Rust Belt Arcana: Tarot and Natural History in the Exurban Wilds

Portrayed as a young bear separated from its mother in spring, The Fool faces a fragmented suburban forest. An ocean-bound trout Magician climbs sewage-tainted rivers in the Midwest. What does the Tarot have to tell us about the flora and fauna of the places where nature meets industry? Rust Belt Arcana uses this time-tested structure to explain, juxtaposing the characteristics of the cards of the Tarot's Major Arcana to the creatures and plants of our real-life surroundings. The idiosyncratic essays that result connect biology and natural history to the human condition; they are stories of abundance and loss, limning the persistent remnant wilderness of the Rust Belt. Exploring this natural history helps us to see beauty in a beleaguered landscape often dismissed as unremarkable, and to define our remarkable place in it.