Rachel Carson returned her borrowed stardust to the universe 60 years ago today, having forever changed our relationship to the living world. Link in profile for her breathtaking deathbed letter to her soul mate about the meaning of life.
I have to look at the landscape of the blue-green world again. Just think: in all the clean beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death. I have to acknowledge that the sea is a cup of death and the land is a stained altar stone. We the living are survivors huddled on flotsam, living on jetsam. We ar
... See moreme. I wanted to be buried. If I must depart this life, I thought, let me live on in the soil: let me feed the earthworms, nourish the roots of the trees, like my mother and her mother before her.
She knew Ernie lived nearby with his wife and four sons. The passage of time, and the details that spun some moments into unforgettable memories and others into thin air, traveled with Sylvie—the swirling atmosphere of her own life—