Barry Lopez

 Ive just finished a book I started years ago. It was one of those books that made me too sad. So, I put it aside. This week, I picked it up and became absorbed, finished it. It was Embrace Fearlessly The Burning World, by Barry Lopez. I love his writing. Barry Lopez died in 2020. This was his last book. 

I'm also reading another book, quite good so far, called The Correspondent. It's about an older woman who writes actual letters to people over the course of her entire life. I was reminded of how in this blog, I wrote to a nature writer, to my dad. I decided to start doing that again. Letters are such a wonderful short form. And writing to someone specific works for me. 

Dear Barry Lopez

    I love the title; Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World. It speaks to me of courage. We are all being asked to stand up these days. More so than when you finished the book. The title helps. You are a truly great writer. Your words make me feel and think about things I didn't even know I wanted to feel and think about.  Your words make me fiercely want to be a better writer. To write even close to how well you wrote...that would be an accomplishment. Years ago, I went to an event and had you sign one of your books. I digress.

Mr. Lopez, in the Lessons from the River chapter…Near woods vs the Deep Woods. I was able to identify a feeling which has been sweeping into my consciousness and then ebbing away. Sometimes, I don't explore sad or loss feelings. They touch my losses too much. It's sort of like taking the lid off a box. It's too much all at once. 

   I explored the feeling today, sitting on my deck with the huge Maple and Oak trees branches sweeping the sky.  I am thirsty for the deep woods; the silence, the remoteness from human sounds. There is a sweetness inside I feel which belongs only to that silence outside. There is a whole part of me, this is hard to explain but I think you might understand, a part of me that I hear so much better there. I miss her.  

    I live on the border of the near woods. I walk my dog almost daily on a crooked tarred path at the bottom of a ravine which starts in my backyard. The forest extends at the path about a mile in one direction. The houses and development come close in the other direction, passing a long marsh, past an elementary school. 

    

    Over the summer, some fierce storms took down more trees than I have ever seen in my 27 years here. They were big trees; some Maples, some Cottonwoods. Some fell into the arms of  other trees. Some fell across the river winding through the area. Some lost arms in big splintering chunks. Seeing this uprootedness has tossed me around a bit. I don't know why I assumed the forest would change in a predictable way. 

  Learning and comfort have come from noticing more. I learned to look for the wild Rhubarb mingling with the thistles, stand watching the waving branches of a cottonwood separate but not alone on the edge of a Marsh, see the stand of birch trees tucked into a slope waving in the wind. These are signs of constancy as are the trees. 

 I try to be alert for the animals and for my dog. Once, an owl landed twenty feet in front of me. A hawk flew directly over my head and into the trees as if saying hello. I've seen deer standing still,  merging in the  brown woods, watched them leap in front of me. I saw a nest of baby foxes and their mother standing guard. A coyote looked at me sprinting across the path. Wild turkeys with their shiny feathered prehistoric ugliness cackling in the woods next to me. 

    I’ve taken so many photos. I only look at them when I go away because I miss the forest. She has become like a friend; a comfort, a peace giver. My experience of the near woods has human sounds mixed with no sound.  Daytime, I  hear the roar of trucks, the passing of traffic, and this summer, the beep of road construction. 

   Why do I lately thirst for the deep woods silence? That silence, on a mountain top, in a place so remote as to be inherently dangerous. It's been a noisy summer of storms, smokey air and road construction. Still, I feel greedy. It's not easy financially, physically to go there. I have the resources, used judiciously. 

    As I write this, I'm thinking how I can go there. I know winter, if we have snow, will muffle some of the sounds but others thrive across the top of it. I didn't find that type of silence in Iceland or Scotland; my last two trips. I found it in Nepal; not on the top of a mountain but hiking across the flanks. I've found it in the Boundary Waters especially in the morning or evening. No sounds and calm water; the silence of a green wilderness.  On reflection, I'd like to find that silence here in the United States. It would give me hope. I'll think on it a bit. 

Thank you,

Margot Storti-Marron

Uprooted

August spirals into summer’s end and the beginning of Fall. The acorns from the Burr Oak , half eaten by busy squirrels are kerplunking like the slow rain, onto the deck again. What must it be like; abundance and the feasting of harvest carried with a muted signal of too little on the slowly drying, green horizon.  

I walked the dog down the marsh path today. Huge leaves of wild rhubarb, pockmarked with insect holes, line the path. Thistles weeds with their pink blooms are intermarried among them. Milkweed, a steady influence persists nearby. And what I call the fairy webs of spiders are sprinkled in the wet, cool grass. The wooden bridge across the marsh is a long green tunnel. I stood on the railing for the calming view of a sea of swaying cattails leading to a horizon of dark smudged trees. 

The almost weekly storms have left a large number of sticks everywhere. The dog just steps over them now. He’s become a connoisseur of sticks. It's harder to step past are the wind snapped branches like the inner white arm of a tree limb with a jagged edge ripped from nearby tree dangling into the path. 

There are four large trees, at least 100 years old, with their huge trunks toppled sideways, roots half exposed who fell into the arms of their fellow trees. Now, they bear them like burdens. Living at the edge of a forest has taught me Nature, harsh, beautiful, and responsive is about the big picture. Life goes on as it can. 

My own losses should have taught me the impossibility of bargaining with fate. Some changes do just happen. The neighbors house caught fire in a lightning strike a few weeks ago. The front door and her beautiful garden are intact but the top is open to the sky. Since then, I’ve been considering the comfort of magical thinking. Our house seems so sturdy. It’s been here for a long time. We have survived lots of storms. Those facts don’t prevent a lightning strike. 

The deer, foxes and other forest animals are working harder to survive in this summers’ conditions. So much to eat but so much rain, storms, so many bugs, mud, smoke from forest fires to navigate to get food. They persist because they have to which means they want to..survive.   

Today, as I write this, our street has been converted to dirt. The sewer pipe replacement project has reached our front door. The pounding and dredging of large equipment, the immense concrete pipes are laying on our lawns. I’ve moved cars, circled the street to avoid the holes and shrug my shoulders about the dirt and the noise. This is, eventually, about a good change. It’s temporarily uncomfortable.

Our Hosta salad garden for the deer, is growing again. The deer, probably frightened by the noise and heavy equipment moving ever closer, are not venturing into our backyard.

     We tried everything to get the deer to stop eating the Hostas. I have accepted the some Hostas will be eaten. Also I love seeing the deer up close. The sight of them releases beauty into my heart. Do I think they could live without my Hostas? Have I eaten deer? Yes to both questions. Change is, I guess, not pure but messy and ongoing. 

This summer with the changed forest, the changed streets, the changed neighbors house; I see change every time I look outside. It isn’t my choice. It is my view of the world.  How much change happens to us all every day? How much do we acknowledge, how much do we ignore, avoid every day? I too, persist because I have to. It’s fate again; not a bargain but what I can do as me. It seems a poor answer. Doing nothing seems a worse one. 

Doing nothing is sometimes a form of giving up. For me, failure leaves as much pain as giving up. I’d rather act. Honestly, I’m enjoying driving my car on the bumpy dirt streets. I love seeing the deer. I’ll keep praying and showing up for my neighbors. And in this season of storms, of change, I am accepting global warming is here.  Nature and I may be able to persist. The question is how much will I have to accept and how much will I refuse to accept. All of which means I’ll have to change. 

Day one SPRING

Driving home the blue sky of spring 

Is filled with yellow light. 

Standing next to the car,

 A blue herons slow flap from lake to pond 

surprises me. 

The farmer tells us he’s worried 

About how wet the fields are..he’d like to 

plant. There is a warmth to the dark 

brown earth in time for Easter.

And guests arrive with their lovely smiles, 

pastel colors passing candy and food.  

Bittersweet meetings with children. 

A little girl wearing bunny ears. 

Iceland

 

Dark blood red rock covered with

cerulean green moss. 

A lumpy land with water cascading; 

thrumming, drumming, pounding, 

speaking eternity. Endless power

reduces me. There is my proper 

size in the universe's eyes. 

A visit to coarse black sand beaches with

dark obelisks scattered on shore and

water. Am I seeing what

happens after?  The remainder of time. 

Those thick white sheets descending 

into ragged edges.  Each form fully combined 

with power. I saw people shaken inside,

say they loved you.You gave us,

them joy. Hearing you sing echoes inside. 

Thoughts

 In my work as a psychotherapist, I am fascinated by how often a persons’ stories interact with their natural landscape. How much of their identity is tied to their "home" landscape.  I’m curious about identity. How does our mobile culture, where people move frequently, untethered from the landscape of home… impact identity? 

Identity is basically our personality traits and values, roles over time and impactful life events. Identity changes over our lives. I was born in San Francisco. Memories are the sound of the sea and the smell of Eucalyptus trees. When I smell Eucalyptus, I access the girl who spent most days finding solace in green park spaces.  When I visit, I remember her better. If any landscape would be my home, wouldn’t it be my childhood home? Instead, in San Francisco I feel bittersweet; seeing the familiar and how it and I have changed. Would I feel differently if I had lived through the changes? 

I moved a lot between then and now; settling in Minnesota behind an old growth forest of oaks and maples. Those huge trees have anchored me.  I watch them thrashing in storms, standing green leafed arms outstretched, barren and still in a cold winter. How old, how much they witness just standing there! I have been comforted and able to bear more in my own life. I feel I have grown some patience and perspective with their silent help. 

 I believe there is a type of learning we can’t get from each other, from AI, from any other place but the natural world. We can learn how to know ourselves better from interacting with the unknowable and to most of us, the beautiful. I have always loved the quote, "And what shall I love, if not the enigma?"

As a therapist, I listen to stories. . One of the most curious and inspiring type of stories is the “fight for love.” I don’t mean romantic love. I mean when loving is hard and challenging. When loving changes you but… you do it anyway. 

It could be helping a family member through illness, loss, financial hard times. It could be fighting for land, community.  I have heard farmers say they love the land. It could be the hard fight for the voiceless which includes love of nature, animals, the vulnerable. The point is the person fighting is mostly motivated by love, not hatred or justice.. although other values are usually involved. Motivation can be a murky business.

I have noticed some themes in those stories. Giving up is thought about and even happens silently, again and again. Acceptance of how hard this is and renewed willingness to keep going, happens again and again.It's rare I hear someone fully commit and not question their commitment at some point. To me, it seems human when we are suffering to question even if the answer is always the same. 

A challenging love helps us learn about how we love; positive and negative. The recommitting, the sticking it through.  Support from strangers, friends, relatives seems to be pivotal, synchronistic. Also, the negatives; people saying you should give up, you are crazy, it’s hopeless.  Many people have told me the “stop it' comment has the strongest opposite impact. 

Recently, I was in another country. I met people who were concerned, angry, disgusted by what was happening in my country. And so am I. When we finished talking I said but… I love my country. And they nodded. They understood. 

I realized in that moment, part of my identity doesn’t have to be about living in a certain landscape. I have a national identity. I love this country. This country is home, in a very broad, only way I know, definition of home. One of the inspiring things about the fight for love is choice. We can choose to fight for what we love about our country. It will change us. That’s the way love works. And what better to change us, then love?

 Andrew’s birthday today. It’s a harder day this year. I had this great photo pop into to my head. So I went with it. Andrew telling me what post… it’s a very happy photo at his birthday party. That great belly laugh! I miss my boy today. 

Piano

Driving through the blue gray

sky, the piano is moving her

Soft hammers sounding out

the dark bells of loss.

The cool air of spring is on

my cheek. Molecules are 

whispering in my ears, swirling 

into my brain. Pushing 

through my helpless chest 

into living cells.

We are all the same substance 

full of a million holes.

Leaking out and taking in.

This tender world is saying

You are sad. Go easy, go easy

Why

Why do I write poetry? 

to see my life like a 

story instead of a daily 

unfurling. Themes, mysteries, 

questions. A place for 

clues to appear in the spaces 

between thought and word. 

Sometimes it’s just the 

hard lumps of words; irritable

and determined to be seen.

Still, the holiness of 

between is one place 

where I hear the universe 

sing out. 

Come In

This warm air surprises me

I am not done with winter

The fat starry flakes silently layering

Their white bodies into drifts

Smoothed by wind into curls.

The air biting my face and hands.

The warmth of people in winter

chattering in the entryway, removing

shoes. We all stand in our thick socks 

thirsty, waiting to come in.

Coming in is a part of winter 

An invitation, a connection, 

 an acknowledgement

Of suffering, of a cold world.

Again

Yesterday, my eyes 

caught the glowing white 

of two swans, flying low and silent.  

Later, a pileated woodpecker soaring, 

black wings wide, bright red head

a flag among barren trees. 

Last night I heard an owl

calling long, deep notes, 

then a pause, finishing in a series 

of quick soft hoots. I fell asleep 

in the forest's answering quiet. 

This morning, a day glow sun rose 

streaking pink into deep gray above

 the lunar landscape of late Winter.

It's like this. 

The world goes on. We can 

choose beauty again and again 

and again.