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I am so honored to be the Ambassador for Texas at the American Museum of Fly Fishing.
If you have not learned of this wonderful organization please do consider checking it out... visiting if you can... supporting it, if you wish. I am planning a visit as part of my fourth book in the Lyons Press "Casting Series."
My friend Sarah Foster is the Executive Director and she and her staff work tirelessly in support of the museum and it's mission. As a museum, it is of course deeply involved in the preservation and promotion of the human and technological history of fly fishing. but the AMFF is also involved in promoting our present artistic and altruistic works related to fly fishing, conservation, and the conservation of the human spirit via the act of fly fishing and investing time in nature.
I believe that this way of life that so many of us have come to feel as intrinsic to our well-being, is and should be evolving with the conditions we now find ourselves in - including humanity’s self-inflicted wounds upon the Earth and each other such as: war, crime, human overpopulations and consumption, toxic pollution of our environment, climate change and the things it brings with it such as drought, flood, extreme weather, sea-level rise, the acidification of our rivers and oceans, and the mass extinction of native species.
We also suffer an unprecedented amount of people suffering from PTSD, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and disconnection from any sense of community with other humans, or with nature itself. And I am convinced that the world we’ve created has led to the personal suffering of individuals.
Fly fishing is not a cure for all these unhealthy and challenging issues… but it is a community that can evolve into an example of "better" and more healthy lifestyles where humans and nature coexist as partners.
That's a tall order - like all things that matter are... but it's not insurmountable.
The AMFF can in my view be one part of this process of moving our way of living from consumptive and extractive to mutually beneficial and healthy.
Again, I'm pleased to be a small part of this organization, and wanted to share those thoughts with you - my faraway friends.
Keep Casting Forward!
~ Steve