Done with grisly – long live grizzlies. I am rounding out this week which was devoted to interesting aspects of fauna in our lives with a short film clip that truly moved me.

It documents the life work of a man who overcame the trauma sustained as a medic in the Vietnam war by devoting himself to the documentation and protection of grizzly bears in this country. To tell the truth, it made me cry.

Then again, maybe it’s the unusually early heat that has me in a dither.

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/588769/grizzly-country/

Since, as you have correctly assumed, I can locate no bears in my photo archives, I will fall back on the words of the film’s subject: “Saving the wild is the mother of all things. That is where we gather life, the potential for wisdom. If we are to have survival, that’s how and where it’s going to take place.”

My “wild” – as wild as it can get a 10 minute drive outside of a metropolitan area – is a daily refuge, a reminder of change and natural order, a place where I can be found photographing, or simply walking, and where I find occasional misplaced pieces of myself. It sustains me, and if it doesn’t bring wisdom, it does have the potential for joy.

Right now it harbors numerous small flowers, in stark contrast to the splashy bloom you see in gardens across the city. Buttercups, blackberry blossoms, woodruff, false Solomon’s seal, coral bells and, if you are lucky, lily-of-the-valley peek out of the abundant green. The water skimmers race across the surface of the brook and the woodpeckers have made their holes big enough to hide in. Ferns unfurl and little white candles are strewn among light green grass, still not touched by dust.

The deer rest here, digesting their abundant meal of columbine, hostas and cornflower blossoms, served nightly in my garden, much to my dismay.

I used to curse the slugs on my morning rounds, now I yell about the deer. But I can’t stay angry. Who has the privilege to live so close to “wild?” It’s only fair to pay a price, perennials it’ll be…..

Music today is an interesting piece by Leonard Bernstein – composed in reference to Plato’s Symposium, in particular about the two speakers Phaedrus and Pausanias. They both talk about love (Eros for one, Aphrodite for the other.) I figured that would do: love (today for the “wild,”for nature,) wherever it comes from, is captured in the music.