"Ursa Major," soft pastel on paper by Lori Ryker. Look closer and you'll see a bear in a tree. To see more of Ryker's work, go to lorirykerart.com
By Susan Marsh
I once
participated in an exercise that seemed at first unrelated to the subject of
the three-day seminar I was attending—ecology of the gray wolf—at the Murie
Center in Grand Teton National Park. On the final morning, our assignment was
to rise from our bunks while it was still pitch black, walk in silence along a
trail that led to the Snake River, and find a place to sit alone. There we
would attend the dawn.
“OK,” I thought.
“This sounds interesting.”
I had spent many nights in the wilderness where I
often woke before first light, snug in my sleeping bag while the stars wheeled
overhead and the dim forms of trees and boulders hovered in silvery light. But this
exercise was meant to be intentional in a way I hadn’t considered.
The trail was
familiar, at least in daytime, and I used memory as much as eyesight to find my
way to the river. While flailing through a thicket of willows beside the river,
I surprised a group of elk. They leapt to their feet, startling me as well, until
I realized they were not a bear. “Sorry,”
I stage-whispered to their retreating hind ends.
I sat beside the
river and gathered my jacket around me. In late July, the Snake was low and its
slack current made no sound. The elk had run off and the birds remained in
their roosts, and I was the only ticketholder in an empty hall, waiting for the
show to begin.
The assignment originated
with the late Minnesota writer and professor Paul Gruchow, who regularly led his
students in this endeavor. While appreciative of that history, it seemed I wasn’t
attending the dawn as much as waiting for it, willing the first hint of twilight
to seep into the sky.
Realizing the idiocy of this approach, I willed myself to
stop watching for what wasn’t there and pay more attention to what was, as the
elk were doing before I interrupted them. Resting together while remaining
alert is a state that comes naturally to wild creatures. It is what allowed
them to jump up and trot away before I realized they were there.
Realizing the idiocy of this approach, I willed myself to stop watching for what wasn’t there and pay more attention to what was, as the elk were doing before I interrupted them. Resting together while remaining alert is a state that comes naturally to wild creatures. It is what allowed them to jump up and trot away before I realized they were there.
After settling
into a state of relaxed attention I felt as fully present as possible, aware of
the cool dry sand under my seat, a faint reflection of stars on the surface of
the river, and a distant throat-clear from a fellow attender of the dawn. The
slightest of breezes lifted the hairs on my cheek.
All of a sudden,
as quickly as the elk had disappeared, there was light.
Black shifted
into dim gray. The outline of a forested ridge began to resolve on the far side
of the river. Was I witnessing the dawn, I wondered, or had I just missed it? I
understood that dawn is a slow opening of the day, not a single moment. But my brain
interpreted it as if I would miss it if I blinked.
Daybreak
unfolded, lending familiarity to the land. Grays became colors and the silent
river visibly glided along. I could see the skinny-dipping hole where the
Muries and their guests often swam, and the mud-slick cobbles you had to walk
over to get there. The backwater where monkeyflower and aquatic buttercups grew
came into focus and likewise a stand of dog-hair spruce I called the Hobbit woods.
Twenty yards upstream, the band of elk splashed into the river for a morning
drink. The day’s first raven flapped over the water, heading upstream.
An hour of terror running off a mountain with a thunderstorm bearing down endures in the memory, but an hour of doing absolutely nothing can leave a more indelible imprint, as it has with me.
Slowly, I
realized that the morning had more to do with wolf biology than I had imagined.
I was mimicking the elk, the raven, and the wolf by entering the day their way
rather than mine. On backpacking trips I usually waited for the sun to hit the
tent before emerging. Once dressed, my job was to get busy: light the cook
stove, assemble breakfast, drape the damp tent fly over a boulder. My morning
was as full of immediate activity as it would have been at home.
Full daylight came
quickly with the rising sun. I picked up the notebook I’d brought along, trying
to think of something eloquent to write. Soon we would assemble for the last segment
of the seminar where we would share what it was like for us to attend the dawn.
We sat on
upturned sections of log around the campfire circle, fresh coffee and bagels in
hand. Already the morning was warm, the air soft and welcoming after the predawn
nip. I listened to insightful descriptions from the others, but when my turn came
to speak all I could manage was, “Why don’t I do this more often?”
When Paul
Gruchow led his students outside into the dark, he didn’t tell them why. He
only said that what they were about to do would change their lives.
It’s been 20 years
since I sat beside the river attending the dawn. Did it change my life? Not
dramatically, I must admit, though one thing is certain: that morning remains
vivid in my mind and the fact that it does feels important. An hour of terror running
off a mountain with a thunderstorm bearing down endures in the memory, but an
hour of doing absolutely nothing can leave a more indelible imprint, as it has
with me.
How infrequently
do so-called civilized people attend not only the dawn, but the everyday miracles
of our home range, and even our very existence, whether early in the morning or
at high noon? Miracles surround us, all the time. All we have to do is notice.
Whenever I think
about that morning years ago, I answer my own question, “Why don’t I do this
more often?” Because I’m lazy. The bed is warm and the dawn is cold. River sand
chills the feet as dew on the lawn once did when I was a child.
When I was in
college, I read that one of the great 19th-century Lakota chiefs
went out every morning to walk barefoot on the prairie grass. The book, the name
of which I have forgotten, quoted him as saying that healthy feet could hear
the heart of holy earth. Daily contact between foot soles and the ground was a
path to health.
If it was good
enough for Sitting Bull, I figured it was good enough for me. I tried it for a
while in rainy western Washington, always worried about stepping on slugs or
dog poop. These days I hear that walking in the morning dew has become a trendy
form of therapy, like forest bathing, with assorted woo-woo claims attached.
Barefoot or not,
I promise to get up early more often so I can truly attend the dawn. I can do
it in my backyard, or even at the window if it’s too cold outside. No
notebooks, no expectations. Don’t watch for it, I chide myself, but allow it to
seep into awareness like a wolf slipping through the sagebrush.
Attending the dawn
taught me how to love an hour of the day that I normally miss, whether sleeping
late or fussing with the coffeemaker and dog food. It allowed me to recall in
some detail an experience that occurred two decades ago, because of my alert
awareness on that morning. That’s the kind of attention I want to pay.
About Susan Marsh
Susan Marsh spent three decades with the U.S. Forest Service and is today an award-winning writer living in Jackson Hole.
