The Burning Of the West

Smoke.

It is easy, I think, to forget that the west is burning. It has been for some time now. California never closed last years fire season and Washington has lost more houses and seen more fire, still early in the typical season, than it ever has. Oregon too, is burning. 

But there are barbecues and fireworks and concerts and long lazy days swimming in the now warm waters of our abundant lakes and rivers. It is easy to pay no mind to the helicopters practicing their low passes over the lakes, readying to bring water if the fires get too close. And the sunsets are lovely.

For the first few days, it is easy to relish those sunsets, take pictures, and share a glass of wine with friends. But then the days turn hazy, a false layer of clouds holds the heat into the valley. It is smoke, we are reminded. The cost of those sunsets is the burning of the west.

It's A Jungle Out There

Wilderness

This year the the Wilderness Act turns fifty years old. Created in 1964 by Congress the act established massive tracts of wild areas across the country as protected lands. The Wilderness act was designed to preserve the nations wild areas for recreation and habitat, rather than for resource extraction, an important distinction between public lands today.  Across the country more than 100 million acres of land are protected under the act. In Oregon, less than four percent of our roadless areas are included in this protection. In fact, Oregon ranks behind both Washington and Idaho in the designation of wilderness lands, a fact that stands in stark contrast to our "green" image and con only bring trouble for a state betting it's economy on a newly minted ecotourism industry. 

Now, in the good weather, as we all step outside, is as good a time as any to reevaluate our commitment to the conscious preservation of wild areas. What is your favorite unprotected wilderness area? Why should it be a part of the wilderness act?

Photograph of the Eagle Cap wilderness area, Oregon courtesy of the National Forest Service 

Blame the Trees

Slide.

It has been three weeks since a massive landslide buried the small town of Oso, Washington. Hope of rescue is gone, though salvage work remains as residents work to recover the remnants of their lives. This week the State of Washington will hold it's first public forum on the redevelopment of Highway 530 which rums along the base of the slide deposit. Washington is used to landslides. Washington is trying to move on.

The rest of the nation though, is apparently still astounded by the reality of geology happening in real time, regardless of human engineering. The Huffington Post ran an article yesterday claiming that the slide was not a natural disaster at all, but the direct result of irresponsible and outdated logging. The article went on to claim that logging is a silent industry that operates in the shadows without regulation or public comment. 

And while they are correct, the clear cutting of the slopes above Oso did contribute to the slide, so did years of human behavior that contributed to climate change, resulting in the wettest March on record. The logging industry does not operate in the shadows to anyone living in the Pacific Northwest, here it is big news. Big, and constant news. But the housing market has turned around, and businesses are booming, and little notice is paid to logging issues outside the region. Fly into Oregon sometime and insist that clear cuts are hidden.

It is tempting to simplify the events in Oso, to find a singular factor on which to place blame, especially if it suits your value system or politics. But the reality is that it is more complicated than that. We do not have the kind of control of nature we would like to claim. We still call floods natural disasters even when they are caused by poor choices in engineering and development and climate change we have brought upon ourselves. We need to start to look at these events with open eyes, and see the diversity of factors, many of which are within our control, that contribute to them. Start with the science.

To watch a USGS simulation of the slide, estimated to have taken less than ninety seconds from start to finish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NzHCOhKr7g

To read the Huffington Post article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-moyer-phd/landslide-in-oso-washingt_b_5135878.html

Fresh Starts

Seeds.

The garden starts are in. Even though the fog still wraps around the house and and the sun is still too low in the sky to quite reach through the trees, what little sun there is, the starts are in the ground. They stand at weary attention in their too-large pots, waiting for the sun, for rain, for the long light of summer days. I too, stand rooted in my pot, waiting to break through.

Do not be fooled by our apparent stillness. From the inside there is great movement occurring, a minute and constant dance. Roots reach, stalks thicken, leaves inexorably unfurl. With time, there will be a bloom and a harvest. Just wait.

And this, from Girl Gone Wild, the proposal for which is going out this week. So please, if you read, share, repost, or retweet. Be a root.

Weight.

It is 6 am and I am sitting on the front stoop of my apartment with my hiking boots on waiting for a a guy I met at a bicycle event in a local brewery two days earlier. I am newly single, in my late twenties, and living in Portland, This means that I am accustomed to brew pubs, bicycle boys, and first dates that involve hiking. The six am is new. But this man seems nice, and has a long history of mountaineering and rock climbing, and wants to get an early start. In my mind I have chalked this up to being “hard core”. I also want to be “hard core” and also prove to my ex that I can still have outdoor adventures without him. Especially with men more hard core than himself. I figured that mountain climber beat kayaker and hiker any day. Besides, its going to be a beautiful sunny Saturday in late summer, the trails will be packed if we don’t get an early start, I quietly reason with myself, he’s just being practical.

We have chosen a hike called Angels Rest, aptly named for the spectacular view of the Columbia River Gorge from the rocky crag at the top of the trail. It is a moderate day hike, five miles with a steep climb over the loose rock of a crumbling basalt flow. When we arrive at the trail head we grab our mostly empty backpacks, containing little more than water and a light lunch and head out of the parking area. At the trail head he stops saying, “Hold on, I need to grab some weight.” And he reaches down and starts loading softball sized chunks of basalt into his pack. “I really want to stay in shape for my next ascent.” He says, barely looking up as he continues to shove rocks into his pack. Great, I think. This guy is nuts.

A Walk In The Woods

Saunterer.

***From a 2009 post that has become the basis for a new essay on walking and the wilderness***

A long weekend and the beginning of summer do a lot to remind us to go outside, breath the fresh air, listen to the birds, stretch our legs, and experience wildness. I think it’s important, amid the beer, fireworks, weenie roasts, and recreational vehicles that mark the American camping experience, to make sure that we do just that, stretch our legs and experience wildness. It’s not often anymore that the majority of us find ourselves away from the crush of noise, information, and development that comes with “civilized society”, and I think our distance from the wild plays a key role in our health and well-being, and our decision making as a people. Distancing ourselves from the wild is part of why we are able to devalue the environment, and that devaluation reveals itself in our politics, policies, and way of life. It allows us to waste resources, diminish habitat, allow entire species to go extinct, and engineer our bodies and our food.

I feel at my most engaged in the environment when walking through it. A walk in the wilderness does more to ease my mind, body, and soul than almost anything else. And it reminds me, in a tangible and profound way, that I am connected to this place, this world, this land, that it sustains me. Thoreau, in his 1862 essay, Walking, had this to say about the value of a walk in the woods, “I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainteterre" — to the holy land… They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering.”

We can make no progress in the improvement of our daily lives, in the fostering of health, community, sustainability, or peace, until we acknowledge and embrace our connection to the wilderness. Take a first step, take a walk.

To read the full text of Thoreau’s Walking:

http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking.html

To Read Emerson’s Nature:

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/emerson/nature-emerson-a.html#Chapter%20I

New Begininnings

Starts.

This week marks the convergence of the end of my winter projects and the beginning of my spring work. There are culminations, long rehearsed shows to perform and the end of classes. And there are new, hopeful steps forward like fresh paint on the walls and the annual turning of the garden beds. This year I find myself putting in more flowers, more early starts. Perhaps I am hopeful or in need of early signs of sun. These small steps though, these bright spots of color, they seem to fortify me. They give me grace on tired days and keep me looking forward, into new territory. I am glad for the putting in of roots and the pushing up of thin green shoots, reminders of my own possibilities.

Plant something and wait.

Picture:
www.rubygonewild.com

Show Me

Snap.

Sometimes being a writer gets you unexpected opportunities. This month, www.sunnyscope.com asked me to judge their outdoor photo contest. I jumped at it. Who wouldn't want to spend some time looking at pictures of spectacular landscapes and great adventures? It seems to me a great source of escapism, a kind of travel voyeurism that is just the kind of thing you need at the end of winter. Check out last months winner and judge here:

http://sunnyscope.com/february-photo-contest-winner-marchs-judge/

Now go outside and take some pictures.

Getting It Done

Write.

Sometimes we take on tasks that bog us down, taking far longer or far more energy and resources than we could eve have imagined. They drag. It begins to feel like you are treading water. Then it feels like drowning. And then, like magic, it starts to get done. This week, I am in go-mode. There is no room for distraction or laundry or the Ukraine or pretty much anything else. I have things to get done. I love these times of fierce productivity, far removed from the stress of working under deadline, these times that seem to stem from an internal impetus. I have things I want to get done. I can see the path. There is no procrastination, no sorting of the mail or house work that seems pressing, because, you see, I am getting things done.

From the newly completed Girl Gone Wild, on safety:

I feel safe outside. But, I know that a lot of women do not. And to be fair, I have not and do not always feel safe. I can sometimes get spooked when I am hiking by myself and a man is a little too friendly or hiking too closely to me. Sometimes I worry for a moment if I feel turned around or feel like I have been too long to not be able to see the car on the way back. Sometimes I get terrible vertigo, a lasting present from my days in Grand Canyon. These all seem to me like reasonable fears to have, but not reasons to not be outside.


Most of the things that make us fearful about being outside have to do with preparation. Fear of getting lost subsides with gaining navigational skills and choosing well-marked trails. Fear of dirt and bugs and small injuries start to disappear with experience and time. Other fear though, fear of the dark, fear of animals, fear of aloneness, these are the challenges and opportunities that the wilderness presents us. Ultimately, there is no way to eliminate all risk, either in the wilderness or in our day to day lives. What is important is the choice. Do you let your fears hold you back, inside and away from the world, or do you step out? 

***Girl Gone Wild is seeking representation and publication! You can help by sharing this blog on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and all kinds of social media. Thanks for your support!

Picture:
www.rubygonewild.com

Lost In Space- An Excerpt From Girl Gone Wild

Found.

So at some point, it just went wrong.  My folks either made a bad choice at diverging trails, or got turned around, or just walked right passed a juncture, but their demeanor changed.  They slowed.  The tone of their voices got more serious.  My sister and I were hot and tired and getting crabby in a sustained way.  My parents probably were too.  We should have been back to the car by now, it was getting on towards dinner time.  We came to a stop.  And there they were,  lost, with darkness falling and two very very tired girls with them.   They started to discuss.  They could not be that far offtrack, we had not walked very far.  They could still see the ridge we had descended, and the sun was setting in the west, they had a sense of where they were.  They were young and resourceful and figured worst case scenario they would be fine overnight with us if we got caught in the dark, everyone had a warm layer tied around their waste.  It would be an adventure, a story to to tell.  And also quite likely entirely unpleasant.  My Dad thought we could backtrack and either discover where we had gone wrong or return the full length of the way we came before it got too dark.  There was also the possibility that we were only a short distance from a connecting trail, or even the trail head itself, the trail simply being longer than we anticipated.  But we knew how to get back the way we came.  We turned around.

This terrified me.  I was little, I had no sense of time or distance with which to put the problem into perspective.  I was still afraid of the dark and I remembered the view from the top of the trail, it seemed like a really really big place to be lost in.  I was imagining lions and tigers and bears and Yeti and rodents of unusual size.  I was thinking that this very kind of thing was what had happened to those Hobbits.  My sister was fixated on talking about spending the night out there; she may have said something about having to eat me first.   In all, this probably only happened over the course of a couple of hours, but in my memory it feels like we wandered forever, like Lawrence of Arabia, parched for water and slowly weakening with hunger.  Walking with my Dad holding my hand, I started to cry.

Picture:
www.rubygonewild.com

The Beginnings Of A Bat Thing- An Excerpt From Girl Gone Wild

Wings.

We spent the evening watching the sun go down behind the high rocks on the far side of the lake. As dusk sank in around us swarms of bugs appeared above the water, and then, bats. Bats are a threshold animal, somewhere between something harmless like a chipmunk or a bird, but just creepy enough and with enough pop-culture stigma to make us skittish. Bats are mammals; like us, they are warm blooded and have hair, but they also have featherless, skin-covered wings and are mostly blind, instead using echo-location to navigate and hunt. There are thousands of species of bats, and it is estimated that bats make up one-quarter of all mammal species in the world. In the evening, if you see something flying, especially if it seems extra maneuverable or is near open water or a field, it is usually a bat. Bats love insects, and they are a social animal, often living in giant colonies that go out to hunt together in the evenings. On this evening, is seemed we were being visited by a large colony. Far from being scary or gross, these bats were magnificent. They were about the size of a swallow, fast, and fearless. They zipped past our heads diving low to skim across the surface of the water. They twisted and cavorted midair to snatch up dinner and avoid running into one another at the same time. They were acrobatic and mesmerizing and they entirely released me from my worry over sleeping out.

Soup Kitchen

Turkeys.

It has been three days of biting cold. Here on the hill, under the constant shade of Douglas firs we still have six inches of soft, powdery snow. Everything waits for the melt. Our house, with it's bird feeders tucked up under the eaves has become an oasis, a soup kitchen of sorts, for the wildlife. We have birds; more of those that are familiar and whole groups of new birds, wrens and flickers that are usually not so bold. During the day the deer linger around the house, eating the rhododendron leaves the birds have cleared of snow as they queue up for the feeders. At night families of raccoons sit outside on the deck munching on fallen seed. And we have turkeys. I woke this morning eye to eye with a pair of massive wild turkeys feasting under a high feeder with five or so of their friends. They are massive, imposing creatures, with apparently no other place to go. I am happy to provide this simple service.

Where is your small soup kitchen? What small service can you provide today?

Picture:

http://animacenter.org/blog/?p=1776

Girl Gone Wild On Air

Live.

HuffPost Live held a discussion with for outdoors women about being in the wild and featured Girl Gone Wild. It was an exciting opportunity for us to celebrate and promote the participation of women in outdoor pursuits. Check out the discussion here: http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/women-hiking-wild/5266813ffe344421b900002f

Dirt and Dirt Dirt

Futility.

***An Excerpt From Girl Gone Wild***

There are two kinds of dirt in this world, regular dirt, and dirty dirt.  Dirty dirt is usually living or chemical and encountered mainly in urban or developed settings.  This kind of dirt is the stuff that grows on molding food, toilets, etc.  Dirty dirt is generally avoided by simply keeping a clean and tidy camp just as you would at home.  Anything you run into in the wilderness that is dirty dirt can generally be avoided by simply not touching it and walking away.  The vast majority of dirt you encounter in the out of doors is simple, ordinary, harmless, run of the mill dirt.  It consists of clay, dust, and bits of organic material and is generally entirely harmless.  It also washes off of bodies and out of clothing.  The futility of wiping off a rock before sitting on it, trying to keep hiking boots clean, or limiting your activities to those which are dirt free is enormous, as is the magnitude of the experiences you lose out on trying to sterilize the environment.

Photograph:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/puddleboy/4840233303/

Shoes and Strings and Ceiling Wax

Tired.

A presentation of irony:

It is 6:30 in the morning and still dark outside the cabin. There is a stiff, frigid wind bringing in the first snow of the season. It began overnight as a light dusting but has thickened now, and has taken on an icy quality, the flakes stinging as they hit our faces. Inside it is still warm, there is coffee dwindling in cups, and the lights cast a comforting glow out the windows as we finish loading up the truck, drain the water lines, unplug the appliances and put the cabin to bed. At 7:01 we climb in, congratulating ourselves on finally running on time. The moment the truck starts to roll back we know there is something not right, but it takes us the whole length of the drive to figure out that it's a flat. Completely flat. Tire hanging off the rims flat. We sigh, and slowly pull back towards the cabin carefully parking by the outside lights. When we open the door to turn them on though, nothing. Click, nothing. Click click click, nothing. In the five minutes since leaving the power has gone out with the storm. We will do this by flashlight. From behind us we hear the deep voice of our old-man neighbor with whom we share the property. "Welcome to the high desert." He chuckles. "You want me to get the air jack?" 

It was fine. It was fine and easy and quick and dark and very very cold. It was a late start, dirty clothes and stiff fingers. It was fine, and the moment we packed back up to roll out, the power came back on. Welcome to the high desert.

Photograph Courtesy of:

http://www.junk-king.com/locations/coloradosprings/tag/get-rid-of-old-tires/

High and Dry

Bear.

***An Excerpt From Girl Gone Wild***

A dirty little secret of the outdoor world is just how rarely people abide by the rule of hanging their food or even storing it at some distance from their camp. More often than not they store in in coolers, trailers, vehicles, tents, or backpacks. In brown bear country, this is stupid and dangerous. In black bear and cougar country, which is most of everywhere else, it is only slightly less stupid and dangerous. But here’s how it happens. First, you do not see any bear or any other animals for that matter which makes choosing not to hang your food seem reasonable. But the lack of apparent wildlife is probably because humans are big and noisy and smelly even if we are trying not to be, not because they are not there. There is plenty of wildlife watching your progress down a trail that you will never know are there, and unless they are hungry or you manage to stumble into their young, they will probably go out of their way to avoid you. Unless they are hungry. And something is always hungry.

The second thing that happens is that you find yourself in a place with nothing to hang something from, this is a peculiar irony of the tundra areas of Alaska. There are vast u-shaped valleys carved by the slow progression of glaciers over thousands of years that, now exposed thanks to global warming are covered in bright fields of dense, soft tundra. Beautiful, but not a tree in sight. With no place to hang food the best you can hope for is good storage someplace down wind of your camp, you have to let the hanging thing go. Alternately, you can find yourself camped in such large trees that even the lowest branches are far too high to reach with even a weighted line, or you do not have enough line to make the pitch. Again, out of luck, and not entirely ones own fault.

The last thing that happens, and it is this kind of experience that can cause people to give it up entirely, is that it can take an entire evening to get the food bag hung. Food is heavy and oddly shaped, which means that you need something relatively accessible and sturdy to hang it from. I can spend a good half and hour looking for the right kind of branch an appropriate distance from camp and then another half an hour or more trying to toss a line, often with one end tied around a rock or shoe, over the branch. Have you ever tried to send a pair of shoes over a telephone line? Sometimes you get it in one shot, sometimes it seems impossible.

Photograph:

www.rubygonewild.com

Scatter My Ashes At The Mall

Wild.

An excerpt from Girl Gone Wild:

To back this book in the final day of the Kickstarter click here.

When it comes to our relationship to the wild, and our comfort in it, the problem is that there is nothing in the wild for us to consume. There is no story line or Hollywood effects, no sale signs, no conveniences, and no bonus rounds. In the American wild, now, as always, there is only you, and the land. Even with the rush of over-development in the last fifty years the wide-open spaces of America are vast and breath-taking, but they offer only the intangible effects that come with the opening of the spirit. The real value of these gifts is only recognized with practice and patience. Time teaches us to understand the world at its own tempo, on the larger timescales of geology and evolution rather than in the 24 hour news cycle soundbites to which we have become accustomed. In order to step into the wild, we need to step away from our need to acquire it.

The same thing can be said of ego. So maybe you do not look your prettiest, maybe you are slower than the other hikers, maybe you look silly in a big sun hat. Who cares? Have fun, live life, relish not having to be right or the best, or prove yourself in any way. Have patience with and compassion for yourself; recognize that everything else is in its natural and flawed state in the wild too, without diminishing its beauty or grandeur. You are in the wilderness, no one is watching, its not going to end up on Facebook or Youtube unless you put it there, so enjoy yourself just as you are.

I know, from deep within my body that being outside is good for me, mind, body, and soul. I know from watching others and hearing their stories that the wilderness is good for them too. I know from personal experience that my friends that spend regular time outside are less likely to to have problems with weight, mental health, or drug and alcohol abuse. I know that a walk outside gives me time to breath and think and sort myself out. I know that when I am unhappy, facing challenges, or in need of comfort, the wilderness provides it. I know that no one asks to have their ashes scattered at the mall.

The wilderness restores me. Not just in the way that fresh air and light raise your spirits and clear your head; it has always been the thing to which I turn in the troubled times of my life. To walk in the woods, to feel what it is to be a part of the larger systems of the world, to see myself as just another animal in the wild, one that can commune with the birds, watch the fish jump, track the stars across the sky, has always worked to calm my mind and put into perspective the trials of my life. I have walked out heartbreak over miles and miles of trails, sometimes retracing the very paths of the relationship itself; this time last year we walked this trail in the spring, here was where we went snowshoeing. I have made some of the most important life decisions in the wild, wondering if the decision to quit ones job and relocate is still ground shaking if there is no one around to witness it. I have grieved for lost loved ones and celebrated their memories at ocean beaches and mountain vistas. I have talked it out, whatever the it may be, with friends over miles and miles of terrain, sifting through the clutter and debris of our lives, walking and talking.

Being in the wilderness forces us to rely upon ourselves and keep our own company in a way that modern society does not. This is something that is very good for us. I know so many women who lock their doors and close their blinds, that cannot eat out at a restaurant by themselves, that think they cannot change a tire or drive someplace new without getting lost. We cultivate a culture of learned helplessness the result of which is an overpowering sense of loneliness and the loss of our identities as whole, capable persons. Returning to the wild is one way for American women to revitalize ourselves as potent, powerful, and productive participants in the world around us. In the wilderness, I have learned that there is no escape from yourself; that, in fact, so much vast expanse will first force you to address yourself, before allowing you to take it in. So let it go. Let your hair frizz and your nails chip, wear clothing that is comfortable and washable, get dirty, get outside, go wild.

The Nature Within

Words.

A belated recognition of Earth Day, in the words of others:

“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.” 

― Jacques-Yves Cousteau

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” 

― Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.” 

― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.” 

― E.B. White

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” 

― Gary Snyder

“The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.” 

― Henry Miller

“The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.” 

― Michael Pollan

References/Photograph:

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/nature?page=1

http://pnewbery.deviantart.com/

In Plain Sight

Camouflage.

I have only just now, after years of bird watching and myriad course hours studying natural systems and animals really begun to see camouflage.  And I mean really see it, for the first time I am beginning to appreciate the complexity of the markings, how specifically they are developed, and why it is just so hard to spot wildlife.  The moment of this shift in my understanding came when I discovered that Siberian Tigers are not white, as one might think, but bright orange.  How then, you might ask,  do they camouflage themselves from their prey?  The trick is not in blending into the snow, but in blending into the bare orange limbs and tree trunks of the Siberian forest. 

I have been most struck by this in birds, returning over and over again to the pictures in the guidebooks, this time to look not only at the birds, but at their surroundings, seeing them in the greater context of their environment.  I wonder in what other areas of my life this new perspective can be applied, what else I have not been seeing.  Look around; see things differently.

Photographs:

 http://fireflyforest.net/firefly/2006/04/27/camouflaged-northern-cardinal/

 http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/screech%20owl?before=19

Wait and Watch II

Patience.

There is a Korean man that was sent by the education department of the Korean government to Northeastern Siberia to film educational nature videos.  How he interpreted this request in practice was to spend up to seven months at a time enclosed in small holes in the ground or on elevated platforms waiting to film Siberian tigers in their natural habitat.  Which he did, beautifully.  That no such footage was in existence previously is an indication of the elusiveness of these animals.  That there were times he waited for three or more months before seeing one is some kind of testament to patience, endurance, and the ability to wait and watch.  Is he crazy? A xenophobe? A recluse? No, in interviews he talks of the struggle to stay, his longing for the company of other people, how he missed his family.  Whatever the reason, his personal struggle and fortitude have given the world the best glimpse into the lives of these enormous and beautiful creatures, which is good, because of the handful or so of tigers he was able to find, at least two of them were killed by poachers before he finished the project.  If habitat encroachment and climate change are not doing enough to drive this dominant species to extinction, human greed will get the job done.  Perhaps we should take to heart the great lengths these cats have gone to avoid humans in modern times, and unless we are willing to simply wait and watch, we should leave them alone.

To watch a Nature documentary on the Tigers and see the footage:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1731666363/girl-gone-wild-a-guide-to-being-a-woman-outside?ref=city

Photograph Courtesy of:

http://blog.paperrater.com/2010/02/writing-strong-essay.html

Do You Know Her?

Stones.

When my mother, an avid reader, wants to know if I have read a particular author, she will ask me if I know her.

"Do you know Annie Dillard?"

Annie Dillard is a prolific essayist and poet, she is often compared to Thoreau, though I believe that that is more due to their shared love of nature than anything else.  Annie Dillard's voice is singular.  She is an author recognizable from her cadence and clarity alone.  Since the early 1970's she has quietly become one of the great American naturalist voices.  

I remember where I was when I first read Teaching a Stone to Talk; sixteen, a dreary day of homework and rain; and then this:

“You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.” 

And this:

“I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.” 

She is also beautiful and humble.  Her website is unabashed in it's protest of self promotion, she does not tell us her life story or show us pictures of her family.  She says, quite clearly  that if you want to know about an author, read their work or works. 

Yes, I know her.

References/Resources:

Quotations:

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/14827-teaching-a-stone-to-talk-expeditions-and-encounters

Annie Dillards Website:

http://www.anniedillard.com/

Image:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/photographic_examples_13_four_river_rocks.shtml