Mornings & Kicking Clay

That is the magnificence of our marvelous world, if we become ecstatic enough to want to see it. Like drinking under the morning mist or planting the storied memories of our migratory lives along the same pathways, life lives in its own ways...

Her tracks stopped us in ours and the slow dawn and gathering day halted for just a moment. Morning chores in the Wildland are an arithmetic play on the idea of efficiency. We do not have much to do, but we have multitudes to see and fossil-fuels are best spent when they are spent efficiently.

A strangely circular yet pointed memory shot into the corner of Elowyn’s eye. Something was out of place and something was saying hello. What does it mean to know someone? What does it mean to truly understand what life is and not what it may do? Science often works to describe what a particular non-human relative may do or how they, in doing, may be. But it fails glumly to describe what a thing is. It fails to elucidate life’s spirit and it fails to understand how that wonderfully jovial and sometimes offish spirit plays in the thing called this life.

To know scientifically is to know particularly. To know childishly, is to know personally. That is, alive.

What does it mean to know someone? After trekking a mile through the Wildland’s forested glens and flowered, autumn meadows, Elowyn’s eye had spotted a singular change in the scenery—her love for nothing but everything noticed a new spirit woven into the landscape’s lucid lattice. She raised her hand and we slammed on the brakes.

Gathered around the new form like those feathered friends who gather around a decaying life we studied Elowyn’s find. Among networked and ripe stories of white-tailed deer and racoon, coyote, and opossum prints that trailed behind, a large black bear had walked steadily uphill. Her gate was wide and her gate was straight. That morning, long before the fossil-fuel spending stewards dashed across the landscape, she printed her memory in its mucky clay and walked slowly uphill. But she was not alone. In between her clayed memories were smaller prints that seemed more energetic and whose excitement compressed the clay backward, as though they were running to keep up. We smiled, for she was talking and her story now included a black bear cub.

While still in its grey, the morning welcomed the family with a nourishing drink. At the bottom of the hill that their memories would soon climb, a pond set against a thick, pine forest that blocked the sun’s potent rise welled into a magical and inviting mist. The water was warm, warmer than the morning, and it rose like a ghost to meet its thirsty travelers. Did they drink alone? Were they startled by the white tails that gazed warily down the ridge in reconnaissance? Or did they drink together? What did the waters have to say?

That is the magnificence of our marvelous world, if we become ecstatic enough to want to see it. Like drinking under the morning mist or planting the storied memories of our migratory lives along the same pathways, life lives in its own ways and this universal life is particular evocative. Many slowly climbed that hill this morning and none seemed to be in a rush. The waters gave themselves, this much is true—its spirit a tether and offering for the parched travelers.

Predators and pray, the scientists tell us. But the bear cub ran steadily along, energetically kicking the clay and infusing memory with great spirit.