Dynamic creatures
To those of you reading, thanks for being here. Here's a little scoop on why I am.
I turn 27 this coming Tuesday. After working the last seven or so years in and out of forestry and landscape stewardship in mostly non-profit and private sectors, I am interested more than ever in how we as humans can restore our relationship with the natural world, which is drying, burning, flooding, and changing seemingly faster than we can respond as a result of our species’ consumptive habits (and, might I add, lack of taking responsibility for said habits).
One of my interests is in understanding the ecology of each place that I choose to inhabit, so that I can have a better relationship with it. What can that look like? Growing up in Vermont, I learned young how to grow food, compost our scraps to return to the soil, tap maple trees and tend the forest, and harvest wood to keep warm in the winter. As I got a little older I learned how to timber-frame, carve spoons, and even weave baskets from trees on the landscape. These things fed my soul in such a big way. I know my people in the northeast are those carrying on with a steadfast determination to do right by the land and each other, and I am grateful for that upbringing.
Moving west three years ago needing a big life change, I went through the growing pains of stretching and tearing some new muscle in trying to rebuild a sense of self. What kept me grounded in this time was having a relationship with the land. I started out in the rugged mountains of Idaho, spending time working in a remote ski and mountain bike lodge, where I got my legs under me, literally and figuratively. I made some new goals. Working in the tourist industry was not feeding into my greater purpose, although I loved moving around in the mountains. I decided I wanted to learn how to hunt elk. I decided I wanted to understand and work with fire.
Slowly, piecemeal, those things started coming together. I got some fire boots and spent a couple months working on a small 5-person saw crew in southeastern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming, doing fuels reduction work and some light pile burning as the weather permitted. Following that experience, I helped a friend field dress a deer and tracked elk for up into the high country for a month until the snows came. I applied to work for the Forest Service for the coming year, and plugged back into the nonprofit world for a short time to learn a little more about prescribed fire this spring.
I am now into my third week of my first season as a member of a Type 2 Initial Attack handcrew in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest of the Eastern Cascades of Washington state, in a little town called Entiat along the Columbia River. The mountains here are steep and dry and the rivers cold and fast. Every morning we do a fire weather briefing— and I’ve paid enough attention to know we are experiencing yet another year of above normal temps and below normal precipitation. Things are about to pop off. I have some new goals.
A deeper current that drove me here is a pursuit of departing from my individual self toward being part of a collective effort. Beyond building and restoring a relationship with the land, I am interested in restoring a sense of self, for I sense that my own integrity is the basis for ecological integrity. I want to know myself better. I want to know better what I am capable of achieving. I want to know if I can see myself as part of a whole rather than as an individual. I think working on this crew is going to help me realize that self in a bigger way than I can yet fathom. I know that sounds confusing; bear with me here. Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote, “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness”.
I was drawn to fire by the people I met working in fire. People who care more about their team than their individual self. People who pull hard and lift heavy, have a good sense of humor and a relentless commitment to being the best team mate they can be. People who know and continue to push their own limitations, constantly. People who strive to give better, every moment. People who do the hard work of showing up, without an expectation that someone will do the same for them. There is a lot that I don’t understand about people who work in fire. How they return to do such hard work with so few benefits, year after year. I want to show up better, and that’s why I am here. Fire is a dynamic creature. Constantly evolving to changing conditions. I know we as humans have the opportunity to be, as well.
With that, I hope to provide you a snapshot of this dynamic landscape — internal and external — that I am embarking on. Because I think it matters that this story is told. And, because I like poems and constantly have them swirling in my head, and think the world is made better and more beautiful with the sharing of poetry, I am closing this introduction to my adventure of following fire with two poems that feel relevant to this stage of my journey. The first is one by Marge Piercy I will credit learning indirectly from the late Bill Coperthwaite, who taught me to make an axe when I was sixteen, and reminded me that we are all capable of learning to do something difficult (it helps to have a good teacher). I found this poem on his table while doing a solo retreat at his home in Maine in December of 2020. The second poem by Wendell Berry was first shared with me by a dear mentor and friend, Grace Oedel, who suggested to me early on when I was her student in a farm-to-table class, that every poem deserves to be read at least twice.
I am grateful for those who have given nothing but encouragement to me as I continue to be a student on this journey.
To Be of Use
By Marge Piercy
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.