Kathleen Dean Moore, the renown ecologist, philosopher, and essayist, will speak on The Meaning of the River in Our Lives at the O’Brien Memorial Library in Blue River on April 12 at 2pm.

For over twenty years Moore was a Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University, where she co-founded the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word. One of its programs is the Long-Term Ecological Reflections Project at the H.J. Andrews Forest.

In 2013 her growing concern over the perils of global warming led her to leave the university and devote her energy to writing and environmental activism.

The author of fourteen books, her writings include celebrated collections of essays exploring the cultural and spiritual meaning of wild places at the edge of water. More recently her work addresses – with a sometimes ferocious urgency – our imminent environmental catastrophe. But not without compassion. Her most recent book is a loveletter to those working selflessly for environmental justice, called Take Heart: Encouragement for Earth’s Weary Lovers.

The Meaning of the River in Our Lives is the second of seven River Talks hosted by the library, taking place each month through September. These events are underwritten with a generous grant from Oregon Humanities.