Welcome to Nature Underfoot. A blog that considers the smaller organisms that are intimately associated with human beings. They are the winners of the Anthropocene, but they get little respect. We're talking about nature that occupies the crack in the sidewalk, and climbs and oozes into our homes - nature underfoot.
Why would you care about crabgrass? Or, a fruit fly? I'm writing to you about these subjects from Seattle, where I live and work. I'm a part-time educator (teaching classes on the environment, and the intersection of world religion and the environment at Seattle University), writer (completing my first book, Nature Underfoot), and filmmaker (see scientist priests talking about cosmology and the environment in a video series published by Forward Movement, In the Beginning).
I am trained in biology, with a doctorate in entomology from the University of Wisconsin, working on forest and urban insects. Interested in the connection between religion and science, I recently completed training in religion at Yale University, with a focus on ethics and the environment. I attempt to draw these interests together here, where I will comment especially on nature that we find in environments constructed by human beings. I hope this blog inspires you to look more closely, and respectfully, at nature as you find it around you. Feel free to leave a comment or follow me on social media!