March 2010 Archives

Friday night in Yellowstone National Park, huddled with a dozen students at the Buffalo Ranch in the Lamar Valley, teaching my annual nature writing class. Beyond the south windows of the classroom, toward the river, two coyotes are on a twisted trot down the valley - heading right and then suddenly left, like a worried man combing the ground for lost keys. A lone bull bison stands unmoving. Ravens sit tight in the cottonwoods, waiting for something to happen.

Inside the classroom, we philosophize. We talk about news emerging from the world of psychology, linking certain kinds of depression to perceived threats to a person's home environment. Solastalgia. We talk too about how the world's nature myths have warned of such things for thousands of years. The natural world, claimed the ancient stories, could always be counted on to offer humans three ingredients needed for a good life: Mystery. Community. Beauty.

The next day we stop at an overlook south of the Hellroaring Plateau. Within a 90 degree arc of vision are a hundred elk, a dozen pronghorn, thirty bison, eight to ten bighorn sheep, and - bedded down behind a thin screen of conifers - several wolves. We stand riveted, soaking it all in, casting happy glances at one another. For most of us, the moment is a measure of relief from our overly scheduled lives - from the frantic level of industriousness that psychologist Carl Jung warned about over a half century ago. At one point, Jung imagined writing out a diagnosis for the typical over-stressed man of his time: "You are suffering from overstrain as a result of your numerous activities and boundless extraversion. In the profusion and complexity of your business, personal, and human obligations you have lost your head . . . You must realize, my dear sir, that you are rapidly going to the dogs."

The cabins where we stay have no indoor plumbing, and on Saturday night in the wee hours I get up from my bunk to go to the bathhouse - walk out the door to find myself under a sky shot full of stars. The sight is so stunning that it rouses me, wakes me up. Even back in the cabin, zipped up again in my old sleeping bag, I can't stop thinking of it - that endless, shimmering world high above this lonely valley, a million fires burning without a whisper, wheeling toward the dawn.

The Canada geese are back. This morning the creek beside my house is a free-for-all, full of squeak and honk and bawl. One pair of birds has secured the island, and knowing the worth of that ground, spends huge amounts of energy keeping others away. Still, weeks from now they'll see the water rising all around and in their own goose way understand, and just like that set off for higher ground. Through twenty years of living in this house, the return of geese has always been the sure-fire sign of spring. According to my journals, on average their arrival is more than a week sooner than it was in the early 1990's.

Of course the goose banter still cheers, being a song about slipping the heart of winter. But winter is less now than it once was. And we will change with it - feeling the sheer breadth of the cold months less; but also, for the first time, showing the slightest bit of discomfort about summer. Summer having been for so long in the Rockies only exquisite; now, though, bringing as well thoughts of fire.

More than a decade after the release of Shouting at the Sky by St. Martin's Press, I'm happy to announce the paperback release of the book. For those unfamiliar with the title, Shouting chronicles one of the country's most successful, compassionate wilderness therapy programs for so-called "at-risk" teens - young people struggling with drug abuse, depression, anger, anxiety, etc. In preparing new material for the paperback, I was lucky enough to get back in touch with all but three of the teenagers I followed for a year after they got out of the program, most of whom are now young men and women of 26 or 27. To my surprise, nearly all described the experience much as they did a decade ago - as one of the most powerful events of their lives. "It was the first place where what I did mattered," said Susan, referring to the demands of responsibility and cooperation that wilderness places on those who would be safe and comfortable in its folds. "It was the first time I've ever known beauty," said Nancy. For her beauty had become an "essential nudge," coaxing her toward the kind of clarity that so often eludes us in times of emotional pain. While I've been an advocate for wilderness for almost forty years, these young people - more than anyone  else - showed me the real power of its reach. (This despite the fact that most of them were from cities, having first arrived in southern Utah as teenagers afraid of, ambivalent about, or even disgusted by the mere thought of the backcountry.)

How fortunate they were to have an authentic experience of the natural world. Will others be so lucky? A couple years ago, a study funded in part by the Nature Conservancy tracked a troubling decline in visitation to the national parks since 1987, especially in young adults. Many of those surveyed said that if they want a nature fix, then virtual nature - a web cam at Old Faithful, maybe a little time with the Discovery Channel - would do just fine.

Twenty years from now, will the majority of Americans be stuck trying to gain the promise of nature through virtual means alone? If one aspect in particular of the Nature Conservancy study is right - showing a strong correlation between the actual experience of nature, and a person's willingness to support conservation efforts - will natural areas still have passionate advocates willing to fight for their existence? This isn't to suggest, of course, that these very same technologies aren't hugely useful to conservation - teaching science, keeping us abreast of unfolding events, inspiring advocacy. But virtual experience rests on a finite sequence of instructions (or algorithms), created and assembled by teams of computer programmers. In the virtual world the frames - no matter how compelling - have already been drawn. In the real world, on the other hand, the experiential world, nature remains unpredictable, unfathomable. (As celebrated ecologist Frank Egler once said, "Ecosystems are not only more complex than we think; they're more complex than we can think.")

Being in touch with nature doesn't require long treks in the wilderness, such as those experienced by the kids I wrote about in Shouting at the Sky. But if you want the full force of beauty; if you want the kind of mystery that springs from forces so big and layered they dwarf the human mind, then clearly, only the real thing will do.