Orion Magazine

The inaugural edition of Orion Nature Quarterly hit the stands in June 1982. In his opening editorial, George Russell, who served as the magazine's first Editor-in-Chief, passionately expressed the core beliefs of Orion: “At Orion, we firmly believe that people have a moral duty towards the world we inhabit, and this sense of responsibility grows as individuals form a deeper connection with nature.” Over the past thirty years, Orion has emerged as a central voice during a vibrant era of nature writing. While staying true to its original principles, the magazine has transitioned to a bimonthly format and expanded its scope to cover not just environmental issues but also cultural topics.

National

English

Magazine

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#388048

United States

#148264

Heavy Industry and Engineering/Agriculture

#295

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

Protecting the Prairie

Aug 27, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Sarah Smarsh

fromImmersions in an endangered colorIN OUR FREE TIME, WE DESTROY TREES. Hundreds of them by now. Five years ago, soon after I bought the place, I gave my partner a Husqvarna 450 Rancher for Christmas. Since then, he’s had to replace the chain ten times.
Chris La Tray Answers the Orion Questionnaire

Aug 20, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | CHRIS La TRAY

Montana’s Poet Laureate Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller and the author of Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home. He loves librarians, teachers, and booksellers, and can do a convincing peacock shriek. He also understands why you should never turn your back on an ornery Chihuahua, and how silence is sometimes better than song. What is your most treasured comfort meal?
Injured Waters - Orion Magazine

Aug 15, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Sunaura Taylor

IN 2017, I arrived in Tucson, Arizona, to research an aquifer that weapons manufacturers had polluted decades before. My own disability, and the illnesses and disabilities of thousands of others, were likely caused by this pollution. Yet my feelings toward this aquifer were never of fear or anger, but of solidarity. After all, the aquifer too was injured. Disability led me to want to get to know this aquifer—to understand more deeply what aquifers are and what they do. I had a lot to learn.
The Languages and Lessons of Stone

Aug 13, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Ellen Wayland-Smith |Marcia Bjornerud

Marcia Bjornerud’s wise and sweeping book, Turning to Stone: Discovering the Sublte Wisdom of Rocks, shows us how learning to situate our human selves within the expanded time scales of deep geology is paramont to forging a more ethical, sustainable way of living in partnership with the earth. Together we sat down to discuss the role of metaphor in science, sacred time, and some really, really old rocks.
Summer Letters - Orion Magazine

Jul 30, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Lauren Camp |Todd Davis

Poets Lauren Camp and Todd Davis exchange letters in which they discuss devotion to details, belonging to place, and saying yes to love. Dear Todd,I feel like we waited so long for summer, and now it’s here, full force with its brusque attitude. Truth be told, though, these days, every season seems to be overdoing itself. It rained for a full day and night and the ground is wet, which is extraordinary here in the desert. The bee balm is standing up, gleeful at its bounty.
Return to Area X

Jul 29, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Helen Macdonald

An introduction to the 10th-anniversary edition of Acceptance“What this expedition member had brought to Area X,” the biologist muses as she regards an agonized, once-human creature in Acceptance, might have “contributed to this final state.” Her theory holds for readers, too: what you bring with you shapes what Area X might make of you, what you might become.
How Not to Write About Whales

Jul 16, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Rajiv Mohabir

OnePlease, no more cutesy names. No more names picked by American children gone whale watching. No more Batman, Spider-Man, Flame, Sprinkles, or Storm. TwoInstead, learn how to say the word for whale in the Indigenous languages of their native waters: Koholā, paxat, pótop, sʼéet. ThreeAs a poet, I implore, Don’t write poetry about whales if you’re trying to prove a point. You think it’s going to be easy—after all, social media feeds, news articles, and popular books are full of whales.
The Peach Caretaker

Jul 16, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Amy Stewart

Reagan WytsalucyMonticello, Utah“I started college as a business major, but I just knew that wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing,” Reagan Wytsalucy recalled. “So I went to my dad for advice. He’s the one who told me about the Navajo peach trees.”Wytsalucy grew up in Gallup, New Mexico, in what she remembers as a very westernized childhood. “One time I heard these words, Native American, and I asked my dad what that meant. He just looked at me and said, ‘That’s you.
Meander Maps of the Mississippi River - Orion Magazine

Jul 16, 2024 | orionmagazine.org

Harold Fisk's restless river studies
Out Here - Orion Magazine

Jul 8, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Amber Flora Thomas

You cross in front of me speaking to the sun. Then you turn away south, saying rain snow. Miles until we see north, blue and less blue, changing where silver evolves: mountain, clouds. I slip in the silt and land on my hands where a glacier had been, no more than a valley in Denali now. Two ptarmigans bobsled the tundra, stopping to nod at the wind. You keep moving, the same songplaying in the grass, in your long strides. You point out animal tracks.