Love and Hope in a Time of Uncertainty

This time of year, as the last leaves fall and darkness descends in late afternoon, it feels like a time to turn inward, both physically and in my mind. Often that is comforting, but this year our thoughts are troubled by an uncomfortable uncertainty, as a fraught election looms and the world seems awash in human conflict and natural disasters. We are living in a time filled with fear.

I recently attended a lecture, a lesson in choosing love when fear is the go-to emotion for many of us. I wasn’t sure how to take it all in; it seems the extended hand of love is so often bitten off by fear and hatred. If showing love to someone who expresses hatred only results in the lover being attacked, where is the advantage?

The advantage, if there is one, lies in having made the offer, I suppose. But we humans want results from our efforts, don’t we?

I feel better relying on my source of hope in this troubled time—the resilience of nature—and to call my care for it persistence, rather than using a shopworn word like love. It’s simply the will to keep going and trying to make a positive influence where I can.

I can’t prevent our ever-increasing human footprint in Greater Yellowstone from displacing wildlife, or ending their lives outright as in the case of Grizzly 399 (and the record number of others of her species who have been killed this year). But I can avoid driving at night whenever possible, and I can reduce my speed to make a collision with another creature more avoidable.

I can’t keep the so-called community character of Jackson Hole from being replaced by the high-end urbanization on a scale unimaginable a few decades ago. But I can keep my fifth-of-an-acre lot in town as wild as possible by growing native plants and creating a mini-forest of sorts, and at this time of year, leaving the leaves for the insects that pollinate those wildflowers and trees.

These feel like tiny gestures in a storm of change. But I do them anyway because they matter.

Not all change is negative, certainly—but a good deal of it seems to be, at least from my perspective. I won’t stop protesting when destructive projects are proposed by government or private enterprise, but I want to learn how to accept defeats when my suggestions go unheard, and to keep some measure of hope in my heart. To not lose sight of what I love. To persist.

There is an unbreakable link between love and persistence. Perhaps they are the same thing. It’s easy to become tired and discouraged, and the temptation to give up can follow you until you start to believe that nothing one can do really matters. That’s a dangerous hole to fall into, even as I acknowledge that the fatigue is real.

Part of what creates the fatigue is that worry creeps in. I can worry about everything, even when meditating to a talk about being in the present. At this moment in time all is well, I am told, but immediately my mind starts to argue. No it isn’t, I say under my breath. Is this precious moment, said to bring joy and peace, really all that great for a four-year-old in Gaza who has just lost her sister? For a grizzly bear cub who has just lost his mother? It seems at times that being grateful for the present moment is a luxury for those of us who are not dealing with extreme loss.

So how do I pull myself away from the edge of despair? Always, by being outside in a place like the Yellowstone region—in itself a luxury—even if the excursion is brief, and by witnessing the continuing lessons in persistence that the wild world provides.

In recent days I have gathered some examples of persistence that give me an uplift and take me out of my tendency to lose hope of being able to make a positive difference.

I’ll consider the legacy of 399 as a start. I was never part of the paparazzi that chased her all over the place with long lenses. But I saw her a few times, and have some photos from before she became famous. I cried for days after her cub “Snowy” was hit by a car. Now she joins him, along with many of her offspring, the ones she has outlived.

She persisted. Bears don’t reach her ripe old age without heart and wisdom. And because she was so recognizable, she did indeed become a major ambassador for her species. She made a difference to many who might have otherwise lumped all grizzly bears into the category of large, scary carnivores. She helped us to see that bears, like us, have individual lives, personalities and spirits.

My ability to tear up as I write this is a manifestation of love. Which might also be manifested in driving at night less frequently or insisting that we consider wildlife as our region grows and grows. We have known for decades that migrating wildlife need to be able to cross highways safely, yet how many times do we design new roads with that in mind? Thankfully, more overpasses and underpasses are creeping into the transportation system, but it seems to be a battle to achieve each one.

As I have spent part of each day out wandering during the glorious month of October, I have encountered other individual acts of persistence that make me smile and give me hope.

I’ve been investigating an odd-looking landslide near North Twin Creek north of Jackson, which most people I’ve talked to attribute to road construction. It didn’t look quite that way to me. As I wandered around above it, I found three old ditches that must have been dug decades ago, now filled in but still easily recognized. They all dump into the upper end of the landslide area. What function they once served is a mystery to me, as is the source of the water, unless it was a rapid snowmelt one year. What I found at the base of the landslide, growing in its rocky rubble, was what made me laugh: persistence.

A Douglas-fir, likely damaged when a rock or another tree fell on it during the slide, grew upright for only a few feet before abruptly turning horizontal. Its top was long dead. Post-landslide saplings grew fast and upright, and threatened to shade it out, but that tree it had other ideas. In addition to a couple of surviving branches, it made four new upright leaders along its trunk. In the patch of sunlight created by landslide debris that knocked over many of the older trees, this one had its chance, and took it.

While on the same hike, I ran across the dried seedhead of a monument plant (tall green gentian) that had dealt with damage similar to that endured by the Doug-fir. While the cause was less evident—perhaps it had been tripped over—the reaction was the same: to grow more vigorously. These plants take many decades to mature, and once conditions are right, they put all their energy into making a tall, prolific constellation of blooms. Once they do this, they die, so they have only one chance to reproduce, and this specimen was not about to waste that chance. While still green and flexible, it righted its tip and the lower parts did the same, maximizing the chance of pollination and seed dispersal.   

The message I receive from these plants is simple: take heart. Keep going. Yes, mourn the loss of what and whom you love, and know that change is constant. It’s what we decide to do with that fact that will matter.