Dreaming with the Pines

Smoke scattering the ashes of Ponderosa love letters.

Pyrocumulus clouds from the Monroe Canyon Fire, in Utah’s Fish Lake National Forest.

There are no monsoon clouds of late, yet the desert sky is streaked in plumes and billows of white smoke. By evening, Pyrocumulus clouds from the Monroe Canyon Fire, in Utah’s Fish Lake National Forest, blend into smoke plumes from Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. These massive columns form when extremely hot ground conditions create updrafts, some as tall as 24,000 feet. These, along with extremely low humidity and wind activity, have kept containment of both fires very low as the terrain they scorch grows.

The wind scatters the ashes of the deceased forests. Breathing is mourning.

I do not want my words to be misconstrued. Wildfires are natural. Death caused by wildfires is natural. Grief is natural. And living among such devastation, it is natural to search for a villain. And that, unfortunately, is naturally all too easy when one looks at the state of the world right now. Even if we only focus on wildfires, there is much to unpack about the way we have suppressed these natural processes.

I would like to look beyond the villain and into our grief. Even for just a moment. Grief mirrors what we hold dear.

Clean air. Forests. Wildlife. Healthy watersheds. Safety. Stability. Time outdoors. Home.

Last weekend, Aaron and I joined our friend Victor on what we hoped to be an overnight stroll in the backcountry. Despite our strong desire to backpack, we acknowledged that the conditions–– heat, possible lack of water, and smoke–– might alter our plans. We carried our packs up a steep climb anyway.

Looking into the heart of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. On July 22, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives settled on a budget for the U.S. Department of the Interior that slashes funding for half of the monument’s acreage by mandating the use of the 2020 management plan.

With the Dragon Bravo plume blighting our typical geographical reference points from the horizon, it was obvious that we would be hiking back to the truck with full packs. At mid-day, the temperature was pushing 90, even above 8,000 feet, so we decided to hang in the shade for a few hours until it cooled. Soon we were all asleep on the duff beneath a butterscotch-scented ponderosa pine.

Back at home that night, Aaron and I were grateful to be out of the smoke. But we noted how great the nap felt, and how sterile sleeping inside felt by comparison. Although in our current abode, the wildlife is not fully sealed out.

I’ve often contemplated this distinct loneliness that accompanies house sleeping, and have spent a large part of my life sleeping outside as a result. Even growing up in smoggy suburban southern California, I preferred to sleep out in the backyard under the eucalyptus trees while listening for birdsong beyond to the steady hum of traffic.

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When we sleep outside, we do not dream alone. Sure, we can sleep with other humans, but that may not be all that we need. Constructed walls block us from connection with other life energy. While camping, we are reminded of this when a great horned owl sings us to sleep, or the sun warms us to wake. The translation of the Sanskrit word yoga is union, or to join with the divine. A yoga practice is not about stretching, although that is wonderful. Sleeping with nature is a practice of connection.

Napping beneath the ponderosa, we were breathing the smoky air in union with the trees, birds, squirrels, ants, grasses, and each other. Ponderosas are the same species of trees burning in the surrounding forests. The smoke we inhaled was scattering the ashes of Ponderosa love letters.

Yes, the news can tell us more information about the fire. Being out in the smoke reminds us of the connection we share with the natural world.

Whenever the air is clear(er), Aaron and I head out with our backpacks for some steady uphill miles to train for an upcoming expedition! The trip is a fusion of mountain/watershed explorations on foot and afloat. Now, only a few days out from launch, we are enjoying the dizzying arrangement of gear, food, repairs, and logistics to spend almost two weeks out in grizzly country.

Having both read In the Eye of the Wild by anthropologist Natassja Martin, we have healthy nerves. As Martin recounts her near-fatal encounter with a Kamchatka bear, she evaluates our human relationships with the more-than-human world of landscapes and wildlife. Her intensely vivid recollections allow us to suspend the human vs nature dichotomy, and the need to identify a villain.

Martin writes, “my gift shall be this uncertainty. What we need, then, is to reflect on the places, creatures, and events that lie in the shadow, surrounded by empty space, where we meet the experiential crux that no standard relationship can describe, that we cannot map our way out of.” She continues, “we are facing a semantic void, an off-script leap that challenges and unnerves all categories.”

Such an experience may be as endangered as apex predators. This summer, efforts to advance the Grizzly Bear State Management Act of 2025 (H.R. 281) and a similar Senate bill (S.316), to strip grizzlies of ESA protections from the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. This bill affects the ESA’s ability to provide lasting protections for species recovery, and is timed with efforts to alter the ESA’s ability to protect habitat. And a healthy habitat is, of course, the bedrock to lasting species protection.

We are respectfully heading into grizzly bear habitat, which is also the birthplace of water shared by millions. When protections for wildlife are weakened, our habitat suffers too. Though it will be adventurous to travel through the planned terrain, I am most curious about the dreams we will share with this new place and its inhabitants.

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There is a long desert drive between us and the mountains. En route, I will be joining the podcast 90 Miles from Needles to celebrate their 100th episode. Host Chris Clarke is gathering several desert authors for a reading along with frontline activists working to stop the Project Blue data center in Tucson. The event is live on Zoom, Thursday, August 7 at 7:00 pm PST. Zoom link: https://90milesfromneedles.com/100 (Meeting ID: 874 3735 7514). Hope to see you there! The Event will also be recorded for the podcast.

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Wild Words will be intermittent while we are out this month, but that makes for better stories later. Thank you for reading, subscribing, and sharing. Many of you generously support Wild Words with a $60 ($5/month subscription). I’d like to thank you by sending signed copies of Path of Light to new subscribers (or renewals). For anyone who subscribes while I am away, I will head to the post office as soon as I am back from this trip at the end of the month.

🧡

Morgan

1. For hips and spines interested in better rest outdoors, here is a link to the Therm-a-rest NeoLoft pad.