Act

Co-authored with Gary Ferguson Meaning resides in the long rehabilitation.Richard PowersApril 14, 2022Livingston, MT Last winter, we ventured out to a reading by Richard Powers, the author of Overstory, and of a newer novel titled, Bewildered. By then, we all were –...

Floodwaters barreled through the creeks and rivers the Yellowstone River Basin last month, slamming into whole communities, many of them gateways to Yellowstone National Park. Like an otherworldly steam roller, water took out friends’ homes. What’s more, the aftermath...

For a few weeks prior to February 24, I listened to reports out of Ukraine. Voices of everyday people going about their lives. In Kyiv, in Lviv, in the countryside. In the cities, street cafes brimmed over, markets were lively tangles of vendors and shoppers. One...

It’s time to get quiet. In fact, it’s the season of quiet here in the Northern Hemisphere. Check outdoors. Even if you’re farther south, there’s been a change. The grass has gone brown, the deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, the water levels in streams have...

Paula MacKay is a terrestrial carnivore biologist, a conservation scientist and a wilderness writer.  She and Gary met when Paula was a student in the Ranier Writing Institute, completing her MFA and among Gary's advisees. Paula has read the Full Ecology book and...

There’s a place in the southwestern corner of Montana where the river weaves a fine Spiga chain through the wetland and willowed prairies at the ankles of a soaring stretch of Rocky Mountains. The mountains run east to west – an orientation adopted by precious few...

Yesterday, we went to a place in Yellowstone National Park where wolves live. We weren’t right there with them, but close enough to stand with other people with high powered spotting scopes to watch from afar. The Junction Butte pack has a good batch of new pups....

Thinking on it, I find it hard to see how one can love the earth but not fellow human beings. And also, it seems incongruous that one could love humanity and exact sins of degradation against nature. Whether wings and feathers or hands and fingers, we share the same...

In the Reiki tradition, there’s a graphic symbol for harmony – for balance. Sei hei ki. To me, it looks like a dancer, or maybe something winged, and I’ve heard that to draw it well requires open, relaxed and sweeping gestures. People who know and practice Reiki use...

Today the temperature around our home hovers near 0°. "Can super cold weather make me tired?" I ask. We talk about it. It can. Sometimes. That's why it's good to sleep in a cool room. It’s also why trees and fields and waterways need winter. To rest well. Whatever the...