Thank you for this, Rebecca. For your care in practice. For your palpable love. It gives me hope. And also this sits alongside the obvious sadness too. I too am devotee to quietness and silence, often writing about it in somewhat elegiac ways. I will devour your thoughts i'm sure. This morning waking to a cacophony of dawn birds, having read this, I am sitting with the tension between longing for quietness but also what this means when all our owls fall silent and are gone. What I really want is the return of other voices. I'm rambling. Love to you xx
This beautiful essay has moved me to tears. I grew up in the redwoods. I know the hush you speak of well and I remember the efforts to protect the spotted owl. My dad was an environmental activist and journalist in the area, Bob Martel. I'm so glad you got to hear a spotted owl on your road trip. That seems so just.
Thanks for sharing this story, Rebecca. I would not have liked to experience the landslide and pre-dawn 27-point turn. It is amazing what we can do when we have no choice! I'm glad you got to hear the owl again after such a long hiatus.
What a wonderful set of recollections both of beauty, birds, and bureaucracy, timber an refuge, funding and steep mountain hillsides with precarious roads (I've been on one such) that peter out and there seems no way further or back. You found a way. To all of our benefits.
Solitude is very important, darkness is very important, silence is very important. Coming back from the narrow rutted road that leads to that place is very important. The little owls.
Thank you for this beautiful essay. I am so inspired by your commitment to finding new avenues to fight for our environment, regardless of the adversity. I find myself craving escape from urban sounds constantly, and when I find myself in places where all I can hear is the call of birds and frogs, and the sound of wind moving through trees, it's as though my body unclenches and I'm able to breathe again.
Painful story, beautiful storytelling. I grew up not too far from there, and the spotted owl was a kind of stand-in phrase, or shorthand, for all kinds of preservation efforts. But oddly enough this is the first time seeing an image, or knowing enough for them to become more than an abstract symbol.
A most deserved three note blessing for you. Thank you for sharing your moving story. The World needs more brave, determined souls such as yourself. May you always find peace in the silence.
What a moving story and how frustrating it must have been to find out all your efforts to do early morning surveys were for nothing. How fitting too that you got to hear a spotted owl on your recent walk. I love your description of hearing the sounds of the forest as being 'akin to a chorus of angels'.
Rebecca - thank you for this beautiful essay. When I was stationed in Bremerton, WA I used to spend a lot of time hiking in and around the Olympic peninsula. The silence in that ancient forest is amazing and empowering. I never had the chance to spot any owls unfortunately as most of my forays were in the daytime. I love that painting you have also. Really beautiful.
I grew up in the Klamath Forest and surrounding mountains, canyons, rivers, lakes, grasslands and high deserts…that extraordinary majesty…the sickening reality of human greed… This story has me shedding tears. ❤️ thank you for your work, Rebecca. And transporting me home this morning.
Great story! Also very frustrating. Conservation work is a hard field to be in when money rules. I learned a ton about the spotted owl fights in Oregon from some amazing professors during my time in the Fish & Wildlife Management Program at Montana State. Crazy times. I also learned how underfunded state fish & wildlife departments are. I hope I live to see the day being a field tech pays a living wage and ecological science is cherished!
Goodness, what a beautiful, heartbreaking story. Thank you so much for sharing and for all that you do now to fight for these places. Wonderful that you heard that call again - a glimmer of hope, perhaps?
Thank you for this, Rebecca. For your care in practice. For your palpable love. It gives me hope. And also this sits alongside the obvious sadness too. I too am devotee to quietness and silence, often writing about it in somewhat elegiac ways. I will devour your thoughts i'm sure. This morning waking to a cacophony of dawn birds, having read this, I am sitting with the tension between longing for quietness but also what this means when all our owls fall silent and are gone. What I really want is the return of other voices. I'm rambling. Love to you xx
This beautiful essay has moved me to tears. I grew up in the redwoods. I know the hush you speak of well and I remember the efforts to protect the spotted owl. My dad was an environmental activist and journalist in the area, Bob Martel. I'm so glad you got to hear a spotted owl on your road trip. That seems so just.
Thanks for sharing this story, Rebecca. I would not have liked to experience the landslide and pre-dawn 27-point turn. It is amazing what we can do when we have no choice! I'm glad you got to hear the owl again after such a long hiatus.
What a wonderful set of recollections both of beauty, birds, and bureaucracy, timber an refuge, funding and steep mountain hillsides with precarious roads (I've been on one such) that peter out and there seems no way further or back. You found a way. To all of our benefits.
Solitude is very important, darkness is very important, silence is very important. Coming back from the narrow rutted road that leads to that place is very important. The little owls.
A beautiful essay; it explained what is right and wrong with our way of thinking.
Thank you for this beautiful essay. I am so inspired by your commitment to finding new avenues to fight for our environment, regardless of the adversity. I find myself craving escape from urban sounds constantly, and when I find myself in places where all I can hear is the call of birds and frogs, and the sound of wind moving through trees, it's as though my body unclenches and I'm able to breathe again.
Painful story, beautiful storytelling. I grew up not too far from there, and the spotted owl was a kind of stand-in phrase, or shorthand, for all kinds of preservation efforts. But oddly enough this is the first time seeing an image, or knowing enough for them to become more than an abstract symbol.
A most deserved three note blessing for you. Thank you for sharing your moving story. The World needs more brave, determined souls such as yourself. May you always find peace in the silence.
What a moving story and how frustrating it must have been to find out all your efforts to do early morning surveys were for nothing. How fitting too that you got to hear a spotted owl on your recent walk. I love your description of hearing the sounds of the forest as being 'akin to a chorus of angels'.
Rebecca - thank you for this beautiful essay. When I was stationed in Bremerton, WA I used to spend a lot of time hiking in and around the Olympic peninsula. The silence in that ancient forest is amazing and empowering. I never had the chance to spot any owls unfortunately as most of my forays were in the daytime. I love that painting you have also. Really beautiful.
I grew up in the Klamath Forest and surrounding mountains, canyons, rivers, lakes, grasslands and high deserts…that extraordinary majesty…the sickening reality of human greed… This story has me shedding tears. ❤️ thank you for your work, Rebecca. And transporting me home this morning.
Great story! Also very frustrating. Conservation work is a hard field to be in when money rules. I learned a ton about the spotted owl fights in Oregon from some amazing professors during my time in the Fish & Wildlife Management Program at Montana State. Crazy times. I also learned how underfunded state fish & wildlife departments are. I hope I live to see the day being a field tech pays a living wage and ecological science is cherished!
❤️
Goodness, what a beautiful, heartbreaking story. Thank you so much for sharing and for all that you do now to fight for these places. Wonderful that you heard that call again - a glimmer of hope, perhaps?
Beautiful and heartbreaking 💛
"27 point turn" -- lol, yes I know *exactly* what you're talking about!