Tag: compassion

Living in the Light During the Coronavirus Disease Pandemic

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When I first read the CDC guidelines about who is at highest risk for severe illness with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), I admit to feeling both scared and pissed off. In fact, I am pretty sure I uttered a short and pithy phrase I won’t repeat on this blog. (Suffice to say that it contained several four-letter words, and none of them were “love.”)

I’m one of those most at risk for serious complications from COVID-19: I’m over 60 (that factor has now been raised to over 65, but I’m so close it makes no difference). I live with the chronic illness Lupus plus a small alphabet-soup array of other autoimmune conditions. I have lung issues from back when I was seriously ill in my 20s. I also have some heart-muscle damage and an arrhythmia that causes my heart to occasionally decide to do some jazzy improvising like, “Bada-bada-bada-bada-Bing Boom! Boom! Boom!”. And I have a “compromised” immune system. (I prefer to say my immune system is “sensitive,” but that’s probably splitting hairs.)

I’ve lived well for decades with my own particular and challenging health, and truly, as I wrote in my memoir, Walking Nature Home, I’ve learned thrive. I’m generally healthy: I don’t get sick often; I’ve never been hospitalized; I don’t take any medications. I walk or hike or ride at least five miles a day; I eat well; and I’m strong enough to heave a full bucket of wet horse manure into the dumpster, and to generally be stubborn about doing things myself that I might be wise to let others do for me (which sometimes annoys The Guy!).

Still… the CDC is right: I am at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19. So I am following the guidelines: I wash my hands so often they are cracked and soak up lots of lotion, I practice social distancing and avoid crowded places; I am sheltering in place and staying home except for essential trips to town (for groceries) or to nearby open-space preserves (for Vitamin N, time in nature, which is as important to me as food). I keep my surroundings clean. And now that The Guy and his dog, and the horse-herd have all headed back to their spring home, I live alone.

I won’t let the COVID-19 pandemic degrade the quality of my days. I refuse to succumb to fear, or turn my back on the world. I read the news, but I don’t obsess. I’m not hoarding toilet paper or anything else. (If I was going to hoard, it would be chocolate, green chile sauce, and Stranahan’s whiskey!) Despite my concerns about the virus and finances and what will happen with book publishing and whether my friends and family will all weather this–my brother has asthma, one niece was exposed and fortunately tested negative… Despite all that, I refuse to panic.

I don’t mean to minimize the seriousness of this. People are dying; scores upon scores are ill. Heroic first-responders, medical providers, and other healthcare and spiritual-care folks are stepping up and into the metaphorical line of fire every day. Grocery store cashiers and stockers, delivery folks, and all manner of others are going about their work so the rest of us can shelter safely in place. I am heart-broken about the deaths and illnesses, the displacement of lives and jobs and education for so many. And I am grateful for all of those who are working and volunteering, who are living in the Light of courage and compassion and simple kindness.

We can all do that, especially the simple kindness part. We can smile, say hello (from a proper distance or virtually); we can check on each other and really listen through the fear and anxiety and outright paranoia. We can support local businesses, sew masks, donate supplies; we can offer to help those who are stuck being homebound. We can go about our days with generosity and goodness no matter what.

Because we need to live in the Light as much as we can. Panic and hoarding will not help; acting as a community and helping each other will.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his inaugural address in 1933, the depths of The Great Depression,

This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.  So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. 

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

And the only way to work through that fear is to unfreeze ourselves from our collective panic and reach for each other’s hands (keeping our proscribed social distance!) and offer support. Listen, sympathize, offer help, sew masks, wash our hands, don’t go out if we’re sick, smile, get outside, buy groceries or books or whatever is needed, shovel a driveway, walk a dog…

And say “thank you.” Thank you for your service, for being my neighbor, for delivering my mail, for stocking the shelves and staffing the clinics. Thank you for comforting my friend, testing my niece, transporting sick people to the hospital, for burying the dead…

Remember too, to nurture yourself. Do what soothes you, eat good food, get enough sleep, look for beauty and moments of joy. Notice and take heart from the coming of spring: the birdsong, flowers blooming, the first bees and butterflies; life continuing despite all.

Thank you all for being who you are, and for whatever you do to live in the Light in these frightening times. Blessings from me to each of you…

Are We Lost in the Wilderness?

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This morning dawned in a real Wyoming blizzard, with snow blowing in sideways on a howling north wind, and the temperature dropping as fast as the snow. The weather was so bad that there were only five of us filling the pews at the eight o'clock service at Christ Episcopal Church. 

Still, today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent, which in the Christian calendar marks the forty days and nights in that Jesus spent in the wilderness, so our rector, Reverend Mary Caucutt, spoke on wilderness as the white flakes piled up outside. She talked about the contradictory connotations of the word, and how the metaphor of being sent to the wilderness to be tested affects our lives. 

Her topic was relevant in light of the events of the past week, the roiling of bad news from Washington DC, including the failure of the Senate to cooperate on an immigration bill, the revelation of another Trump extra-marital affair, the Russia influence-peddling investigation, and more rolling back of environmental protections. Plus another horrible and heart-rending school massacre.

It feels like we, the American people, are stumbling in some moral wilderness, numb to the decency and compassion that makes us human. Numb to the effects of our profligate, selfish, resource-wasting lifestyle. Numb even to the outrage the teenage survivors of the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida are expressing in our silence. 

If this is a test of our humanity, it seems to me that we are failing. And if we don't pick ourselves up and act, demanding better behavior and more principled and enlightened action from our representatives and leaders, from our society, we may never make it out of this hell we've driven ourselves into. 

The word "wilderness," Rev. Mary reminded us this morning, has opposing meanings: It is seen as a place of solace and retreat, of spiritual and emotional cleansing from the noise and chaos of modern life. It is also seen as a place of danger, of anxiety, of trial and tribulation. 

Thus, wilderness is both a place we flee to for succor and surcease, and a place we flee from because we fear its very wildness, its trials; we fear we may lose our way and perhaps, even our lives. Like so many of our metaphors, wilderness offers both opportunity and challenge. It is somewhere we could end up eaten by a grizzly bear, or find enlightenment, inner strength, and courage. 

A young brown bear (coastal grizzly bear) fishing for salmon in the wilderness of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska.

Like many westerners, I have fled to the wilderness at times when I needed clarity, or simply to hear my own voice amid the babel. I twice backpacked solo across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, trekking more than a hundred miles each time. The days of traversing the big wild, crossing icy rivers and climbing mountain passes on my own reminded me forcefully that I am small, and that my life is but one track among many, some of whom would not hesitate to make a meal of me.

Those sweaty days of walking alone, carrying all I needed on my back bared my fears and my dreams. In the wilderness, I could not escape myself, the parts I celebrate and the parts I prefer to hide. I had to rely on who I really am, not who I'd prefer to be. Wilderness time taught me how precious and precarious is this life we often take for granted: One misstep and we may truly be toast, lost for good. 

This morning, Reverend Mary also challenged us to take the lessons we have learned from times we have been thrust unwillingly into the figurative or literal wilderness and put those lessons to use. Lent is a time of searching, she said, a time of change when we are called to be "God's people" in the world. 

What does it mean to be called to be God's people in a world that seems to have gone mad? (Or Jehovah's people, Allah's people, or the Great Spirit's people?) What are we to do, exactly? 

There is no single, simple answer for that. Because each of us bring different skills and talents and beliefs to the test. I believe that if we are to make it out of the metaphorical wilderness where America finds itself now, we must resume behaving like human beings in the best sense of our capabilities.

Which to me means acting from love and compassion. Respecting our differences but refusing to allow them to be used to harm even the least among us–not just we humans, but all species. 

Having the courage to speak truth to power, to say that global climate change and the extinction of species and cultures is criminally and morally wrong. That owning automatic weapons is not a constitutional right. That just because you have power or money does not mean you can demean or exploit anyone, no matter who they are or what you believe.

That we are stronger and better people when we work together, when we help each other, when we all rise. That the world, as biology teaches us, is one enormous community. That what makes this planet home is the interrelationships between humans and all of the other species, from the microscopic plant plankton in the ocean who respire 50 percent of the world's oxygen, the same oxygen we need to breathe and live, to the oldest elephants.

It is how we behave that matters.

Lewisia rediviva, or bitterroot, the native wildflower that "rises again" to new life, reappearing as if by magic each spring. 

If we humans are not to be lost in the figurative wild of meanness and violence, it is time to step up and grow up and be the best of our species, not the worst. To act with our hearts outstretched, with our compassionate brains, not our egotistical, self-centered ones. It means being people we can be proud of. Showing our children, our neighbors, and all of the other species with whom we share this planet a good example, not failing them yet again.

Perhaps we need to be lost to see what has gone wrong, and to find the courage and strength, the passion and compassion, to make our way out, whole and healthy and determined to stand up for what is right in our country and our lives. To be what is right and good. To be the shining examples.

To be, simply and beautifully, human. 

Weeding Out Hatred and Darkness

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Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

— Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches


When hate and greed seem to dominate our world, as with yesterday’s ugly and tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, it’s natural to feel despair and grief, along with anger and hopelessness. What can we do, each of us, to combat what seems like an overwhelming descent into the darkness of violence and hatred? 


How can we heal this polarized nation, stem the tide of hate splitting what used to be “us” into tribes fearful of “them”? For that matter, how can we heal this earth, its climate changing so fast that whole ecosystems are breaking down, and we are losing species, in some cases before we even know them? 


I don’t think there is any one answer to those questions, any one “right” way to proceed. It’s up to each of us, working in our own way, to stand up for what we believe in.


To speak up and speak out. To act up, reach out, to write or march or preach or protest. To dance, sing, paint; to craft legislation, investigate crimes, argue points in legislatures, hearings, or courts. To fight fires, heal the wounded, pick up the pieces, comfort those who are scared or sick. To raise great kids, tend our elders and parents and partners. To do whatever we are called to do with love and compassion.


For all. Everyone. All lives, human and also those myriad of other lives with whom we share this extraordinary blue planet. 



Like these bees feeding on a thistle flower. 


The quote from Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the top of the post guides my response: I aim to spread love and light in my every day actions. Because I believe that what we do speaks at least as loudly as what we say. So I treat others with kindness and respect; I extend my love to those who are difficult to love; I stand up for those who are being mistreated, speak for those who have no voice; I act with the love and light that have the power to drive out darkness and hatred.


I’m no saint. I get cranky and tired and impatient and angry. But I try to notice how I am feeling and choose to not take out my moods on others. I choose love. And kindness, a smile rather than a curse or a kick. I would rather be the one who opens a door than slams it shut in someone else’s face. 



I’m not a push-over. If you think because I approach the world with a smile and kindness you can take advantage of me, think again. I stand up for myself and for others. Like the velvet-ant in the photo above (actually not an ant at all but a flightless female wasp), I have a stinger, and I will use it!


What I won’t be is intentionally mean or hateful or hurtful or divisive. As I say in my morning prayer,


Make me strong. Not to overcome my brothers and sisters; to live in the Light and spread it to all I touch.


I believe that goodness has more staying power than hatred and violence. I believe that our everyday actions set a tone that others respond to. I believe in King’s words: light can drive away the metaphorical darkness of racism and violence and greed; love can drive out hatred. 


Which is why I spent this past week in Yellowstone National Park, continuing my ecological restoration project, AKA digging out invasive weeds.


“Wait,” you say, “I thought you were extending light and love to all. Now you are calling some lives ‘weeds?’ How is that consistent with living with compassion and love?” 


To me, “living in the Light” means standing up to bullies, and if need be, removing them to restore health to the community. To an ecologist, a weed is an introduced species who hasn’t evolved healthy relationships, a species who doesn’t contribute to the community and doesn’t play well with others. A weed is a bully who, like the plants with the lovely purple flowers in the photo below, poisons other plants in order to gain a competitive advantage for itself. 



Spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa), a native of Eastern Europe which exudes poisons through its roots to kill the plants around it. 


I spent the week digging spotted knapweed by hand from areas around Mammoth Hot Springs. I dug up nine 30-gallon trash bags full of mature knapweed plants (some with tap roots a foot long!), about 200 plants and 15-20 pounds per bag. That’s a lot of bullies.


There’s a lot more knapweed to remove, but when I go back and look at an area that I and my fellow weed-warrior volunteers have worked on, I am heartened to see the native plants recovering, to see seedlings of bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoregneria spicata), oval-leafed buckwheat (Eriogonum ovalifolium), and basin big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata var. tridentata) moving in to re-weave a healthy community.


As I stoop or kneel to dig and yank and bag weeds, I speak to both the weeds and the surrounding native plants, explaining what I am doing, telling them that I do this work with love and respect for their existence. That my calling is to restore this earth and celebrate its extraordinary diversity of lives. I don’t know whether my words reach them, but I know that they can sense my mood. And that matters. 


I also speak to park visitors passing by, letting them know why I am crouched near the ground, dusty and sweaty, wielding a seven-inch-long plant knife. Often they thank me for the work I’m doing, which is nice, but not my point. I want them to know that we humans can be a positive force in the world, a healing force, that we can use our power for love and light. That we can each make a difference.


I want to leave this world, or at least my small corner of it, in better shape than I found it. That is my way of pushing back the darkness and hatred. 



Hundreds-of-years-old big sagebrush shrubs, the old-growth “canopy” of the lower elevations of Yellowstone, and what I work to protect. 

Moving in a Contrarian but Positive Direction

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My house looks like a home for wayward boxes. There are boxes everywhere: Boxes form a half-wall between the living room and the kitchen in the “great room,” boxes hide under the built-in desk in my office and stack up to the lowermost bookshelves; boxes are tucked under the workbench in the workshop and fill the pantry.


Boxes line the garage shelves, and there are even boxes in the studio. All neatly labeled and numbered to correspond with the inventory sheet I’m keeping so I’ll be able to find things once the movers deliver my shipment to Cody in a week or ten days.


(Yes, I am a double Virgo, which means I’m organized. Richard would say “hyper-organized,” but he wasn’t above admitting that he benefited from my tendency to keep our things in their places and accounted for during our many moves, and at other times.)


The moving van is due to pull up at the curb in front of Creek House sometime on Tuesday, less than two days away. I am as ready as I can be, given everything else I’m juggling, most particularly the innumerable details in keeping two real estate deals moving forward, and now the decisions involved in beginning what will be months of careful house renovation. And when I have any spare brain cells, thinking about the two talks I am scheduled to give at two different garden conferences on two consecutive days in early February…


I have spent most of the last two weeks packing, packing, packing, plus making a three-day trip to Cody with a van-load of things difficult to consign to movers, thanks to my friends Nicole and Harry Hansen, the silversmith and blacksmith who together form Sterling & Steel, makers of fine custom tableware, jewelry, flatware and other functional art. Nicole and Harry not only managed to fit my odd-shaped load in Sylvia, their amazing Mercedes-powered panel van, Harry safely drove us out of the blizzard that was blasting Salida the morning we left, and all the long and wintry drive to Cody and back.



Harry, in ready-for-Wyoming cowboy hat and sunglasses, is reflected in the rear-view mirror. Nicole’s beautiful cranberry-colored cowboy hat sits on the dashboard. 


Along the way, we talked about everything from kids and family cultures to politics, art, branding, ethics, geology, and history. Our amazing conversations made the 1,260 miles there and back, and all those hours in the van together go by incredibly quickly. 


While we were in Cody, I closed on my new (old) house, and got my contractor, Jeff Durham, started on the most urgent of the work the house needs. 


It has occurred to me that this move is thoroughly contrarian: Not only am I moving many latitude lines north at a time of life when most folks dream of moving south, I am moving from a new, custom-built-to-my-specifications house into a house built the year I was born (1956). My new-old house was well-designed and custom-built too, but it’s sixty years old now, and has been seriously neglected for at least the past decade, and unoccupied for most of the past 16 months. 



I’m also up-sizing when the trend is toward downsizing. I’m moving from two small buildings with a total living space of about 1,300 square feet plus a single-car garage to a 2,400 square-foot house with a two-car garage. (The main floor is 1,700 square feet; the rest is a furnished basement I will use only when I have a house-full of guests.)


And I’m moving from contemporary–I call my Salida place “industrial chic”–to Mid-Century Modern. Check out that vintage kitchen, complete with original sunshine yellow metal cabinets, and aqua wall oven in the photo below.



I’m even up-sizing my yard, moving from a lot of just under 7,000 square feet to one twice that size, and from a basically finished yard (given that to a gardener, no landscape is ever truly finished!) to one needs a radical beauty-enhancing, water-saving, habitat-providing makeover.  


Why? 


The moving north part is simply me heading home to the landscapes and community that have spoken to my heart for decades. I confess to loving snow, even blizzards. And I am fortunate to have friends in Cody who are excited about my return. 


Also, Cody is a whole day’s drive closer to my 88-year-old dad and my brother and his family in western Washington, including my nieces and their kids. (Except my middle niece and her family, who are in Germany for another year and a half.) If something happens to Dad, I can take I-90 west to Seattle, and drive there in a long day (or a two-hour plane flight from Billings, Montana). 


Dad is so excited about my move that he’s already planning a visit this summer, accompanied by my brother and sister-in-law. He hasn’t traveled since after Mom died in 2011, so I’m thrilled. The downside is I’m a bit farther from Molly, in San Francisco, but she’s being very gracious about that.


The up-sizing part wasn’t my plan. I was looking at small houses, and then I stumbled on this one. One look at the spacious rooms, great light, wood floors, and that fabulous kitchen, and I fell in love. 



The living and dining areas–look at those windows! That fireplace! And the floor…. 


Of course, I also noticed the 60-year boiler that runs the hot-water baseboard (I call it Igor). Igor was top-of-the-line when new, but he’s about 20 years past his retirement date. (Which he proved by quitting the weekend before Christmas in the middle of a blizzard–fortunately, my contractor had an appointment to evaluate the house the following Tuesday, and he and my wonderful real estate agent, plus the plumber, walked into the house just as the pipes began breaking. They were able to save the place without too much damage, which I was grateful for. More grateful than the owner, who grumbled about the cost of repairs. Maybe he shouldn’t have neglected the house…)


And the wiring, which includes a sub-panel in the basement so old I had never seen one like it, and yes, it has to be replaced. I noticed the lack of insulation in the crawl space under the bedrooms, and the half-bath in the basement, which is so awful it looks like you’d need a tetanus shot before using the shower. And the garage, partly insulated, and partly dry-walled. And a host of other things that need updating. 


So here I go, taking up a house and yard project at sixty (me, the house and the very neglected yard–we’re all the same age). Unlike Igor, I’m not ready for retirement. I’m thrilled to be moving home, and excited about bringing my new-old house back to life, and turning a lawn-and-too-many-huge-spruce-trees yard into something more beautiful, sustainable, and healthy for all. 


Mostly, I’m grateful to have a positive project to work on in these negative times. I refuse to succumb to negativity and fear. Perhaps I can’t change the state of the nation, but I can serve as an example of how to live with love, compassion and generosity.


I suppose that’s contrarian too; regardless, it’s me being who I am and doing what I do best: healing this earth and we humans, one house and yard, one creek, one community at a time. Onward!



Chokecherry buds along the creek last spring, on a tree Richard and I planted as a bare-root sapling almost 20 years ago. Treehouse and Creek House are in the background. 

Winter Solstice and Hope

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Venus, the evening star, is sparkling bright and high in the southern sky this evening as blue dusk ebbs into darkness. We’re three days from Winter Solstice, the longest night/shortest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere, and night falls soon and swiftly after sunset.


Winter Solstice is the year’s “hinge,” or turning point, when the sun rises and sets at its apparent southernmost spot on the horizon during its annual journey from south to north. ‘Apparent’ because it’s Earth’s movement that makes the sun appear to move through our sky.


Regardless of which celestial body is actually moving, the days grow shorter until Winter Solstice, when the sun appears to stick in place. 


(That seeming “stuckness” at both the southward and northward ends of the sun’s apparent journey, when it seems to pause at its rising and setting points for a few days, gave rise to the name solstice, which comes from the Latin for “stands still.”)


And then, as if impelled by some extraordinary power, the sun gradually begins to move its rising and setting points again, heading northward after Winter Solstice, the days slowly lengthening and the nights ebbing. The darkness that has overtaken the Northern Hemisphere recedes, pushed away by the growing light. 


No wonder that the world’s cultures have long celebrated holidays involving light: Solstice, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, the ancient Persian festival of lights… When the darkness seems to close in and stay, we humans naturally hope for a new beginning, a return to spring, light and the rekindling of life. 



Colored lights on a Christmas tree


This year, the darkness of impending winter feels metaphorical as well as literal, and the gloom of world and national events is reinforced by the bitter cold weather that has settled across at least the northern part of the country. 


I find myself burrowing inward, hungry for light of all sorts. The light of inspiration, of generosity, of kindness, of knowledge and understanding. Of cooperation and community.


The light of the kind of hope which inspired Emily Dickinson to write,


“Hope” is the thing with feathers – 

That perches in the soul – 

And sings the tune without the words – 

And never stops – at all –


That kind of hope is not a passive longing for some imagined, better future. It’s a real force, the voice of life itself, of all the lives–human and moreso–who make up this world. It grows out of our collective drive to flourish, which depends not on passive longing or next quarter’s profits, not on ego or self-gratification, but on our ability to contribute to the interwoven and vibrant community of life on this green and blue planet. 


I am hungry for that sort of hope and the light of the soul it brings. And for the literal light too, of longer days, of the sun’s warmth, of new growth and green. 


I believe in hope of the kind that perches in the soul and never quits singing. We can forget to listen, we can be overwhelmed by events outside our control that seem to dim that voice. But like the sun, finally, slowly, moving north again to bring longer days, warmth, and spring, the light of the human spirit, of compassion and kindness, of wisdom and generosity will gain strength and return its warmth to our world again. 


As long as we each do what we can to nurture that light. 



Which is why, on Wednesday night, I will light the darkness of my little property the way Richard and I did together for so many years. I will set out lunch-size paper bags along my walk and deck, each filled with a generous scoop of sand for weight and fire-protection, and light a votive candle to place in each. 


And as I light those luminarias and watch their glow spread in the darkness of winter’s longest night, I will renew my vow to live in a way that spreads that light in the figurative sense, of understanding and compassion for all beings. I will work to return spring, to restore the earth’s green and vibrant communities as I work to restore hope in all who seem stuck in darkness or fear. 


On Wednesday night, I will also carry luminarias to the Salida Steamplant Sculpture Garden, and place them in a circle around “Matriculation,” Richard’s sculpture there. It will be my last Winter Solstice here in Salida, my last time to light his work this way. 


If you are so moved, join me in spreading the light on Wednesday night. Light a candle, put out a few luminarias, string up colored lights, or whatever.


As those lights glow in the darkness, join me too, in vowing to extend the light. Make this holiday season one of enlightenment and action, of kindness and compassion of all sorts. 


Together, we can light the darkness, and renew the good in the world. 



Matriculation with luminarias as the full moon rose on Winter Solstice in 2013

Fieldwork: Yellowstone Time

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It’s almost ten a.m. and I am squatting in the fragrant and dusty shade of a basin big sagebrush shrub (Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata) as tall as I am, and perhaps twice my age. The seven-inch blade of my Hori-hori (a Japanese knife that serves as the multi-tool for we plant-folk) is shoved as deep as it will go into the dry soil. I twist the curved blade side to side, grunting with the effort of prying out the taproot of a flowering clump of invasive houndstongue (Cynoglossum officianale). 


The sweat rolling down my back tells me that the temperature is nearing the day’s predicted high of 90 degrees F. It’s time for a water break. But first I want to dig out this biggest of the houndstongue plants in a patch of the noxious weeds crowding the old-growth sagebrush and wildflowers in this ravine along the Old Gardiner Road above Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. 


I lever the knife a little deeper into the soil, twist again, and “Crack!” The stubborn clump suddenly pops out, and I fall backwards, plant in hand.



A clump of houndstongue (Cynoglossum officianale) with my hori-hori for scale


As I push up and dust myself off, I hear a soft “Whuff!” nearby. I freeze. 


Earlier, I smelled the musky odor of elk, and carefully probed with my hiking stick to make sure there were no calves hiding in the shade of the sagebrush where I work. Getting between a mother elk and her gangly-legged calf is not something I want to do–elk cows can easily knock down and break the ribs of even a large human (and I am definitely not large). 


I turn my head in the direction of the sound, noticing the trilling songs of the sagebrush sparrows have gone silent. I reach for the canister of bear spray in the pocket of my daypack. 


Then I see the source of the noise, and laugh out loud. A dozen or so pronghorn bucks are resting up the hill, and one, presumably the lead guy, has his head up giving that breathy warning.



The pronghorn “boys” at rest


“If you’ve just noticed me,” I say out loud, “I’ve been working here for at least two hours.” My voice trails off as I realize the pronghorn are watching movement up the ravine, not me.


Something large and furry moves downhill, weaving between the shrubs. I fold myself into the shade of the sagebrush, and pop the nozzle guard off the canister of bear spray just as a cinnamon black bear, reddish fur glinting in the sunlight trots out onto the dusty road not ten yards away. And after her tumble two adorable cubs, both black. 


She stops, sniffs–the air is still–snaps at the cubs when they don’t follow her and cuffs one for good measure as if to say, “Listen to me!” And then the trio trots down the road, the mama bear striding gracefully for such a bulky body, the cubs cavorting around her. I watch, still as a statue, holding my breath, until they disappear around the far bend. 


The sagebrush sparrows begin their trilling songs again. I take a long breath and look over my shoulder for the pronghorn; they’ve vanished too. 


As I rise, leg muscles shaking, I think, “I should have taken a photo!” Only that would have meant moving and likely giving away my presence. Not a good idea.


I stow the bear spray and take a long drink from my water bottle. I stretch my sore back and legs, toss the clump of houndstongue into the half-full trash bag, probe another sagebrush thicket with my hiking stick, and bend over to dig out another clump of ecosystem-disrupting noxious weeds. 


Just another morning in Yellowstone…



Red, my camper and weed-bag hauler… 


By the time I quit that day, I was sweaty and exhausted. As I hoisted three 30-gallon bags–50 to 60 pounds of houndstongue plants out of the ecosystem–into the back of Red, my truck, my mind focused on food and rest in the patch of shade at my campsite in the Mammoth Campground. 


Later, I thought back to that heart-stopping moment when the bear and her cubs trotted out of the sagebrush close enough that I could clearly see the individual hairs on the mom’s back. In that heart-stopping moment, my pulse rate quickened along with my breathing, and my awareness of the world sharpened.


I felt intensely alive and connected to the lives around me–the ancient and aromatic sagebrush, the balsamroot with its golden flowerheads, the pronghorn on the ridge, the sagebrush sparrows silenced by the bears’ passage, the buzzing bumblebees and fluttering butterflies, and of course, the bear family. 


Those moments of intense awareness are part of why I spent two weeks working in Yellowstone. I wanted to remind myself of what it is to live without the distractions that we allow to fill our everyday lives–the bings and beeps of our digital devices, the clamoring voices, the deadlines and demands, the urgency of it all.



Two weeks largely unplugged, doing sweaty labor outside in the sun and wind with the sound of birdsong and pronghorn “whuff!” around me; two weeks doing something useful, something healing for the landscapes I lov, gave me a depth of connection that doesn’t come with visiting and hiking.


And it also gave me a gift I didn’t expect: refilling my spirit, and restoring my emotional balance and my belief in life as basically a good thing. Which helped in weathering the horror of the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando, Florida, and the disturbing xenophobia of the Brexit vote in Britain. 


Two weeks of doing useful physical work in the company of elk and black bears, sagebrush and bumblebees reminded me of what really matters in life: what we do, not what we accumulate. Living our lives with kindness, generosity and compassion. Leaving this earth in better shape than we found it. 


It’s great to come home with a bear story, but that’s not the point. The point is that we all, each of us, can find the time to do useful work. To contribute goodness to the world in our own ways. And goodness knows, the world needs that everyday dose of light and love now. More than ever.