Naturalist Susan Marsh wonders: How many of us really see a wild place for what it is—and, if pressed, could we offer an apt eyewitness account after passing through it?
Aspen "groves" are actually expressions of a single mother tree and shared underground system. No matter where you go, how much do you remember about the particulars of place and what reverence do you hold for the other entities that call it "home"? Photo courtesy Susan Marsh
by Susan Marsh
"Each extinction is a unique voice silenced in a universal conversation of which we ourselves are only one participant. Rarely, in turning our attention from a recently extinct species to our last-ditch effort to save another, do we pause to say goodbye." —Mark Jerome Walters
I leave the aspen stand, the one at the head of the draw with the stout and heavy stems long chewed to corduroy by elk, whose branches curve and kink in all directions. It grows far from any road or trail, above a soggy sedge meadow and the remains of a hundred year-old cabin.
The aspens are dancers with arms flung out and waving at the cloud-mottled sky. Even when they are at rest, no wind stirring in their branches, the quality of movement remains, as in a photograph snapped at a ballet. Before I turn homeward I blow them a kiss, pausing to say goodbye.
The day after strands of silk draped the aspens in my yard, I chase a grass spider across the kitchen floor. It finally curls up and plays dead, and I scoop it up and drop it over the deck railing into the grass, lecturing as if it didn’t know this: “You’re a grass spider, this is where you belong.” Before I go back inside I look over to where it has disappeared, pausing to say good luck.
Hello, I say to each new wildflower of spring, each migrant bird arriving in the valley. A brief acknowledgement, a moment of joyful recognition, then I scurry on, anxious to see what else is in bloom, what other bird I might flush from the newly leafing branches. Like the flowers and birds who must bloom, set seed, or nest and rear young in a few short weeks, I am in a hurry. Too often I forget to pause and say goodbye.
I long for connection with what I love, for a relationship that’s deeper than simple observation, identification and appreciation. My love is rarely spoken, like my prayers. It is felt, held, expressed with eyes and ears and a smile, and sometimes tears. But I fear that my love runs in only one direction, from me to the wild world.
In spring in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, with the birds and wildflowers, it’s a receiving line of sorts: hello grass spider and your silk, welcome leaves and swallows. Goodbyes can wait for September. Hello, goodbye and all that lies between make up the connection, one of reverent attention on my part, along with my attempt to take in some hint of essence from the cycle of life beyond my human values of beauty and sweetness and other attributes that I assign, the ones that I call positive because they make me feel connected.
Giving anything my full attention is hard, like trying to write this essay while aware of the dog snoring at my feet, grosbeaks calling out the window, a rumble of distant thunder that causes a barely conscious inventory of whatever might need to be brought under cover if I don’t want it getting wet. It would be easier if life wasn’t so complicated in the era of internet, social media, constant news and text messages, complex homes that require maintenance and repair, books that wait for me to pick them up and read, and even the accoutrements of writing, whether paper and pen (where did I put the damn thing now?) or computer (why is my typing dyslexia getting so bad?)
If I had lived in a time and place with fewer distractions, would I not have slipped more easily into the folds of connection with the earth, as well as the family and clan with whom I lived? My full attention rarely feels full except when I am wandering alone and away from others, able to still the gibbering monkey mind for a while. Attention gives me a deeper sense of connection, even without a cultural ritual or shared credo that helps me believe I’m not just making it up.
Without a ritual of relationship, it feels as if I lack an essential part of being human. It interests me to read about the rites of cultures that emphasize the kind of connection I yearn for. The self is part of the community, the community part of the land. Other living beings, as well as other people, are to be honored, thanked, and taken care of. Interdependence is understood. The arts and prayers, myths and gods of these cultures reflect a deep sense of connection.
Without a ritual of relationship, it feels as if I lack an essential part of being human. It interests me to read about the rites of cultures that emphasize the kind of connection I yearn for. The self is part of the community, the community part of the land. Other living beings, as well as other people, are to be honored, thanked, and taken care of. Interdependence is understood. The arts and prayers, myths and gods of these cultures reflect a deep sense of connection.
I recognize how stifling such cultures can be, for they include strictures and taboos and horrors like female “circumcision.” But I also consider that many of them have lasted for thousands of years, while the USA is a relative neophyte when it comes to creating society. Lately I wonder more than usual if our me-first, me-only point of view is going to guide us through this century.
But I am a product of my milieu. While wanting ritual, I’m skeptical of cultural cherry-picking (whether Buddhist, indigenous, or ancient Indian), too often filtered through our culture until it falls into the category of woo-woo. We cherry-pick the Bible too, of course, going with the “subdue the earth” part but not so much the stewardship aspect.
But I am a product of my milieu. While wanting ritual, I’m skeptical of cultural cherry-picking (whether Buddhist, indigenous, or ancient Indian), too often filtered through our culture until it falls into the category of woo-woo. We cherry-pick the Bible too, of course, going with the “subdue the earth” part but not so much the stewardship aspect.
What I’m stumbling around to say is that, without being steeped in a tradition that connects us to the land, it feels like wishful thinking to make up my own. I thank the strawberry whose berry I pick, but I do it silently. I’d feel like an ass mimicking a cardinal-direction offering of sweetgrass smoke. The only drumming I can hear without cringing is that of an Irish folk band or at a native powwow.
While unsure about all of the ingredients of a deep and authentic connection, I do think attention is fundamental. You can tell when someone is listening to you or half-listening while their eyes flit around or they’re feeling the vibration of a pocketed phone. Their level of attention lets you know how much they care about whatever you are telling them, and often your conclusion about this is not particularly flattering. I try not to insult the flowers and birds and land by thinking about other things when I am giving them my attention, but I know how often I fail.
What do we miss, what get "lost" when we hurry through landscapes either for self-indulgent reasons or to keep pace with the "outside world'? A lot. We often miss the essence of place, and if we do that, what difference does it make being in that place? In this photograph by Susan Marsh, can you detect the kestrel in the tree (upper left)? A kestrel has a life history all its own, connecting it to hundreds of observable others.
I was recently involved in a discussion sponsored by the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative during a remote version of its annual Jackson Hole Wildlife Symposium about the so-called culture of recreation. It occurred to me while listening that people who recreate in the backcountry define the word in fundamental and diverging ways. To some, outdoor recreation is the same as play—having fun, often with others, while enjoying the environment. To others recreation involves sports, fitness or hobbies. And to still others, recreation means what the word actually spells out: re-creation.*
Original definitions include “To refresh, restore, make anew, revive, invigorate.” To those seeking an experience like this, sports and fun may have little to do with it.
During this “culture of recreation” discussion, some talked primarily about their enjoyment of the activity they are involved with. Those who recreate in the original sense seem less likely to even mention a travel mode or activity unless it involves sitting, strolling, or a brief power nap under the aspens (my favorite). Instead we’ll hear the sound of the creek flowing past.
A question formed in my mind as the discussion came to an end. We claim to love each trail and piece of backcountry that is our favorite playground, but if we moved away and no longer went there we love it still? If we can answer yes, I think we’re on our way to creating a meaningful connection between ourselves and what we love in the wild world.
A question formed in my mind as the discussion came to an end. We claim to love each trail and piece of backcountry that is our favorite playground, but if we moved away and no longer went there we love it still?
If we can answer yes, I think we’re on our way to creating a meaningful connection between ourselves and what we love in the wild world. Yes means that we paid enough attention and it’s no longer about me and my recreation choices, or trail etiquette or minding the wildlife in a certain spot. It’s about the plants that the many forms of wildlife depend on, the soil the plants depend on, the water that flows in creeks and through the ground.
I don’t mean to suggest that people fall into neat categories depending on what they like to do outdoors, but I do see significance in the difference between ways of interacting with the land that has all to do with the larger culture. In America, we tend to place the individual first. Sometimes we employ this hierarchy to excess. The wild outdoors is one place where we can safely lay down our swords and shields of self-image and practice wonder and humility. In this space, connection is possible.
While considering the depth of connection possible between people, and between people and place, I’m reminded of the plight of an elderly Hopi woman, forced to move as part of a land settlement involving her people and the Navajo nation.** In its standard tone-deaf fashion, our government apportioned the disputed area without consulting those affected and the boundary made more sense on the map than it did on the ground. As this Hopi citizen prepared to leave her home, she paused to say goodbye. Of the place she was going, she lamented, “The wind won’t know me.”
While considering the depth of connection possible between people, and between people and place, I’m reminded of the plight of an elderly Hopi woman, forced to move as part of a land settlement involving her people and the Navajo nation.** As she prepared to leave her home, she paused to say goodbye. Of the place she was going, she lamented, “The wind won’t know me.”
I’m not a product of a culture that encourages me to believe without a doubt that the wind knows me. I’m not particularly fond of wind anyway. But while few of us are lucky enough to be integral to our world through living for many generations in the same place, all of us can engage in reverent attention. Noticing changes the one who notices. Attention spawns love. And love engenders a desire to protect and assist.
In the case of wild nature, what is the beloved asking for?
I grew up on Puget Sound, from which a trip to the ocean beaches involved several hours of driving and thus my visits were rare. While rambling along the damp ecotone between sand-blasted driftwood logs and ocean breakers, I preferred solitude to company, silence to conversation. My conversation was with the ocean, so vast and mighty I trembled in its presence like Moses must have trembled beside the burning bush. Yet the all-powerful ocean—years before we knew about the great Pacific garbage patch (now a well-known and officially named geographic feature)—seemed to be asking for my help. What could I possibly do for it?
A few years into college, I had the chance to do something and took it, but that is another story. A small but meaningful stay of execution in the heap of environmental catastrophes.
Like the unexpected ways god is said to answer prayers, the beloved wild is subtle, leaving us to figure out what it is asking for. It certainly doesn’t want the kind of praise the deity of my childhood demanded, and it doesn’t need my appreciation or admiration. Perhaps it is only a desire on my part to connect, for connection opens the door in my heart that leads to a long sought-after sense of belonging.
The aspen stand (one of many) that I find so beautiful has less need for me than for the kestrel perched on a high branch before she took off at my approach. By reflex I apologized for disturbing her, then I stopped to consider that she might have left because I flushed a vole from the grass and sent it her way. You never know. There’s something about not having the full picture that makes me want to drop my assumptions and slow down. Pay more attention.
I have many reasons to thank the tribe of aspen. Thanks for giving me joy and comfort and shade in which to lie back in the folds of last year’s dry grass while grass spiders crawl over me as if I was just another fallen log. In return I make a silent wordless prayer. I exhale, offering a bit of carbon dioxide. Perhaps I leave a few cells of skin or hair to fertilize the soil.
What if I could lie under the tree for longer, like until I die? Then I would have more to give, like a nurse log gives to seedlings. The tree would take my nutrients into its roots and I would be reborn as lignin, bark and leaves. I would, for once, be giving back to the earth that has sustained me for all these years.
I have meditated on aspen for long enough to form my own one-person cult around it. I see the species not only as a personal totem but as a metaphor for life. Each of us is an ephemeral leaf on the mother tree, each tree belonging to a clone that may have started from seed thousands of years ago as the last glaciers receded from our valley. The clone—or clan—can cover many acres and its genes will persist far beyond the demise of the original seedling.
As one of its leaves I open and leap into life, doing my little bit to produce sugar from the sun and feed the roots, insects and browsing elk. If I make it to old age I will glow an intense translucent gold in the low sun of October. With all my flaws and insect bites and moldy spots of age, I will add my final burst of beauty to that of all the leaves, part of a single being made of light.
We are made of light, for light is energy. Like the aspen leaves whose abscissions weaken just before they fall, my color will fade and my beauty will die and then so will I. As an aspen leaf, in death I will offer shelter to insect and spider eggs, sleeping earthworms, and fungi. I will decay and become part of the soil. The tree will reabsorb some of me and the cycle of dormancy, bud, leaf-time and fall will continue. This is a form of reincarnation I can understand.
I realize that I can’t just walk off into the woods and die under an aspen. While cremation is better, environmentally, than embalmment and wasting good hardwood on an expensive casket to be buried in the ground, it feels like a poor substitute for a true connection with the land in which I can give myself back. Until green burial becomes more available cremation will have to do, and I can offer a bit of calcium and phosphorus to the plants among which I may be scattered. Forget about most of the carbon though—it goes up in smoke (thus adding to climate change, I suppose).
Scattering ashes on the land is better than some other options being promoted for disposing of cremains: one enterprise offers to shoot your loved one into space, for around eight grand. Or you can take the trace of carbon remaining in bone fragments and have it made into a tiny diamond. Or have yourself frozen in hopes of being thawed in some future that does not require death. Anything, apparently, to deny the earth its due.
Regardless of how and when we leave this life, I suspect most of us will do so with a mix of gratitude and sadness, glad for our brief moments of glory while reluctant to let go of those last few abscission cells and flutter to the earth. But when my time comes, I hope I have enough sense to blow a kiss to this world of wonders as I pause to say goodbye.
* original meaning - refreshment or curing of a person, from Old French (13th century) and Latin.
**Emily Benedek, The Wind Won’t Know Me: A History of the Navajo-Hopi Dispute, 1999
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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.
