Saturday, June 03, 2006








Scott Lanier, refuge manager, in truck, and Mark Parker, forestry technician/fire, on a prescribed burn at the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge.

1 comment:

Den Latham said...

Here's an email I rec'd from a friend, Miriam Martincic. Miriam is a great yoga teacher and extraordinary sculptor. Check out her work at
http://www.massoniart.com/index.php?cat=artists&artist=mmartinc&content=works

--Den

Hi Den,

I read all the entries plus the letters and your responses to them. I'm really glad you're doing this for two reasons. One, it's important for someone like me to learn about a topic I hadn't considered before. And, two, doing something one really loves and care about is a great thing to do with one's life.

Mostly, my reading of the blog is really subjective because I know you. I think, "How cool that Den is doing this! Wow! He goes on burns and does other stuff that I watch researches and volunteers do on nature shows! Jeez, he and Alison spend A LOT of time hiking!" A little more objectively, the two guys that wrote previously already knew about the subject. As a person for whom this is new, I found the reading assessable--informed, but not clinical. The picture of the post-burn forest is truly beautiful. This comment may betray my art background, but perhaps when you introduce a species of plant, animal or tree in your text, maybe you could have it link to a picture (for those of us who are not in the know.) Or maybe it doesn't need to be a picture. Maybe you can do it with words that in some way capture how these things are meaningful to you. That said, I'd like to know what a long leaf pine looks like, how is is different than other pines--visually and functionally, and why (specifically) they are important.

Hmm. Also, I might have to argue with your comment that you are not an introspective person. Really, you like poetry, and you pick activities in your life that make it richer and more meaningful, with an intent not to harm, with a love of life--which is a different rational than picking things that will make you the most money, or that will make you safe (in either of those cases, acting out of fear). This goes back to my number two reason for why I'm glad your doing this book and blog. I think that making these kinds of decisions is like caring for your soul, nurturing something deep inside you, an act that no one can do for you, a way of taking care of the world from the inside out.

Here is a poem on that topic by Mary Oliver.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Give my best to Allison.

Love, Miriam