How do we find a way to exist equitably in the world without exhausting our natural and cultural resources? Exploring how to create belonging, among both human and nonhuman animals, is our essential work. Parents have the added responsibility of conveying this charge to their children in a way that centers hope and empowerment over guilt and fear.

In Satellite, Simmons Buntin delves into the idea of belonging—in place, time, family, and community—in sixteen essays written over nearly two decades. The pieces range throughout the desert Southwest, on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and as far afield as Mount Saint Helens, eastern Montana, northern Vermont, Sweden, and even the moon (if a telescope atop Kitt Peak counts). Buntin examines the beauty and challenges of raising a family and creating more sustainable communities in the Sonoran Desert—and, more broadly, in any of America’s diverse cultural and ecological landscapes. How should community be defined? How do we protect heritage in an age of globalization? How do we find renewal following personal and place-based trauma? What forms may grace take, and how can parents pass that dignity on to their children?

Fortunately, it is a responsibility both shared and rewarding, funny and phenomenal, for at every turn there is a new discovery, a new insight, a new integration between ourselves and the world that culminates, when we succeed, in a vibrant sense of place. Buntin searches for a balance between the built and natural environments and the beings that inhabit them in a way that enables us not only to survive but to thrive together.