A Bright Light in Dark Times
A Metaphor for Hope from the Natural World
Hello, dear readers.
I hope today’s writing prompt and post will feel like an antidote to the harsh sting of the recent 24 hour news cycle. If you find yourself doing deep dives into despair, hand-wringing your way into the morning headlines, you’ve landed in the right place. Stay here awhile.
Today’s post is all about the natural world, the miniature miracles and the constant reminders that Mama Nature not only heals herself, she heals us too. And who better but Walt Whitman to start us off with today’s quote from “Leaves of Grass”?
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
This is sound advice for the world we live in today, especially.
I have found in all my years of leading writing groups, that prompts focusing on the natural world inspire us by bringing forth our sense of awe, something we are tuned in to as children, but often lose touch with as adults. I’ve sent flowers around a room of writers, read poems that evoke forests and leaping oceans, or asked everyone to choose a seashell from a large, glass bowl (shells produce some very interesting writing).
Animal prompts in particular generate interesting connections to our own humaness, and help us think in metaphors. So enjoy the prompt below about Beavers, and how they might just be the key to saving our forests. What I wrote follows the prompt, and Wendell Berry ends today’s post with his beautiful poem, “The Peace of Wild Things.”
Take a deep breath. Slow down. Enjoy.
The prompt: Beaver Report
In the 1600's, when the first colonists arrived, an estimated 400 million beavers inhabited the continent from coast to coast. But by the end of the 17th century, the demand for fashionable beaver hats was soaring all over Europe. Wave after wave of North American trappers answered the call, creating an industry that flourished well into the 1800s—until the trappers finally ran out of beavers to trap. By the time of the Civil War, beavers had all but disappeared from the transcontinental landscape they once dominated. They only began to bounce back once early 20th-century conservationists began to campaign actively for their protection.
And now, for the first time in four centuries, beavers are having a moment.
Today the dam-building rodents are hailed by scientists as ecological saviors. Their ponds and wetlands store water in the face of drought, filter out pollutants, furnish habitat for endangered species, and fight wildfires. California recently committed millions to Beaver restoration, thanks to a campaign called "Bring Back the Beaver." And, this fall, the wildlife department relocated a family of seven beavers—the state’s first beaver release in almost 75 years.
Beaver's build dams in streams to create ponds, and these bountiful wetlands can hold millions of gallons of water, store crazy amounts of carbon, and reduce flooding and erosion downstream. They are known as “ecosystem engineers,” or a “keystone species,” because they create an ideal habitat for all kinds of other wildlife. Their ponds provide a damp, fire-proof refuge, in which other species can shelter during wildfires, and have even stopped blazes in their tracks. After Oregon’s devastating forest fires in 2021, beaver wetlands remained green and lush, acting as natural firebreaks in the land.
In aerial images of the charred landscape, the beaver’s habitat stands out: a wide and verdant ribbon running through blackened trees.
As recently as ten years ago, Beavers were often trapped and killed because they were considered a nuisance by farmers and cattle ranchers. But public attitudes are now shifting. As the West gets hotter and drier, it becomes ever more important to keep water on the landscape, so beavers are making a comeback.
What I wrote in response :
Today I decided that there's hope for the future. Don't ask me why specifically, since I spent the morning dumping and recycling bags of paper and expired food from my deceased friend's home. I also refilled the bird feeder after giving it a good washing yesterday, protecting myself, a few wrens, chickadees and finches from a possible bird flu exposure.
Then I met with students all afternoon on Zoom.
In recent years, meeting with students would have been reason enough to feel hopeless, but something's changing. Could it be the result of a new slew of kids who were in high school during the Biden presidency, who are five years out now from the Covid lockdown and the orange maniac's first term? Possibly. It could also be luck of the draw, since last semester I had a lot of challenging students all at once. Maybe it's because grief isn't on top of me anymore, humping away like a doberman trying to gain dominance. While it isn't exactly in the rearview mirror either, it's allowing me to breathe lately, and sleep (mostly).
But it's something else. The POV of a young black student writing about her experience learning more about what defund the police actually means in practical terms, and how it makes her feel safer. Or my student from Ethiopia, leading the recap at the end of our meeting, planning out his revision with a sense of direction and pride. Or the bright, angry, journalism student who needed permission to introduce a subclaim in her essay about class differences and the commodification of health aids, like $300 goggles to help one get to sleep.
Before lunch, I took a walk in the neighborhood. I've been house sitting nearly every week for over a month now, sleeping in the room where my friend took her last breath, the dresser lit with candles, her photos staring back at me with a knowing smirk, that cute pug nose, those lovely eyes. There's an ache so deep in knowing her house will be on the market soon, that I won't snuggle here again with my lover, or cook in her kitchen, enough food for three or more, as if she might come home at any moment from a long journey and sit with us at the table. "Tell me all about where you've been," I want to ask her. "Tell me everything."
Her neighborhood is in bloom: white narcissus, pink magnolia, the cheerful yellow and green of oxalis, almond trees like clouds with silver branches. Spring is coming, even with all the bad news, even with the threat of floods and ice storms, and eventually, I know, hurricanes. Spring is coming without her this year, and so I have to notice it for both of us. Every year I pulled her down to the driveway to see the variations of pink blooming in her neighbor's yard: camellias now, Cecile Brünner roses later. I have an ache in my chest that's both new and familiar, and still, I can't help feeling hopeful.
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
