Dreams can change our lives. Just ask Brooke Williams, writer and walker. He\u2019s on a Colorado mountain town tour with his newest book, one that began with a dream. He\u2019ll be in conversation with Craig Childs on July 16 about the book, titled, \u201cEncountering Dragonfly: Notes on the Practice of Re-enchantment,\u201d at Wilkinson Public Library.<\/p>\n
\u201cEncountering Dragonfly\u201d is the result of a long-ago dream about a particular dragonfly, a two-decade obsession with the order of Odonata, or dragonflies, and his own journey of re-enchantment that keeps him alive and writing, walking and having crucial conversations about the natural world, humans, and how all beings can thrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cRe-enchantment is a real strategy for what needs to happen in the world,\u201d said Williams in a recent interview with the Planet. \u201cIt\u2019s not that hard; it\u2019s really a shift in a point of view. I hope this book is a guide to what it means, how we do this simple shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams is the first to say, in the author\u2019s note, that the book is not a field guide to the world of dragonflies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis book is my attempt to make sense of my own experience, which may be important only insofar as it supports theories of other possible dimensions of life, the understanding of which may contribute to our evolutionary success.\u201d<\/p>\n
He does, however, include scientific observations in the style of a naturalist, drawing readers into the world and all its inhabitants.<\/p>\n
Williams explains that the book is not scientific per se. Yet, a conversation with him will leave one thinking and feeling that existing as a human means we all are naturalists and scientists as well as enchanted beings and dreamers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve lived enchanted lives for most of human history, and then the natural world became an object to be bought and sold,\u201d Williams said. \u201cYet, we live in the same bodies we\u2019ve been in since the pleistocene.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remembering a lecture he heard at Harvard years ago, he added, \u201cThe world has never been disenchanted; we just started looking at it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 whole journey started with a dream about a dragonfly carved in a stone. And then he started seeing them everywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the next two decades, I would have dozens of significant encounters with dragonflies, my messengers,\u201d he wrote after relaying the dream in \u201cEncountering Dragonfly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some time after the dream happened, Williams experienced a life-threatening event. When he came away from it, the doctor asked, \u201cWhy are you not dead? You should be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought about that,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThe question really started to grow in me. At one point, I realized that possibly, I was re-enchanted by that dream and my job was to re-enchant the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams is taking the book \u2014 and himself \u2014 on tour in little mountain towns in Colorado this month to do just that, inviting conversation about enchantment, the natural world and us with community specialists and audiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis book is timely and important for us,\u201d said Michael Weaver, the book\u2019s publisher at Uphill Press. \u201cA lot of people are taking refuge in the natural world, partly because it feels threatened and partly because everywhere else is such a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEncountering Dragonfly\u201d is sort of a new direction for Weaver. He\u2019s mostly published titles that are about movement and health, but being a walker, Williams fits right in and helps the press expand its offerings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been wanting to branch out,\u201d said Weaver, who started Uphill Books more than a decade ago. \u201cWe want to publish books that illustrate movement in the broadest possible sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The connection is with Williams\u2019 practice of walking, of moving in the natural world. His most recent book before \u201cDragonfly\u201d was \u201cMary Jane Wild: Two Walks and a Rant,\u201d which was written during and between two wilderness treks in Utah that bracketed the previous Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Dragonflies fit right in, too: they are all about motion, and they\u2019re old.<\/p>\n
\u201cDragonflies have been around much longer than us,\u201d Weaver said. \u201cThere\u2019s the notion that connection with them brings us to the subconscious, to myth. They travel between worlds, carry the spirits of the dead. \u2026 Brooke is the point of that spear currently, sharing what dragonflies might mean if we open our minds to that possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weaver was on the recent Pacific Northwest book tour with Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fascinating to see the conversations that emerged, and the audience got involved and told stories of their relationships with dragonflies,\u201d Weaver said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis little mountain tour in Colorado will be sweet,\u201d he added. \u201cBrooke is interested in a conversation about the re-enchantment of the natural world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those conversations will be with key community members. The Telluride event on July 16 may be the most salient and deep for locals and visitors alike. Williams will be in conversation with San Miguel County writer and naturalist Craig Childs, who is also on tour with his newest book, \u201cThe Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light\u201d (Torrey House Press, 2025).<\/p>\n
Childs\u2019 book is also about enchantment, and Williams looks forward to their conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be fun,\u201d Williams predicted. \u201cOne thing everyone agrees upon is the love of the night sky. Is there anything more enchanting than being enveloped in the stars?\u201d<\/p>\n
Childs is also looking forward to the conversation. The two writers have known each other for some time and Williams has written blurbs for a few of Childs\u2019 books.<\/p>\n
Childs said he\u2019ll be reading excerpts from \u201cEncountering Dragonfly\u201d to the audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to putting my voice to Brooke\u2019s words,\u201d Childs said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re both naturalists, in that we put energy into paying attention to the natural world,\u201d he added. \u201cThat said, most people are naturalists, and Brooke\u2019s book is about that practice. That is an important word, because paying attention does take practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re completely surrounded by quick dopamine responses, flashing lights,\u201d Childs continued. \u201cIt takes effort to engage with nature and take in the flash of light off a dragonfly wing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In \u201cEncountering Dragonfly,\u201d Williams writes in the chapter titled Cherry-Faced Meadowlark, Castle Valley, Utah:<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always loved the wild world. From a distance, many who know me might believe that my passion for nature is another\u2019s for golf or the New England Patriots. For me it\u2019s so much more: My purest beliefs and identity are rooted in the natural world. It is the foundation of my spiritual existence. \u2026<\/p>\n
I believe that we save the wilderness because it saves us. If our evolutionary success has depended on wild landscapes and wild creatures and processes, why wouldn\u2019t protecting wildness now be a factor in a successful human future?<\/p>\n