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.
I always learn something new