Animals, the Earth, and Women's Bodies: A Conversation with Pam Houston
On the joy of fast Icelandic horses, wondrous aging bodies, conversations that live in our heads, rest, women and the earth and colonization, taking back freedom, bodily autonomy, and hope.
Intimate conversations with our greatest heart-centered minds
I was thirty when I read Pam Houston’s first book Cowboys Are My Weakness, but I remember that time vividly: Pam was young, she was a woman, and it was a collection of short stories. On what planet, especially in 1992, was that ever a recipe for success. But these stories were electric. Pam wrote about nature and women doing things they didn’t normally get to do (high water rafting, for one) and great sex and bad relationships and finding joy. It was exciting! Cowboys was named A New York Times Notable Book and became a bestseller. For all the young women writers back then, Pam’s words changed us.
Over the decades, Pam’s writing has only become more glorious. And her passions for animals, the natural world, and civil rights stronger, more vibrant, and more vocal. Her memoir Deep Creek is one of the most beautiful books I’ve read. Her essays about her relationship with her 140 acre ranch 9,000 feet above sea level in Colorado as well as with all the animals, domestic and wild, who share the land with her, her losses, her loves, her hard work to protect endangered lands and animals at home and around the world is breathtaking—and glitters with hope.
When I learned Pam had a new book coming out about abortion, Without Exception, I jumped at the chance to speak with her—but a part of me was sad that animals and the earth would become questions I would need to sideline. I’m delighted to report I was wrong. Pam beautifully weaves together women’s bodies, the earth, the animals, and so much more. It’s a gorgeous book, with much to teach us.
Pam has also written Waltzing The Cat, A Little More About Me, Sight Hound, Contents May Have Shifted, and Air Mail. She teaches in the Low Rez MFA Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts and is a professor of English at UC Davis. She’s also co-founded the non-profit Writing by Writers.
It was such a delight and honor to speak with Pam!
⭐️ Pam is graciously gifting three readers an autographed copy of Without Exception! If you’d like to be one of the recipients, please add “Exception” after your comment. The winners will be chosen at random on Monday, September 23rd and notified by Substack Direct Chat. Shipping is limited to the United States. ⭐️
Here’s Pam reading one of the many, many gorgeous chapters from Without Exception. It, of course, includes animals.
You have such a profound and intimate relationship with animals, both domestic and wild. Could you talk about what you see as the relationship between humans and animals?
One of the ways we went wrong as human beings was creating this hierarchy where we’re at the top of the food chain, and animals don’t have sentience. One great thing happening now is all these studies proving that animals do have sentience. There was a headline from The Guardian a couple of weeks ago saying that horses plan things in advance, and I thought, "Well, any 14-year-old horse girl could have told you that!" But still, if science has to back up what many of us know intuitively to start treating animals better and with more dignity, great.
For me, what I’ve learned from animals is almost limitless. I’ve learned how to love, how to die, and how to be with the dying.
My passion lately is Icelandic horses. They give me a full-on spiritual experience. They’re a protected breed—no other horses have been allowed in Iceland since about 841. These horses have been bred for qualities like strength, loyalty, and good sense. They help you stay out of trouble if you let them. They also live wild in giant herds, so when you ride them, you can’t just sit like a sack of potatoes and take pictures. If you try to sneak your phone out of your pocket for some gorgeous scenery, one ear will come back as if to say, "Hey, I thought we were in this together."
We ride with a giant herd of loose horses. If things go awry, if the herd breaks out, we’re in a swamp, a thunderstorm, or coming down a steep mountain, they need and give support. It’s a constant communication. That kind of cross-species communication has always thrilled me. I’ve had it with dogs and horses. I've had it occasionally with a very wild animal. Even once with an octopus that wrapped around my ankle. I believe that kind of communication has everything to teach me about being human, alive, present, moral, and fair.
Can you describe how the communication happens?
It’s particular to each animal, but I’ll use a horse as an example. I often ride a mare named Salka, who’s a former showring champion and an incredible athlete. When I ride her across the landscape, the first level of communication is always, "I can trust you. Can you trust me?" You communicate trust with your seat, legs, hands, eyes, and your entire being. A lot of horse communication is intuitive. I know when she’s telling me to pay attention or that she needs help. I just crossed a fast-moving river on her, and she needed my help, but usually, I need her help to not be afraid.
It’s like, "If we get this right, we can fly together." I can help her fly in ways she couldn’t on her own. I have also fallen off Salka, hit my head so hard that if I hadn’t had a high quality helmet I would be dead. So, it doesn’t always go great, but that’s part of the excitement. You communicate with your heart, occasionally with your voice, but mostly through your body. It’s a constant state of opening your heart to what the two of you can accomplish together if trust is achieved.
You and your body have been on quite a journey together: your father sexually abused you, he beat you so severely he broke your femur, you were in sixteen car accidents as a child, at least one accident involving a horse, long haul Covid, three abortions. All the beautiful ways your body has carried you through high water rafting, skiing, paddleboarding, hiking, horseback riding, travel to eighty countries, the hard work on the ranch, lots of great sex. The judgmental commentary from your mom about your body. Weight struggles. Plus, more. If you feel comfortable, could you talk about your relationship with your body these days?
That’s an interesting question. I just came back from fourteen days of really hard riding in Iceland—340 kilometers—and it tested my 62-year-old body, as I knew it would. I’ve done these kinds of rides before, but never one quite so long or strenuous. We’re always conflicted about our bodies. I had conflicting feelings the whole time.
I had a hard morning where I had to chase the horses and run down a very steep hill, which is hard for anyone. The truth is, I’m not particularly athletically gifted and never have been. I have a lot of intuition, so if the sport involves animals, like horses or dog sledding, I’m good at it because I can feel what the animal wants from me. But I don’t have very good balance, I weigh more than I’d like to for sitting on top of a horse, and I’m kind of clumsy, honestly, in general. I’m not a natural athlete, but I love to do these things. They define my spiritual life at the moment.
So, I had this super hard morning of riding, and we stopped to catch our breath after getting the herd back together. Then I tried to get back on the horse, but I couldn’t pull myself up into the saddle. We get on and off probably twenty times a day—changing horses, moving tack—it’s a lot of physical activity. But my legs were shaking from the fear and the extreme physical effort of the morning, and I couldn’t.
Noni, the guy running the trip, saw me and gave me a leg up, throwing me into the saddle. (Laughs) I was about to tell you how confident and comfortable riding has made me feel about my body until I remembered that moment. I was so full of shame that I couldn’t get on the horse, you would’ve thought I’d run over a puppy. I couldn’t stop crying, even though I had done all this hard stuff.
The next morning, Noni asked if I wanted a ride to the barn, which was a mile and a half walk. I was so offended, I said, "No, I can walk to the barn!" He wasn’t even thinking about that moment when I couldn’t get up on my own, but of course I was. Later, he saw me crying and asked what was wrong. I told him, "I don’t want to be a problem to you. Maybe I’m too old to do this." He gave me a big hug and said, "You know why I put you on all those big mares? Because you're strong enough to hold them."
I can imagine reacting the same way!
So, two things: I am proud of my strength, endurance, and stamina. I feel really good about my body in those ways. I feel really good that I’ve come off these horses going very fast twice in the last two years and haven’t broken anything, so I’m still "bounceable." But I’m conscious of my age, my loss of balance, my weight—all these things I have to reckon with, especially because one of these days, I won’t be able to do this anymore.
I’m writing something right now about how I believe these horses are showing me how to ease into not having to do the hardest thing, or be the best, or prove something.
You’re very go-go, do-do. You’ve written recently about trying to slow down and rest more. How’s that going?
Not great. I may just not be that person. I may be "go-go, do-do" until I drop dead. One difference since long Covid is that I really have to sleep. If I don’t get at least six or seven hours a night, everything goes off the rails. I used to get three or four hours a night. But I love to go and do. I love seeing places I haven’t seen and riding these horses, which has added another thing to my yearly rotation.
There's a lot of people who’ve been like, “You should bring a group over there and do a class.” I'm like, “Nope, I don't need to monetize that.” I don’t have to worry if somebody's luggage doesn't show up, and I don't have to worry if somebody's having a shitty time. I'm a tourist, and I ride those horses, and I love it.
I’m trying to do more of that kind of thing. It’s always a conversation in my head: “Are you earning your space on the planet if you're not turning this into work?" But I know the right answer now, even if I don’t always get the right answer.
What’s the right answer?
The right answer is you earn your place on the planet by breathing. I’m 62, I’ve worked very hard, I’m allowed to have fun without it being work. That’s the conversation that’s always in my head to the point where if I just want to read a book for the hell of it, I have to negotiate that with myself, too, if it’s not for a blurb or class or research.
I'm giving a reading in Oregon, and I was like, "I should write to these other bookstores there to see if I can attach another reading, just to make it worth it." Then I thought, "What if you just got a cabin by the ocean for a night and hung out with yourself?" These are the new ideas 62-year-old me is having, but it's always a negotiation.
To be totally honest, I like it about myself that I want to contribute and work hard, but there's a limit, and I'm extreme.
I love when you said, "I may not be that person." I'm trying to make myself rest half an hour every day.
Do you love it when you do rest?
I do!
I don't love it when I do it. I do love it when I get enough sleep, I will say that. I have crossed that bridge. But if I try to just sit and do nothing, I'm terrible.
I like lying in the garden. I listen to the birds with my dog and cat. My limit is about twenty minutes. But those twenty minutes are beautiful.
Oh, yes, if I can cuddle with a dog, then I can do it. Or if I can groom my horse. But then I'm doing something. I cannot sit still. I never have been able to.
This quote from Without Exception went into my bones. “This is why I cannot write a book about how we treat mothers that does not also consider how we treat the Earth.” And you further write: “Here is the thing I have always understood. The same machine that wants wolf puppies to be shot in their dens and rivers to be dammed at their sources and pipelines to be constructed across land that has been sacred to humans for twenty thousand years and methane regulations to be loosened and Brazil to be entirely deforested in our lifetime and coal plants to continue making our air unbreathable and mining companies responsible for toxic spills that poison the soil of the Navajo Nation for generations to come to suffer no consequences, that is the same machine that wants control over women’s bodies, the same machine that wants women pregnant and without resources and too overwhelmed to fight for a world in which we all can thrive.” Can you speak to the connection you see between women’s autonomy over our bodies and the Earth?
The first thing to say is that my mother and I had a very complicated relationship. It wasn’t the worst, but it didn’t look like mothering in any traditional way. So from the time I was very young, I turned to the earth for mothering. Mother Earth: those words are big for me and all in caps. To this day, if I need comfort, I will curl up on the ground or under a tree. I got mothered from the literal physical soil, or the beach, or the ocean, or tree roots, or a pothole in the sandstone.
The other thing to say is that all you have to do is look at the patriarchal language of land use, extraction, taming the land, breaking the horse, "frack her till she blows." The language used to talk about men’s ownership of women’s bodies and the language used to talk about men’s ownership of the land is almost identical. This idea that women's bodies are here to make babies, that women's bodies are here for the sexual pleasure of men, women's bodies are here for our use and for us to control — as is the land. The land is here for us to extract minerals from, for us to kill the wildlife, for us to exterminate the bison. To me, to not see it as at least related, if not equivalent, is to miss the entire narrative of colonization.
Also: The patriarchy fears things that are mysterious to them. It fears the power of women. It fears dark slot canyons, to coin a phrase in Southern Utah. It fears rivers that can’t be dammed, forests that can’t be navigated, and mountains that can’t be climbed. There's so much fear in wanting to control wildness and wilderness and women. It’s similar fears. It’s fear of what they can’t make use of.
You see it right now, since Kamala Harris became the candidate.
I know you're crazy about her. What are you recognizing in her? And how hopeful are you about things really changing in a meaningful way?
To be perfectly honest, I would not say I’m crazy about her. I think she’s an excellent candidate. What I’m crazy about are two main things. I’m crazy about the fact that Democrats and women — and white women in particular — have woken up to the fact that we have to get on the same page if we’re going to save democracy. And the name of that page is Kamala Harris. And I’m crazy about the fact that it’s a Black woman. I’m crazy about that, because Black women have saved our asses in the last several elections. They’re going to continue to lead the way, and we have to follow them.
The second thing I’m crazy about is that women’s reproductive rights have come to the forefront of the conversation, which is not something I saw coming. I knew that women were angry and I knew it was going to be an issue. But to have it be so forefronted at the DNC, to have those three women get on the stage and say, "This is what happened to me when I was sent home with a life-threatening miscarriage. This is what happened to me with IVF. This is what happened to me when my stepfather impregnated me when I was twelve years old." To have that on prime time national television and to speak honestly about it — that I’m crazy about.
Are you feeling hopeful right now?
Very. I’m feeling more hopeful than I have certainly since Obama, but possibly even ever.
Do you feel like the patriarchy is losing power?
I feel more like women are waking up to their own power. I was in the grocery store yesterday, wearing this shirt that says, "I understand the assignment.” This white guy in his fifties, looked like he worked out, wearing an American flag hat, came up to me and said, "What assignment do you understand?" And I said, "Well, I understand that we have to elect Kamala Harris, and I understand that 44,000 Black women got on a call the night she was announced as our candidate. That’s where this phrase comes from because they were like, ‘Hey, white women! Do you understand the assignment this time? Because you better.’ And I understand that yesterday, when I saw the New York Times article that said, ‘Joy is not a strategy,’ I thought, ‘To hell it isn’t,’ because it’s working." Then he said, "Well, I just want you to know I was a Marine for twenty-eight years, and I’m not going to let that orange piece of shit take down this country." I gave him a high five, and walked away.
That’s an anecdotal story, for sure, but I do think people are tired of the hate rhetoric. There are an awful lot of people who are ready for a change, and I think so far the Harris campaign has been masterful.
One of the things you write about in your book is mercy and grace—words you love so much, you capitalized them. You encourage us to show them toward ourselves, the earth, and other people. But how do we do that if the other person is, say, a right-wing extremist?
If you're talking about a real extremist, someone who believes my place is to be a baby factory or thinks they should carry a submachine gun into the subway, then I don’t have anything to say to them. I don’t have any mercy or grace. I wish I did, probably should, but I don’t.
But if it’s someone who believes they have Christian values and they’ve been talked into believing a lot of crazy things by Fox News or pressured by their pastor, then I have mercy and grace for them. If they want to talk about stepping away from hateful rhetoric and embracing their gay son or their trans daughter, I’m here for it. If they want to say, "I believe life begins at conception," I’m ready to have that conversation—not an argument, but a conversation. I came to think after writing this book that if the medical establishment believes life begins at twenty-four weeks, which is generally agreed to be viability outside the womb, I’m down with that. I’m down with giving that individual some rights—not at the expense of the mother’s survival, not in cases of rape or incest, but otherwise, I feel like I can compromise.
I really appreciated when you wrote about that in the book. The title of the book includes "reclaiming abortion, personhood, and freedom." Could you talk about what reclaiming freedom means to you?
Yes, we had a big fight over that word in the title because I didn’t want it there.
Oh, interesting!
I believed that the right had totally taken ownership of the word "freedom.” My editor was adamant, though. She said, "We take it back." As it turned out, she was right. Not only are we taking back the word "freedom," we might take back the American flag. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Yes!
My own personal freedom has always been the most important thing to me. All of my passwords, back when we had simple passwords, were "free" or "freedom." I wanted to be free from my father’s house, and then I wanted to be free generally in my life. It’s the simplest explanation for why I don’t have children—though there are many aspects to that decision. I totally believe in freedom for women, non-binary people, transgender people. I believe in bodily autonomy, which is probably the most important component of freedom.
At the end of Deep Creek you discuss how you are simultaneously holding the sorrow of what we are doing to the planet and also the beauty and wonder of what remains. It’s one of the most staggeringly beautiful things I’ve ever read. That theme continues in this book and carries over to women’s bodies. Could you talk a little bit more about that, about how we hold both?
We all know we’re in dire straits climatically. That’s true whether you vote red or blue. We’re going down together when the climate collapses. Donald Trump sees that as an opportunity to make people war with each other, and I think war is a likely result of the diminishment of resources like water and food. We’re facing massive challenges. Assuming, as Terry Tempest Williams says, we’re not going to come out on the other side of climate change, or at least most people won’t, it seems to matter so much how we treat each other and the earth going into it, showing each other mercy and grace in these times that will be increasing times of shortage—predominantly of air, food, and water, the things we need to survive.
But also, there’s still so much beauty out there. This year we had a season with plenty of rain, so we didn’t have one single moment of being afraid of fire, which is the first time in decades that’s happened. Sometimes there’s a good moment on this long train to destruction. If we can love the earth and love each other better than we have these last few years, we can start to make choices that will prolong the life of the earth and our existence on it. Climate scientists point out that the earth will heal itself once we’re gone.
I’m always so relieved by that. In what way do you see women having autonomy over our bodies connected with the destruction of the planet?
Women are about preserving life genetically. We want to find solutions. We want to feed people. We want to heal people. These are generalizations but if you write a book about abortion, I understand now, you're going to find yourself talking in generalizations. Women want their kids to survive. Women don't want, generally speaking, automatic weapons in schools. Women want children not to go hungry, children not to be detained without blankets at the border. A woman's values overall, and again, generally speaking, Ann Coulter flashes through my mind, are just more life and healing and feeding and caring for oriented than men who generally are more power-oriented, like getting power over instead of helping to live.
Which is why women should have been in charge a long, long time ago. Women will heal the earth. Women will save the earth. And Black women more so because all the ways that we have been mistreated and ignored and denied and corralled, they have been doubly and triply so. They know how to make community. They know how to work together. They know how to help each other, and we, the white women have to frickin pay attention this time, because we're not going to get another chance if we don't.
So much hard in the world right now. Where are you finding joy?
Well, riding Icelandic horses. With my young dog and my old dog. With animals. I'm writing an essay collection all about animals. I think I got the title just the other day. Something an Icelandic horseman said to me. He was telling us how to cross these really deep rivers. And he said, “I have one thing important to say to you. Stay with your horse at all times, because a horse will not make a suicide.” I think that's my title: The Horse Will Not Make A Suicide. Thinking about animals, reading about animals, teaching books that are full of animals, that is where I'm finding joy primarily.
I watched every minute of the DNC for the first time in my entire life. I found a lot of joy watching it. I find a lot of joy talking to my women friends about what we're going to do to try to impact this election. Those are my two primary sources of joy at the moment.
I love that!
If you enjoyed this conversation with Pam, you may also enjoy this one with Cheryl Strayed:
I am no longer surprised when intelligent and caring women show up in my life magically. I was not familiar with Pam until I read Deep Creek this summer. Her love story resonated deeply with me, a 65 year old woman living on five acres, in the foothills of Washington's Cascade mountains, learning to live with the now annual wildfire threat. I am also a novice writer, slowly learning the craft, and building the courage to write with my heart. This interview was wonderful! Exception!
Love Pam and also taking back “freedom.” I’ve been saying for years I want to take back the flag 🏴☠️ the grocery store moment is a nice reminder of the power of humanity (which tbh I’m pretty much obsessed with; not *everything* is as dire as the papers love to report)⚡️🌈