www.longridgewritersgroup.com/rx/tr01/valerie_harms.shtml

Review called “As Within, So Without” of wonderful book by Nancy Ryley, The Forsaken Garden, The Deep Meaning of Environmental Illness, at www.cgjungpage.org/aritcles/harmsreview.html

Review of The Inner Lover by Doris Norrgarrd on www.cgjungpage.org

I edit "Distinctly Montana" magazine. See it at www.distinctlymontana.com

Book buying sites:www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.iUniverse.com

Wildlife conservation sites:
Montana Wilderness Association,www.wildmontana.org
The Wilderness Society, www.tws.org
Predator Conservation, www.predatorconservation.org
National Audubon Society, www.audubon.org
National Resources Defense Council, www.nrdg.org
Earth Justice, www.earthjustice.org
Wildlife Conservation Society, www.wcs.org
Wildlife expedition company, www.yellowstonesafari.com
Gallatin Valley Land Trust, www.gvlt.org
Orion Society, www.orionsociety.org
www.Earthlink.com, www.envirolink.org, www.wildrockies.org

Writing organizations:
National Writers Union,www.nwu.org
Authors Guild, www.authorsguild.org
International Women’s Writing Guild, www.iwwg.org
Long Ridge Writers Group, www.longridgewritersgroup.com
Poets and Writers, www.pw.org

Magnificent animal photographer:
www.ashesandsnow.org
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On Reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles

What is the secret to this man? What makes this trickster smile?
Not when he sang in Bozeman.
Yes, walking or lying around with Suze Rotolo, his first love in the Big Apple.
Yes, completing all the verses of “Like a Rolling Stone,” sitting at the piano, hand raised high in a triumphant flourish.
Yes, patting his faithful mahogany collie.
Yes, holding his toddler, flanked by other children.

He shows himself in t-shirts or sneakers with a rakish scarf or vest and an array of hats. He’ll also appear in black or white mod suits and polka dotted shirts and pointy boots. As a kid, Dylan was said to be chubby but we only saw the slim guy whose attitude could turn you on more than his looks. He says he doesn’t like backdrops that are better looking than him.

I only recently listened to his first record, “Bob Dylan” (1961). Mostly it’s rough, sounding as if he’s singing through gritted teeth, with much more harmonica than a decade ago. (It seems unnatural to hear this 18-year-old sing three songs about death – by other people). The first album I heard was “Times They are a Changin,’” given to us in 1967, when my husband and I returned from three years in France to find the country up in arms over Vietnam, Civil Rights, and simmering feminism. The songs struck a new chord, resonating strong for me as they did for many others. I didn’t listen to “Another Side of Bob Dylan” or “Highway 61 Revisited” until recently. Although I’d been a fan of the Beat writers, blues & jazz, I was raising children an hour away from NYC and unable to get to the clubs. I wasn’t aware that Dylan too was fathering children and living well outside the city, trying to enjoy life in private. In Chronicles he explains that he put out an album to deliberately counter the projections placed on him as a spokesman for the time. That would be “John Wesley Harding” (1968), which I bought. Regardless of what he said, many of his songs were political and rode the wave of protest and sympathy for society’s victims of all stripes. There were memorable love songs too.
I lost track of Dylan’s personal life after the rumors of divorce strife. Although the books about him or his work are mostly parasitic nonsense, from them I learned the sequence of each recording session and details about the backup bands. That women were a constant with him. He liked black women and had/has another wife, plus at least five children. Biographers point to harsh treatment of others, Joan Baez for example, but in Chronicles Dylan pays generous respect to a wide range of people. During the 70’s and 80’s, I gathered recordings here and there. I received gifts of the bootlegged tapes, playing them in response to some craving.
Reading the book, Chronicles, Vol I (who knows if there will be a second) reanimated my admiration for Dylan, because it is so exceptionally well written and artfully told. No wonder it was nominated for an award by the National Book Critics Circle and on the bestseller lists for weeks. In the past months I’ve caught up with all the CD’s that I missed.
I’d say we rallied around Dylan and his songs because of their narrative bite, their wicked humor, contempt, seductiveness, silliness, and, above all, because of the urgent feelings he put into them. He says he likes best to play with friends in private. Composing is always on his mind. In public situations he’s often terse and outrageous, but we must remember that he scores words and tunes alone and then in front of a mic has to recreate naked emotions and storylines as they are broadcast to thousands and thousands of spectators/listeners.
He doesn’t like sentimental or lite. He has an intelligence that’s raised him above other pop singers and composers. Inspired by poets, visionaries, historical figures, and painters, his lyrics are written to be listened to. Over 40 years he’s given us at least a thousand songs. Now he doesn’t want to be a nostalgic favorite of his contemporaries but reach the current crop of 20-30 year olds.

Dylan has endured a strange form of hostile criticism. First, he was attacked for not wanting to be limited to traditional folk songs. He was mocked as a “Judas” for playing electric, instead of acoustic guitar. Yet, growing up he feasted on the best rock n’ roll - Little Richard, Elvis Presley, etc.. Then when he composed heavily Christian songs, he was again condemned. Yet, most blues, r&b, country, and classical performers do spirituals. He had to fight hard against the tide of public opinion to sing the way he wanted to. The odd thing is that if anyone else diversifies, no one cares. Why did his choices matter so much with the public? The obvious answer is that Dylan meant certain things to them, and they were very reluctant to let him be different from what they wanted, i.e. an individual. Also, Dylan is responsible too. Here’s a hypothesis.
In high school, like other kids, he was part of a band that played loud rock n’ roll. Folk was becoming popular. Wanting to be famous, he imitated Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. In NYC he competed as a folk singer. But secretly he was indulging his love for blues and rock, listening hard to others, taking in what thrilled him. This trickster couldn’t keep his true self under wraps. Allen Ginsberg and other poets and songwriters gave him the confidence to write his own songs. So while he was pretending to be Woody Guthrie II, his real self tripped him up on the world stage. He ended up having to fight the public who bought his personas.
He likes to say his songs are not confessional, but I bet everyone of us knows differently. We’ve ended up loving both Dylan’s masks and the self behind them.
Sure he blows smoke in our faces but he also gets us on his wavelength when he complains “my feet are so tired, my brain is so wired...” Or writes:
an’ mine shall be a strong loneliness
dissolvin’ deep
t’ the depths of my freedom
an’ that, then, shall
remain




Symbolic meaning of eagles

Selected Works

nonfiction
Dreaming of Animals
"Animals show us in dreams what we need to do to heal ourselves and the Earth" - James Hillman
The Inner Lover
Using passion as a way to self-empowerment
National Audubon Society Almanac of the Environment/ The Ecology of Everyday Life
A compendium of articles, quotes, puzzles that show how our daily activities affect ecosystems. Published by Grosset/Putnam.
Tryin' To Get to You, The Story of Elvis Presley
That's me at age 15 - to Elvis' right
Frolic's Dance
The story of a snowshoe hare surviving in its community in Glacier Bay, Alaska. A Smithsonian Heritage Book.

Questions

mailto: valerie@valerieharms.com
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