WEBVTT
00:00:01.040 --> 00:00:03.439
Welcome to the Heartpath Podcast.
00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:05.839
I'm your host, Yvonne Ellis.
00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:13.519
The Heartpath Podcast spotlights authors, change makers, nature lovers, and creators of all kinds.
00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:36.159
Each of our podcasts aimed to share interviews and stories of beauty, resilience, and inspiration for all the questions.
00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:41.200
Thank you so much for joining me on the HeartPath podcast.
00:00:41.359 --> 00:00:43.119
It's so good to have you here.
00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:54.799
And today I would love to hear about your new book, What the River May Bring, Impressions of Interior Alaska, and anything else that you've been up to lately.
00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:56.880
Can we start with the book?
00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:58.240
You bet.
00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:05.040
I'm so happy to be here with you, and I'm so looking forward to seeing where our conversation takes us to.
00:01:05.439 --> 00:01:28.239
This is my first book of poetry, and it's based on my artist's residency in Galena, Alaska, in a program called Voices of the Wilderness, which is this amazing interagency program where you can submit one application that goes to, I think when I submitted it, it was going to like 26 different federal lands in Alaska.
00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:32.000
So it's a combination of National Park Service, U.S.
00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:33.920
Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S.
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:36.719
Forest Service wilderness areas.
00:01:36.959 --> 00:01:46.719
And then you can be an artist in residence and you are paired with a wilderness specialist who works in that area.
00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:51.200
And you get to work alongside them and also practice your art.
00:01:51.359 --> 00:02:02.719
And then at the end of your term, within the next six months, you put on a public program, either where you did the residency or at home or both.
00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:07.760
And you also gift your host agency a piece of your art.
00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:20.400
So these are poems that I wrote during my two-week residency at Kayakuk National Wildlife Refuge, which is in the interior of Alaska on the Yukon River.
00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:32.960
And when I went there, I had this idea to try to write a secular book of hours, which were medieval personal prayer books that had prayers for each part of the day.
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:40.639
So even though I was there a relatively short amount of time, I have a nice body of work from the experience.
00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.280
And now it's a book.
00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:45.520
Wonderful.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.000
Can we hear a poem from the book?
00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:51.039
Yeah, this is my favorite poem in here.
00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:53.840
And it's the poem that I gifted the service.
00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:59.039
So this is hanging in the offices in Galena now.
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.719
A friend of mine illustrated it with some watercolor.
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:10.080
And usually when you provide these gifts to the agency, you're not really able to use them yourself again.
00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:17.439
But when this manuscript was accepted for publication, I wrote The Voices of the Wilderness folks and said, Well, this is happening.
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:20.159
Would you want a record of cranes to be in it?
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:21.520
And they said, Yes, please.
00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:28.159
So it's so nice that they kind of donated it back to be included with the rest of the poems.
00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:31.039
A record of cranes.
00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:35.599
Twice today I tried to record them for you.
00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:45.759
This last time the loon side too, but there's no sound when I press play, though you would hear them plainly here in the tent with me.
00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:54.159
You will have to trust it is a wild, desperate, unhinged cackle, laughter calling.
00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:59.199
One voice, then many, rolling in waves across the lake.
00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:09.919
Then the loon offers its high lonesome wail, rippling across the water, saying the unsayable, wringing the air with loss.
00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:21.040
The gnats tap dance across the tent ceiling, and I have only one day left in this wilderness it took a lifetime to enter.
00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:24.480
Then there's the long journey home.
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:29.839
Four planes, two time zones, and a chunk of reality away.
00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:32.399
Things will go on.
00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:34.720
I will fold laundry.
00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:36.800
The cranes will dance.
00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:40.319
The young moon will leave its parents protection.
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:45.279
The sands will continue their slow roll southeast.
00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.160
The forest will burn again.
00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:51.279
All this flesh will turn to bone.
00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:54.079
And what can be done about any of it?
00:04:54.399 --> 00:05:00.240
Except I can tell you about the call of the cranes tonight.
00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:03.040
Yes, yes.
00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:06.240
What can be done about any of it?
00:05:07.199 --> 00:05:07.839
Yeah.
00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:11.040
Except for just being there with it, right?
00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:12.000
That's it.
00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:14.639
I think that's the best way to be right now.
00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:22.000
And I would love to know what you did when you were hanging out with the wilderness specialist.
00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:23.199
Yeah.
00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:29.920
So I was paired with Karen Badoni, which interestingly, she grew up in Colcree Canyon.
00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:40.639
So I've been able to see her several times since then and hang out with her parents too, even though her life is so far away in the Alaskan interior.
00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:50.800
And she was interested in hosting me partly because I had a background in plant ecology and she was doing some plant ecology fieldwork.
00:05:51.040 --> 00:06:00.000
So that was amazing to be working side by side with a biologist who I'm embedded with and can ask questions of all the time.
00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:11.519
Because otherwise, I think it can be hard to write with any authority in a place that you're just getting to know, which of course is still the case there.
00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:14.560
But the fact that I could ask her constantly, what's this?
00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:15.040
What's that?
00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:16.720
How do these things interact?
00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:18.720
was just amazing for me.
00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:21.839
I'm a biologist by training, by background.
00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:36.000
So one of the main parts of our field work that we were working on was we went to the Nogahabara dunes, which is this inland sand dune field, like we have Sand Dunes National Park here in Colorado.
00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:43.519
And uh there is this forest along the fringe that had undergone a pretty serious fire.
00:06:43.759 --> 00:07:09.600
So they had satellite data about the severity of the burn in different areas, but they wanted to ground truth that with us down on the ground taking soil samples and doing little floristic inventories in different patches of different severity fire levels to make sure that they were really being able to gauge what had happened from the satellite imagery alone.
00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:31.439
I don't know if you've been out in burned forest before, but I also was able to go up in the plane with John Fielder, who's a landscape photographer here in Colorado, to fly over the Heyman fire, which I think that was maybe 2002, but it was the largest fire in Colorado history at the time.
00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:35.600
And even that fire, it's so patchy, the effects on the ground.
00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:44.879
It can be really surprising how just a few meters away things are relatively normal and then things are totally burned nearby.
00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:47.279
And we did see that on the ground as well.
00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:52.800
Yeah, it's really interesting how fire chooses to move through a landscape.
00:07:52.879 --> 00:08:17.439
And there was this huge fire that was right by the lookout that I was working in, and it was called the bootleg, and the bootleg made its own weather, and so there was a tornado that happened in South Central Oregon from this fire, and there was a pyrotechnic storm that happened from the fire.
00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:36.240
And so looking at where that is now, seeing what grows back and what kind of just stays the same is really interesting because it shows where that heat was really centered and where the fuels were burning even hotter.
00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:38.159
There were smokes everywhere.
00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:51.360
Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is the fear that people have of fire.
00:08:51.679 --> 00:08:52.000
Yeah.
00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:58.159
And how interesting that is because our ancestors lived by fire.
00:08:58.399 --> 00:09:11.360
We wouldn't even be here right now if it weren't for the stoves that fire powered and the warmth of fire and everything that we've gathered from fire.
00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:14.399
And now there's this like innate fear.
00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:30.080
And I've been trying lately to think of ways to build a bridge between that fear and an understanding of how we still need healthy fire, or else we're gonna end up with a lot more damage.
00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:33.200
And so that's just been on my heart and mind.
00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:36.960
But did you think of that at all when you were in Alaska?
00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:44.240
Well, my main experience of the fire of late is the Marshall Fire here in Boulder County.
00:09:44.399 --> 00:09:52.159
So I live in Louisville, Colorado, and the Marshall Fire burned a thousand homes in Louisville and Superior.
00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:55.600
So this is my own town, my own neighborhood.
00:09:55.840 --> 00:10:02.960
And this is a grass fire that got into suburbia and just one home to the next started burning.
00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:07.679
And it was an extreme wind event, you know, winds over 80 miles an hour.
00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:21.039
And so I actually have a manuscript about that too, called Singed Seeds, a Marshall Fire Year, that received the Runner Up Award for the Front Range Book Prize this year.
00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:27.759
And then it's been accepted for publication by alternating current press, which puts on that contest.
00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:31.039
So that should be coming out within the next year.
00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:39.759
After the Marshall Fire burned, there was a small fire at NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the forest around there.
00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:49.440
And that was a much more natural, controllable, ecologically healthy fire.
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:59.759
So I did write a poem contrasting the NCAR fire and the Marshall fire, which just felt so apocalyptic at the time.
00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:05.440
So yeah, we're we're just in this interesting new relationship with fire.
00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:09.279
You know, you talked about having to have your smoke map, right?
00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:12.639
When I was in Alaska, they would have smoke forecasts.
00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:18.000
I heard that you worked at Denali, so maybe you had that experience there too.
00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:29.039
But now, you know, I have bookmarked on my phone the smoke map for here so that I have an idea of what things are going to be like for my outdoor classes.
00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:35.759
And I have the watch duty app on my phone so that the next time I see smoke, I can quickly look.
00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:39.200
Is this prescribed or is it a wildfire?
00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:45.120
Because it's just become part of our everyday experience now in Colorado.
00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:46.639
I've lived here for 30 years.
00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:58.639
So, you know, I think I lived here, I don't know, maybe 15 years before there was a wildfire that even made it into my consciousness because things were different.
00:11:59.120 --> 00:11:59.679
Yeah.
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.159
Can we just go into that a little bit?
00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:06.320
How you think things have changed in the last 15 years?
00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:19.200
Yeah, well, I mean, especially 2020 when we had one fire after another here, and the sun was salmon-colored for months.
00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:24.559
You know, Colorado has this reputation for being a healthy place to go and live.
00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:47.600
You know, this history of the sanitariums for tuberculosis patients, people would come to Colorado for asthma, and then suddenly our air quality being terrible for months, not just from the fires here, but fires in California, fires in Canada, just really affecting our bluebird skies.
00:12:47.679 --> 00:13:03.200
And thinking about, you know, these extreme weather events that my children are growing up with that I did not have to, you know, we have red flag warnings now, letting us know fire danger is really extreme.
00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:11.279
These things like derechos and bomb cyclones, these are not words that were in my vocabulary until the last decade.
00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:17.120
So I was talking with my students about this recently, saying, I'm 52 years old.
00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:25.120
I feel like I should have more and more wisdom about natural cycles and the environment around me.
00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:37.200
But I feel like as things are becoming destabilized, I feel less and less certain about reading the landscape and knowing what's going to come next seasonally and everything.
00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:42.000
Is this the first time, you know, in human history that people are feeling that way?
00:13:42.159 --> 00:13:51.600
Where as you age, you become less in tune with what's going to happen next in the world around you, in terms of natural cycles.
00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:52.720
I don't know.
00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:56.399
I love that you brought that up.
00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:58.960
And I don't know.
00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:01.600
I feel like every year it is different.
00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:07.360
And even living here in Mount Shester for a few years, it's been different every year.
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:10.480
So I don't know what normal is anymore.
00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:16.480
But I'm glad that we can sit with it and be with it like everything else, right?
00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:18.240
Right.
00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:19.279
Yeah.
00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:28.879
So can we talk a little bit about Boco Wild Riders and how you created that and the story of that?
00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:30.240
Sure.
00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:34.320
Um, yeah, so it's Boco for Boulder County or Boulder, Colorado.
00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:42.879
When I started it up, there was a guy in Portland, Oregon who was doing some adult workshops, occasionally called Wild Riders.
00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:48.480
And I reached out to him and said, Can I use this name for this class I want to start?
00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:50.320
He's like, Why don't you add a word to it?
00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:52.320
So that's why I asked the BOCO.
00:14:52.559 --> 00:15:03.039
But it was also partly inspired by a class that Jack Collum used to teach through Thorn Nature Association.
00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:10.240
He was a professor at Naropa here in Boulder and from the beet poet lineage.
00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:20.159
But he would take kids out in the summer and through Thorns, teach poetry outside, and he called it Wild Words.
00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:31.759
So when I first moved to Colorado, I volunteered as a teaching assistant with Thorne as a way to get to know the ecology and meet other nature educators.
00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:37.360
And I was lucky enough to be paired with him for a session and just loved it so much.
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:45.840
I then went on to grad school and become a biologist and work for nine years in conservation.
00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:54.559
And then when I had my second son, I stopped working and I stayed home with my two kids for quite a while.
00:15:54.879 --> 00:16:02.159
And then when my youngest was in full-time school, I thought, okay, so now what do I want to do?
00:16:02.399 --> 00:16:08.240
I was a little burnt out from advocacy because I had done almost all of that under the George W.
00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:14.480
Bush administration, which was not friendly at all to endangered species, which was our focus.
00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:17.840
So I kind of thought I've done that time in the trenches.
00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:22.080
I like to do something that just brings me joy.
00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:32.399
And so I thought I could maybe just start a forest kindergarten, or I could try to teach a class like that class Jack used to lead.
00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:38.000
And so I talked to some friends who were homeschoolers because that's another thing.
00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:50.080
I had a friend who was leading a class called Science Adventure Program that was after school and in the summers, which makes sense, you know, based on how we live our lives.
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:53.360
But that's exactly when I wanted to be home with my kids.
00:16:53.600 --> 00:17:04.400
So I thought, well, maybe I could teach something for homeschoolers, and that would give me a longer block of time than I would get in the classroom and we could be outside.
00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:17.279
So I talked to some homeschooling families, and they said we would be really interested in a writing class because we like doing nature appreciation stuff as a family, but it's hard to get our kids to write.
00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:23.920
So I started that in 2017, and it's just been so wonderful.
00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:40.720
So this spring I have 11 students ages nine to 14, and we meet Tuesdays from 10 to 3 at different trailheads around the county, and we make an anthology after each semester.
00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:48.319
They're all on our website, wildriders.org, if you ever want to peek at what we've been writing.
00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:51.359
And yeah, it's wonderful.
00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:55.440
I get to be out on the trails and surprised by nature.
00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:03.359
Because we sit still long enough, animals come out for us, and it's just great being with young people, of course.
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:05.599
That sounds wonderful.
00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:09.599
Nice work finding your work in this world.
00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:10.720
I love that.
00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:13.279
So is that what you do full-time?
00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:29.279
Or well, I'm also a poet, so I have some gigs, and I'm actively writing in a couple of critique groups, and so really writing and teaching writing is my full-time work.
00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:29.680
Yeah.
00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:30.960
Wonderful.
00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:34.400
That sounds so good and fulfilling.
00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:42.720
So you have an anthology that you were just published in.
00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:43.519
Is that correct?
00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:46.000
In the Cole Creek anthology?
00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:46.799
Is that what it's called?
00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:47.359
Right.
00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:55.359
So I'm the current writer in residence for Friends of Cole Creek, which is my local watershed conservation group.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:04.799
And I also had signed up with a program called Writing the Land that Lise McLaughlin puts together.
00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:09.039
And writing the land pairs poets and land trusts.
00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:13.680
And then the poets write at least three poems for the land trust.
00:19:13.759 --> 00:19:22.559
And then she compiles these anthologies that then the land trusts can sell to make a profit to raise money for their organizations.
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:31.359
So our chapter just came out in the latest anthology called Writing the Land Pathways.
00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:37.359
So we have a few pages where we get to talk about the work of the conservation group.
00:19:37.599 --> 00:19:44.720
And I think I've got eight poems in here that I wrote by the Creek, inspired by the Greek.
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:47.680
And then it can be a fundraiser for the group.
00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:51.920
I love that everything is rippling.
00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:56.160
All the work that you do seems to ripple out in the world.
00:19:56.319 --> 00:19:59.839
So thank you for the way that you share with the world, Erin.
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.920
I would love to hear a poem from the anthology if you'd like to share.
00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:04.880
Sure.
00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:15.759
So one of the things that Friends of Cold Creek is doing is harvesting native seed and then providing that at different uh public events.
00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:31.599
So this is something that I wrote when I saw kids taking handfuls of milkweed seed from their booth at I think this was like a Halloween event, and arcing the seed into the sky.
00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:34.640
Letting go of milkweed seed.
00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:48.319
Great drifts of white webs of soft silk studded with copper coins that might just split and grow, scooped from bumpy dried boats.
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:57.440
The children reach elbow deep into a horde of possibility, then rainbow a white cloud into the waiting air.
00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:02.960
And now the sky above us all is alive with buoyant hope.
00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:13.279
Next year's sustenance for monarchs wafting aloft, ready for a new bit of earth to spill milky stars from next spring.
00:21:13.839 --> 00:21:14.319
Wow.
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:18.240
The imagery is just popping in this poem.
00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:23.119
What really stuck with me was buoyant hope.
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:29.119
Are there ways that you practice buoyant hope these days?
00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:31.599
Yeah.
00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:39.839
Well, you know, my training working on endangered species issues under the Bush administration allowed me to exercise that a lot.
00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:50.240
And my first week on the job, my boss took me out to this Chinese restaurant, and the fortune that I got said, despair is criminal.
00:21:50.559 --> 00:21:57.680
So I had that little fortune on my keyboard the whole nine years that I worked at that job.
00:21:57.839 --> 00:21:59.759
And then afterwards, my co worker.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:09.599
When I was leaving, they made a book for me, you know, with a lot of photos from our projects and quotes from co-workers about my work and everything.
00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:10.720
It was very moving.
00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:16.799
They stole the fortune off of my desk and taped it into the front of that book.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:26.480
So that has really been a guiding belief of mine that, you know, I'm an activist at heart.
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:40.799
Um, I also just went yesterday to the conference on world affairs at CU, and the last talk we went to was called, so you're saying there's a chance building a brighter future for the world.
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:52.480
And at the end of that, my students and I were talking, and I was like, I just feel like the best part about what we heard was this permission to feel optimism right now.
00:22:52.640 --> 00:23:00.319
You know, I feel like a lot of messages in society are like, if you have any optimism right now, you're not paying attention.
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:12.960
But we can just get paralyzed if we sink into despair and don't have the creativity and the audacity to envision a better future.
00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:18.880
And, you know, I have two boys of my own who I want a better world for.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:25.920
And I just feel like I have to live that for them too, this belief that you can make a difference.
00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:35.119
That as you're talking about the rippling of our little efforts, I have a poem called Positive Interference.
00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:35.920
Yeah.
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:38.000
Positive interference.
00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:50.880
One foot in the creek and one on earth, sun and cottonwoods waver with sky, the little disturbance of me rippling out, changing the course of one leaf's fate.
00:23:51.119 --> 00:24:02.160
The same way water changes me, cooled, sleek, glistening, ears filled with the reassuring constancy of downstream flow.
00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:08.079
Things come to rest where they ought until the next storm reorganizes all.
00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:10.559
Yes, yes.
00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:12.319
Thank you.
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:19.200
Yeah, so I think like, what else are we here for if not to try to make it a better place, right?
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:23.039
Yeah, I figure we're all here for some reason.
00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:25.839
We may as well make the most of it.
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:26.960
Yes.
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:28.240
Yeah, why not?
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:54.480
Well, and we also went to this talk yesterday where Asher J was really inspiring, and she was talking about like, I'm just so excited to see all of you in the audience, you beings of light, and how exciting it is that we can think about what we could all do together, you know, just this energy of we're here on the planet at the same time, just like you and I, Yvonne.
00:24:54.559 --> 00:25:05.119
I feel very privileged to be able to talk with you and get a little bit of your experience too, and the way that you're connecting people through this podcast.
00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:12.000
So, yeah, what can we do together is a really exciting, energizing question, too.
00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:13.519
Yes, please.
00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:15.200
Thank you for bringing that up.
00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:17.279
I love that question.
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:33.680
And I actually had a very interesting experience in a uh poetry group today where they were like basically saying in their poem, I'm done with people writing about themselves.
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:37.119
Let's figure out what to do about what's happening in this world.
00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:55.279
And so it prompted me to write a poem about how we can either use our words to just you know go around in circles, or we can actually try to create a better world for ourselves and others.
00:25:55.599 --> 00:25:57.680
And that's what I want to do.
00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:07.039
You know, like that's kind of the point of the heart path is to create a better world for myself and everyone around me.
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:22.480
And so I am so grateful to be able to talk to people like you who also see that there's light and there's hope and there's a way that we can come together to move forward.
00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:43.839
And um I would love to talk just a little bit more about your book, What the River May Bring, and know if there's any kind of events coming up where people can come and join you and hear you read, or well, I have two upcoming events.
00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:49.680
Um, this first one would be before this airs, but I'll just tell you because it's kind of interesting.
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:58.960
So Boulder County Nature Association invited me to read some poetry at their ecosystem symposium that was April 4th.
00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:05.119
And they had found a poem that I had written for Summit County, Colorado, and asked, would I read that?
00:27:05.279 --> 00:27:09.599
And I was like, Well, sure, I'll read that, but I've lived in Boulder County 30 years.
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:12.160
I'm happy to write you your own poem, you know.
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:17.359
And they were like, Well, we don't really want to give you a big project to do.
00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:19.599
And I was like, I like a project though.
00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:25.759
So I decided, well, is there a way that I could walk across the county and write about it?
00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:33.599
So it's still, even with our record low snowpack year, it's still a little ambitious to get to the divide right now.
00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:44.319
So I cut myself a little slack with that, and I started at the Hesi Trailhead in Eldora, Colorado, which is about 8,500 feet, I think.
00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:47.759
And then I walked east down to the county line.
00:27:47.839 --> 00:27:49.119
I was section hiking it.
00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:59.039
So like I went home and slept at everything, and then somebody would drive me to the next top of the path, you know, and then I would keep walking downhill.
00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:13.680
And so I wrote a line for each mile, and so it's 47 miles, and I made a little seven-minute film of that experience and showed that at the symposium.
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:34.640
And then a woman who was in the audience there said, Well, I run this adventure film series, and on Friday, the 17th, I'm showing this documentary about these guys in the 1970s who cross-country skied across the entire state of Colorado from like Durango to the Pooder River.
00:28:34.880 --> 00:28:39.599
And I think it would be great to pair your movie with theirs if you can go, Aaron.
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:46.319
So this Friday I'll be showing that, which is really so fun and unexpected.
00:28:46.880 --> 00:29:04.400
And then I am reading at the Trident Cafe in Boulder April 28th from 6:30 to 7:30 in a reading called Ecology of Place, along with Rodham Markham and Ann Haven McDonnell.
00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:10.720
So two other amazing eco-poets who I'm so excited to read with.
00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:21.039
And I've also asked, tried in, I'm not sure, but my students and I put on this writing contest for kids called the Wooly Bear Writing Contest.
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:28.880
So I've asked them if we could maybe have as our opening act before we go on our contest winners, and I'm waiting to hear back from them.
00:29:29.039 --> 00:29:33.440
So we may have some youth poets from 515 to 615 too.
00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:34.880
That's so cool.
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:35.839
Yeah.
00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:38.640
Yay! Gather everyone.
00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:39.920
Wonderful.
00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:45.039
So, do you have any other events coming up this summer where people can find you?
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:45.839
Yeah.
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:51.359
So in the summer, I lead these free monthly hike and writes.
00:29:51.680 --> 00:29:58.799
So registration will come open mid to late May at wildriders.org.
00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:00.400
There'll be a form there.
00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:24.000
And so I have a different hike each month, and usually it's multi-generational, and we kind of do the same kind of things we do in class, but we'll sometimes have the more ambitious hike than we would undertake on our weekly classes, or maybe a little bit further away than we usually drive in class.
00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:33.680
And it's a chance for parents, grandparents, people not affiliated with class at all to come check it out and do some writing outside.
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:42.480
I also will be presenting at the first Poets for Science gathering at Kent State in November.
00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:46.720
They had a call for proposals for workshops from attendees.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:52.480
So I will be presenting along with Bryce Myero and Maurice Beati.
00:30:52.799 --> 00:31:05.119
We're doing a generative workshop called Water Speaks, where we're going to be talking about writing with water as an ally and trying some fun techniques around that.
00:31:05.359 --> 00:31:15.279
So I would imagine a bunch of your listeners would be interested in Poets for Science and all the good work that they are doing, and they should try to come in November.
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:23.759
I think it's an amazing slate of poets who are the main presenters there, and I'm so excited to be a little part of that.
00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:25.359
Definitely.
00:31:25.599 --> 00:31:30.400
That's um like exactly what I would like to do around that time.
00:31:31.119 --> 00:31:32.400
Yeah, check it out.
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:35.279
That's been on my mind in a big way lately.
00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:39.759
So I'm glad that you're generating activities for others to write about it.
00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:40.559
Thank you.
00:31:40.880 --> 00:31:43.839
Okay, where can people find your books?
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.599
Where's a good spot?
00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:48.160
So my book is really available anywhere.
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:54.160
You can go to bookshop.org and buy it there, and it will benefit your local independent bookstore.
00:31:54.319 --> 00:31:55.680
That's what I would recommend.
00:31:55.920 --> 00:32:00.079
But it's also on the big guys, too, like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:04.079
So what the river may bring, impressions of interior Alaska.
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:12.480
And I'm donating all the proceeds from the sales to environmental education programs at Kayakuk National Wildlife Refuge.
00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:16.319
So I've been able to donate over$300 so far.
00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:23.039
And so far, they've bought 12 camp chairs for their middle school spring outing program.
00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:45.599
Just so fun to think about those books turning into seats for kids in the woods in Alaska, especially during this time of slashed budgets and slashed staff to have a little way to contribute back to those communities that are caretakers of the wilderness is really satisfying.
00:32:46.079 --> 00:32:46.640
Wow.
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:48.960
I really like who you are as a person.
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.240
I know I feel the same about you.
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:58.960
I have rented fire towers twice to sleep in, but I think that's such a romantic job.
00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:01.920
I'd love to hear more about your experience there.
00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:06.720
I have seen Denali from a distance, but not been within the park.
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:09.200
So I'd love to hear more about that too.
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:33.279
Yeah, I a lot of people do romanticize it, but when I was deep in it, when I was working 12 days in a row with two days off and having car issues because I was parking on a mountain for 12 days at a time, and animals were chewing the heck out of my wires on my car, so I couldn't really use my four-wheel drive to get up the mountain, which I needed.
00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:58.079
You know, like it wasn't the easiest life ever, but it was also very fulfilling to be able to do whatever I wanted with my time, you know, as long as I was still looking around for fire every 20 minutes and present, that's all I needed to do.
00:33:59.039 --> 00:34:06.400
But I worked with some great people and some not great people, and I had people around me that cared and others that didn't.
00:34:06.640 --> 00:34:08.639
And so it really makes it break.
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:18.159
And when you were talking about smoke in Colorado, I was thinking about how I was inhaling it on the mountain because the smoke just wouldn't go away.
00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:22.320
And I was living in a tiny house with cracks.
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:38.159
My first poem in that Marshall Fire manuscript because it was like, what this is the last, you know, like what more could happen when the town burns down.
00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:42.880
So it's like our latest catastrophe, half the town burning down.
00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:46.559
You know, it's just it was a very dark time then.
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:50.719
Yeah, I brought my Marshall Fire manuscript.
00:34:50.800 --> 00:34:52.639
I might have that in car once here.
00:34:53.039 --> 00:34:53.840
Yeah, that'd be great.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:03.199
We could read because Ponderosa pine forests are really adapted for fire, you know, and lodgeable pine forests are adapted for stand replacing fire.
00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:08.880
So it's supposed to happen, but the local grass fire is not supposed to destroy half of the community.
00:35:09.119 --> 00:35:10.079
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:10.639 --> 00:35:11.679
How that's supposed to work.
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:14.880
And that's the part that we gotta figure out.
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:16.719
Okay, here it is.
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:30.000
I found the poem that said NCAR fire, but that was just when it was happening, and I was worried that it was going to come into the city because they did evacuate for that one too, when we were still digging out from Marshall Fire.
00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:32.960
But okay, it's called Passion and Flain.
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:40.400
Ambling along the NCAR fire, the land's gone more green than black or gray.
00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:47.920
Yes, needles have browned and bark has blackened, but there's the overall sense that the fire behaved.
00:35:48.239 --> 00:35:56.079
So unlike the twisted, charred, urban Armageddon Marshall Fire aftermath we drive by every day.
00:35:56.320 --> 00:36:08.639
It's good to sit still now in this green, burned place, to align my heart with the cleansing, renewing energy that naturally can be flame.
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.960
It is possible to kindle yet not consume.
00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:23.039
And as this element teeters back into balance, my chest warms with reverence for it, like the sacred heart flanked by flame.
00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:25.920
So we don't have to hate fire, right?
00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:26.960
Yes.
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:28.400
Like anything else.
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:30.159
We don't have to hate it.
00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:31.679
Yeah.
00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:34.480
So what is your relationship with fire now?
00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:38.800
Um conscious concern.
00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:43.119
We have a cabin or outside of Rollinsville, Colorado.
00:36:43.199 --> 00:36:46.400
So it's an hour away, it's at 9,200 feet.
00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:49.920
It is where my heart lives now.
00:36:50.239 --> 00:36:55.920
I mean, I my body lives down here in town, but I'm up at the cabin as much as I can be.
00:36:56.480 --> 00:36:59.920
And that could so easily go up.
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:04.639
But it's lovely to be there now.
00:37:04.800 --> 00:37:06.239
Well, I can be.
00:37:41.360 --> 00:37:43.760
So my sister was here in Louisville.
00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:51.679
And that morning she sent me a photo and was like, Wow, the California fires are so bad right now.
00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:56.400
And I looked at that smoke and thought, that is not California fire.
00:37:56.559 --> 00:38:07.920
And so I went on Facebook for our local town group and saw that the fire was already at the police station at the entrance to Old Town, the part of Louisville where we live.
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:11.039
And I called her and was like, Our town is on fire.
00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:13.039
You need to evacuate now.
00:38:13.199 --> 00:38:15.360
And she was like, What are you talking about?
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:20.320
Because she really had just assumed it was smoke from elsewhere.
00:38:20.559 --> 00:38:22.960
And you know, she was able to get out.
00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:34.079
My mom, my sister, and I, all of our houses were fine, but it affected the whole community to lose a thousand homes, you know.
00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:45.440
Yeah, it's like my dog's brother's home was destroyed, and my son's kindergarten teacher's home was destroyed.
00:38:45.679 --> 00:39:00.719
But we are seeing people building back, but it's not like we were able to keep all of the community intact in the wake of the fire, so it definitely has had long-lasting repercussions.
00:39:01.199 --> 00:39:12.000
So yeah, I fear it, and as a biologist, I understand its role, and I feel for all the people who were displaced.
00:39:12.239 --> 00:39:23.119
I really feel like this is our local climate change uh diaspora, you know, it's our local climate change catastrophe story.
00:39:24.159 --> 00:39:37.599
Yeah, and I hope that the story doesn't repeat itself and that we can find ways to fireproof and be ready for what's to come.
00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:44.320
I mean, even looking at our yard, I think, okay, yeah, we gotta clean this up and get ready for summer.
00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:54.880
So yeah, and Colorado is doing a bunch to really encourage fire hardening and the wildland urban interface, and that is really encouraging.
00:39:54.960 --> 00:39:57.760
And there have been a lot of workshops.
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:06.320
Friends of Cold Creek has been offering some firewise workshops about how to make your landscaping more fireproof.
00:40:06.639 --> 00:40:18.239
So, yeah, people are definitely stepping up to try to take responsibility and help avoid another urban catastrophe like the Marshall Fire from happening again.
00:40:18.559 --> 00:40:24.719
Yeah, it is tragic and it's horrible to have so much loss.
00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:37.840
And I'm grateful that people survived, and right Colorado's coming together to make it a little easier to move forward with living with fire.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:39.119
So yeah.
00:40:39.519 --> 00:40:44.000
But anyway, thank you so much for speaking with me today, Aaron.
00:40:44.320 --> 00:40:50.400
Yeah, and I hope we stay connected and I'm really serious about enjoying collaboration and yes.
00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:54.480
Maybe there's something else we can do further down the road.
00:40:54.719 --> 00:40:58.239
That sounds great, and I love your poetry.
00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:05.039
So thank you very much for writing and for giving hope to your readers.
00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:11.119
Well, thank you for this platform and for connecting all of us on the heart path.
00:41:11.679 --> 00:41:12.559
Thank you.
00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:13.599
Yay.
00:00:01.040 --> 00:00:03.439
Welcome to the Heartpath Podcast.
00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:05.839
I'm your host, Yvonne Ellis.
00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:13.519
The Heartpath Podcast spotlights authors, change makers, nature lovers, and creators of all kinds.
00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:36.159
Each of our podcasts aimed to share interviews and stories of beauty, resilience, and inspiration for all the questions.
00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:41.200
Thank you so much for joining me on the HeartPath podcast.
00:00:41.359 --> 00:00:43.119
It's so good to have you here.
00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:54.799
And today I would love to hear about your new book, What the River May Bring, Impressions of Interior Alaska, and anything else that you've been up to lately.
00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:56.880
Can we start with the book?
00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:58.240
You bet.
00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:05.040
I'm so happy to be here with you, and I'm so looking forward to seeing where our conversation takes us to.
00:01:05.439 --> 00:01:28.239
This is my first book of poetry, and it's based on my artist's residency in Galena, Alaska, in a program called Voices of the Wilderness, which is this amazing interagency program where you can submit one application that goes to, I think when I submitted it, it was going to like 26 different federal lands in Alaska.
00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:32.000
So it's a combination of National Park Service, U.S.
00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:33.920
Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S.
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:36.719
Forest Service wilderness areas.
00:01:36.959 --> 00:01:46.719
And then you can be an artist in residence and you are paired with a wilderness specialist who works in that area.
00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:51.200
And you get to work alongside them and also practice your art.
00:01:51.359 --> 00:02:02.719
And then at the end of your term, within the next six months, you put on a public program, either where you did the residency or at home or both.
00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:07.760
And you also gift your host agency a piece of your art.
00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:20.400
So these are poems that I wrote during my two-week residency at Kayakuk National Wildlife Refuge, which is in the interior of Alaska on the Yukon River.
00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:32.960
And when I went there, I had this idea to try to write a secular book of hours, which were medieval personal prayer books that had prayers for each part of the day.
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:40.639
So even though I was there a relatively short amount of time, I have a nice body of work from the experience.
00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.280
And now it's a book.
00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:45.520
Wonderful.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.000
Can we hear a poem from the book?
00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:51.039
Yeah, this is my favorite poem in here.
00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:53.840
And it's the poem that I gifted the service.
00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:59.039
So this is hanging in the offices in Galena now.
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.719
A friend of mine illustrated it with some watercolor.
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:10.080
And usually when you provide these gifts to the agency, you're not really able to use them yourself again.
00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:17.439
But when this manuscript was accepted for publication, I wrote The Voices of the Wilderness folks and said, Well, this is happening.
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:20.159
Would you want a record of cranes to be in it?
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:21.520
And they said, Yes, please.
00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:28.159
So it's so nice that they kind of donated it back to be included with the rest of the poems.
00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:31.039
A record of cranes.
00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:35.599
Twice today I tried to record them for you.
00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:45.759
This last time the loon side too, but there's no sound when I press play, though you would hear them plainly here in the tent with me.
00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:54.159
You will have to trust it is a wild, desperate, unhinged cackle, laughter calling.
00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:59.199
One voice, then many, rolling in waves across the lake.
00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:09.919
Then the loon offers its high lonesome wail, rippling across the water, saying the unsayable, wringing the air with loss.
00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:21.040
The gnats tap dance across the tent ceiling, and I have only one day left in this wilderness it took a lifetime to enter.
00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:24.480
Then there's the long journey home.
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:29.839
Four planes, two time zones, and a chunk of reality away.
00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:32.399
Things will go on.
00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:34.720
I will fold laundry.
00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:36.800
The cranes will dance.
00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:40.319
The young moon will leave its parents protection.
00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:45.279
The sands will continue their slow roll southeast.
00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:48.160
The forest will burn again.
00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:51.279
All this flesh will turn to bone.
00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:54.079
And what can be done about any of it?
00:04:54.399 --> 00:05:00.240
Except I can tell you about the call of the cranes tonight.
00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:03.040
Yes, yes.
00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:06.240
What can be done about any of it?
00:05:07.199 --> 00:05:07.839
Yeah.
00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:11.040
Except for just being there with it, right?
00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:12.000
That's it.
00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:14.639
I think that's the best way to be right now.
00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:22.000
And I would love to know what you did when you were hanging out with the wilderness specialist.
00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:23.199
Yeah.
00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:29.920
So I was paired with Karen Badoni, which interestingly, she grew up in Colcree Canyon.
00:05:30.079 --> 00:05:40.639
So I've been able to see her several times since then and hang out with her parents too, even though her life is so far away in the Alaskan interior.
00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:50.800
And she was interested in hosting me partly because I had a background in plant ecology and she was doing some plant ecology fieldwork.
00:05:51.040 --> 00:06:00.000
So that was amazing to be working side by side with a biologist who I'm embedded with and can ask questions of all the time.
00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:11.519
Because otherwise, I think it can be hard to write with any authority in a place that you're just getting to know, which of course is still the case there.
00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:14.560
But the fact that I could ask her constantly, what's this?
00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:15.040
What's that?
00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:16.720
How do these things interact?
00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:18.720
was just amazing for me.
00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:21.839
I'm a biologist by training, by background.
00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:36.000
So one of the main parts of our field work that we were working on was we went to the Nogahabara dunes, which is this inland sand dune field, like we have Sand Dunes National Park here in Colorado.
00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:43.519
And uh there is this forest along the fringe that had undergone a pretty serious fire.
00:06:43.759 --> 00:07:09.600
So they had satellite data about the severity of the burn in different areas, but they wanted to ground truth that with us down on the ground taking soil samples and doing little floristic inventories in different patches of different severity fire levels to make sure that they were really being able to gauge what had happened from the satellite imagery alone.
00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:31.439
I don't know if you've been out in burned forest before, but I also was able to go up in the plane with John Fielder, who's a landscape photographer here in Colorado, to fly over the Heyman fire, which I think that was maybe 2002, but it was the largest fire in Colorado history at the time.
00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:35.600
And even that fire, it's so patchy, the effects on the ground.
00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:44.879
It can be really surprising how just a few meters away things are relatively normal and then things are totally burned nearby.
00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:47.279
And we did see that on the ground as well.
00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:52.800
Yeah, it's really interesting how fire chooses to move through a landscape.
00:07:52.879 --> 00:08:17.439
And there was this huge fire that was right by the lookout that I was working in, and it was called the bootleg, and the bootleg made its own weather, and so there was a tornado that happened in South Central Oregon from this fire, and there was a pyrotechnic storm that happened from the fire.
00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:36.240
And so looking at where that is now, seeing what grows back and what kind of just stays the same is really interesting because it shows where that heat was really centered and where the fuels were burning even hotter.
00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:38.159
There were smokes everywhere.
00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:51.360
Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is the fear that people have of fire.
00:08:51.679 --> 00:08:52.000
Yeah.
00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:58.159
And how interesting that is because our ancestors lived by fire.
00:08:58.399 --> 00:09:11.360
We wouldn't even be here right now if it weren't for the stoves that fire powered and the warmth of fire and everything that we've gathered from fire.
00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:14.399
And now there's this like innate fear.
00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:30.080
And I've been trying lately to think of ways to build a bridge between that fear and an understanding of how we still need healthy fire, or else we're gonna end up with a lot more damage.
00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:33.200
And so that's just been on my heart and mind.
00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:36.960
But did you think of that at all when you were in Alaska?
00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:44.240
Well, my main experience of the fire of late is the Marshall Fire here in Boulder County.
00:09:44.399 --> 00:09:52.159
So I live in Louisville, Colorado, and the Marshall Fire burned a thousand homes in Louisville and Superior.
00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:55.600
So this is my own town, my own neighborhood.
00:09:55.840 --> 00:10:02.960
And this is a grass fire that got into suburbia and just one home to the next started burning.
00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:07.679
And it was an extreme wind event, you know, winds over 80 miles an hour.
00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:21.039
And so I actually have a manuscript about that too, called Singed Seeds, a Marshall Fire Year, that received the Runner Up Award for the Front Range Book Prize this year.
00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:27.759
And then it's been accepted for publication by alternating current press, which puts on that contest.
00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:31.039
So that should be coming out within the next year.
00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:39.759
After the Marshall Fire burned, there was a small fire at NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the forest around there.
00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:49.440
And that was a much more natural, controllable, ecologically healthy fire.
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:59.759
So I did write a poem contrasting the NCAR fire and the Marshall fire, which just felt so apocalyptic at the time.
00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:05.440
So yeah, we're we're just in this interesting new relationship with fire.
00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:09.279
You know, you talked about having to have your smoke map, right?
00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:12.639
When I was in Alaska, they would have smoke forecasts.
00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:18.000
I heard that you worked at Denali, so maybe you had that experience there too.
00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:29.039
But now, you know, I have bookmarked on my phone the smoke map for here so that I have an idea of what things are going to be like for my outdoor classes.
00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:35.759
And I have the watch duty app on my phone so that the next time I see smoke, I can quickly look.
00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:39.200
Is this prescribed or is it a wildfire?
00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:45.120
Because it's just become part of our everyday experience now in Colorado.
00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:46.639
I've lived here for 30 years.
00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:58.639
So, you know, I think I lived here, I don't know, maybe 15 years before there was a wildfire that even made it into my consciousness because things were different.
00:11:59.120 --> 00:11:59.679
Yeah.
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.159
Can we just go into that a little bit?
00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:06.320
How you think things have changed in the last 15 years?
00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:19.200
Yeah, well, I mean, especially 2020 when we had one fire after another here, and the sun was salmon-colored for months.
00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:24.559
You know, Colorado has this reputation for being a healthy place to go and live.
00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:47.600
You know, this history of the sanitariums for tuberculosis patients, people would come to Colorado for asthma, and then suddenly our air quality being terrible for months, not just from the fires here, but fires in California, fires in Canada, just really affecting our bluebird skies.
00:12:47.679 --> 00:13:03.200
And thinking about, you know, these extreme weather events that my children are growing up with that I did not have to, you know, we have red flag warnings now, letting us know fire danger is really extreme.
00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:11.279
These things like derechos and bomb cyclones, these are not words that were in my vocabulary until the last decade.
00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:17.120
So I was talking with my students about this recently, saying, I'm 52 years old.
00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:25.120
I feel like I should have more and more wisdom about natural cycles and the environment around me.
00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:37.200
But I feel like as things are becoming destabilized, I feel less and less certain about reading the landscape and knowing what's going to come next seasonally and everything.
00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:42.000
Is this the first time, you know, in human history that people are feeling that way?
00:13:42.159 --> 00:13:51.600
Where as you age, you become less in tune with what's going to happen next in the world around you, in terms of natural cycles.
00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:52.720
I don't know.
00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:56.399
I love that you brought that up.
00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:58.960
And I don't know.
00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:01.600
I feel like every year it is different.
00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:07.360
And even living here in Mount Shester for a few years, it's been different every year.
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:10.480
So I don't know what normal is anymore.
00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:16.480
But I'm glad that we can sit with it and be with it like everything else, right?
00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:18.240
Right.
00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:19.279
Yeah.
00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:28.879
So can we talk a little bit about Boco Wild Riders and how you created that and the story of that?
00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:30.240
Sure.
00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:34.320
Um, yeah, so it's Boco for Boulder County or Boulder, Colorado.
00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:42.879
When I started it up, there was a guy in Portland, Oregon who was doing some adult workshops, occasionally called Wild Riders.
00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:48.480
And I reached out to him and said, Can I use this name for this class I want to start?
00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:50.320
He's like, Why don't you add a word to it?
00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:52.320
So that's why I asked the BOCO.
00:14:52.559 --> 00:15:03.039
But it was also partly inspired by a class that Jack Collum used to teach through Thorn Nature Association.
00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:10.240
He was a professor at Naropa here in Boulder and from the beet poet lineage.
00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:20.159
But he would take kids out in the summer and through Thorns, teach poetry outside, and he called it Wild Words.
00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:31.759
So when I first moved to Colorado, I volunteered as a teaching assistant with Thorne as a way to get to know the ecology and meet other nature educators.
00:15:31.919 --> 00:15:37.360
And I was lucky enough to be paired with him for a session and just loved it so much.
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:45.840
I then went on to grad school and become a biologist and work for nine years in conservation.
00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:54.559
And then when I had my second son, I stopped working and I stayed home with my two kids for quite a while.
00:15:54.879 --> 00:16:02.159
And then when my youngest was in full-time school, I thought, okay, so now what do I want to do?
00:16:02.399 --> 00:16:08.240
I was a little burnt out from advocacy because I had done almost all of that under the George W.
00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:14.480
Bush administration, which was not friendly at all to endangered species, which was our focus.
00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:17.840
So I kind of thought I've done that time in the trenches.
00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:22.080
I like to do something that just brings me joy.
00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:32.399
And so I thought I could maybe just start a forest kindergarten, or I could try to teach a class like that class Jack used to lead.
00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:38.000
And so I talked to some friends who were homeschoolers because that's another thing.
00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:50.080
I had a friend who was leading a class called Science Adventure Program that was after school and in the summers, which makes sense, you know, based on how we live our lives.
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:53.360
But that's exactly when I wanted to be home with my kids.
00:16:53.600 --> 00:17:04.400
So I thought, well, maybe I could teach something for homeschoolers, and that would give me a longer block of time than I would get in the classroom and we could be outside.
00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:17.279
So I talked to some homeschooling families, and they said we would be really interested in a writing class because we like doing nature appreciation stuff as a family, but it's hard to get our kids to write.
00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:23.920
So I started that in 2017, and it's just been so wonderful.
00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:40.720
So this spring I have 11 students ages nine to 14, and we meet Tuesdays from 10 to 3 at different trailheads around the county, and we make an anthology after each semester.
00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:48.319
They're all on our website, wildriders.org, if you ever want to peek at what we've been writing.
00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:51.359
And yeah, it's wonderful.
00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:55.440
I get to be out on the trails and surprised by nature.
00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:03.359
Because we sit still long enough, animals come out for us, and it's just great being with young people, of course.
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:05.599
That sounds wonderful.
00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:09.599
Nice work finding your work in this world.
00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:10.720
I love that.
00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:13.279
So is that what you do full-time?
00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:29.279
Or well, I'm also a poet, so I have some gigs, and I'm actively writing in a couple of critique groups, and so really writing and teaching writing is my full-time work.
00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:29.680
Yeah.
00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:30.960
Wonderful.
00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:34.400
That sounds so good and fulfilling.
00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:42.720
So you have an anthology that you were just published in.
00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:43.519
Is that correct?
00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:46.000
In the Cole Creek anthology?
00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:46.799
Is that what it's called?
00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:47.359
Right.
00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:55.359
So I'm the current writer in residence for Friends of Cole Creek, which is my local watershed conservation group.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:04.799
And I also had signed up with a program called Writing the Land that Lise McLaughlin puts together.
00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:09.039
And writing the land pairs poets and land trusts.
00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:13.680
And then the poets write at least three poems for the land trust.
00:19:13.759 --> 00:19:22.559
And then she compiles these anthologies that then the land trusts can sell to make a profit to raise money for their organizations.
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:31.359
So our chapter just came out in the latest anthology called Writing the Land Pathways.
00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:37.359
So we have a few pages where we get to talk about the work of the conservation group.
00:19:37.599 --> 00:19:44.720
And I think I've got eight poems in here that I wrote by the Creek, inspired by the Greek.
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:47.680
And then it can be a fundraiser for the group.
00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:51.920
I love that everything is rippling.
00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:56.160
All the work that you do seems to ripple out in the world.
00:19:56.319 --> 00:19:59.839
So thank you for the way that you share with the world, Erin.
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.920
I would love to hear a poem from the anthology if you'd like to share.
00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:04.880
Sure.
00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:15.759
So one of the things that Friends of Cold Creek is doing is harvesting native seed and then providing that at different uh public events.
00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:31.599
So this is something that I wrote when I saw kids taking handfuls of milkweed seed from their booth at I think this was like a Halloween event, and arcing the seed into the sky.
00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:34.640
Letting go of milkweed seed.
00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:48.319
Great drifts of white webs of soft silk studded with copper coins that might just split and grow, scooped from bumpy dried boats.
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:57.440
The children reach elbow deep into a horde of possibility, then rainbow a white cloud into the waiting air.
00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:02.960
And now the sky above us all is alive with buoyant hope.
00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:13.279
Next year's sustenance for monarchs wafting aloft, ready for a new bit of earth to spill milky stars from next spring.
00:21:13.839 --> 00:21:14.319
Wow.
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:18.240
The imagery is just popping in this poem.
00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:23.119
What really stuck with me was buoyant hope.
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:29.119
Are there ways that you practice buoyant hope these days?
00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:31.599
Yeah.
00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:39.839
Well, you know, my training working on endangered species issues under the Bush administration allowed me to exercise that a lot.
00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:50.240
And my first week on the job, my boss took me out to this Chinese restaurant, and the fortune that I got said, despair is criminal.
00:21:50.559 --> 00:21:57.680
So I had that little fortune on my keyboard the whole nine years that I worked at that job.
00:21:57.839 --> 00:21:59.759
And then afterwards, my co worker.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:09.599
When I was leaving, they made a book for me, you know, with a lot of photos from our projects and quotes from co-workers about my work and everything.
00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:10.720
It was very moving.
00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:16.799
They stole the fortune off of my desk and taped it into the front of that book.
00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:26.480
So that has really been a guiding belief of mine that, you know, I'm an activist at heart.
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:40.799
Um, I also just went yesterday to the conference on world affairs at CU, and the last talk we went to was called, so you're saying there's a chance building a brighter future for the world.
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:52.480
And at the end of that, my students and I were talking, and I was like, I just feel like the best part about what we heard was this permission to feel optimism right now.
00:22:52.640 --> 00:23:00.319
You know, I feel like a lot of messages in society are like, if you have any optimism right now, you're not paying attention.
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:12.960
But we can just get paralyzed if we sink into despair and don't have the creativity and the audacity to envision a better future.
00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:18.880
And, you know, I have two boys of my own who I want a better world for.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:25.920
And I just feel like I have to live that for them too, this belief that you can make a difference.
00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:35.119
That as you're talking about the rippling of our little efforts, I have a poem called Positive Interference.
00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:35.920
Yeah.
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:38.000
Positive interference.
00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:50.880
One foot in the creek and one on earth, sun and cottonwoods waver with sky, the little disturbance of me rippling out, changing the course of one leaf's fate.
00:23:51.119 --> 00:24:02.160
The same way water changes me, cooled, sleek, glistening, ears filled with the reassuring constancy of downstream flow.
00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:08.079
Things come to rest where they ought until the next storm reorganizes all.
00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:10.559
Yes, yes.
00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:12.319
Thank you.
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:19.200
Yeah, so I think like, what else are we here for if not to try to make it a better place, right?
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:23.039
Yeah, I figure we're all here for some reason.
00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:25.839
We may as well make the most of it.
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:26.960
Yes.
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:28.240
Yeah, why not?
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:54.480
Well, and we also went to this talk yesterday where Asher J was really inspiring, and she was talking about like, I'm just so excited to see all of you in the audience, you beings of light, and how exciting it is that we can think about what we could all do together, you know, just this energy of we're here on the planet at the same time, just like you and I, Yvonne.
00:24:54.559 --> 00:25:05.119
I feel very privileged to be able to talk with you and get a little bit of your experience too, and the way that you're connecting people through this podcast.
00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:12.000
So, yeah, what can we do together is a really exciting, energizing question, too.
00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:13.519
Yes, please.
00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:15.200
Thank you for bringing that up.
00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:17.279
I love that question.
00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:33.680
And I actually had a very interesting experience in a uh poetry group today where they were like basically saying in their poem, I'm done with people writing about themselves.
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:37.119
Let's figure out what to do about what's happening in this world.
00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:55.279
And so it prompted me to write a poem about how we can either use our words to just you know go around in circles, or we can actually try to create a better world for ourselves and others.
00:25:55.599 --> 00:25:57.680
And that's what I want to do.
00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:07.039
You know, like that's kind of the point of the heart path is to create a better world for myself and everyone around me.
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:22.480
And so I am so grateful to be able to talk to people like you who also see that there's light and there's hope and there's a way that we can come together to move forward.
00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:43.839
And um I would love to talk just a little bit more about your book, What the River May Bring, and know if there's any kind of events coming up where people can come and join you and hear you read, or well, I have two upcoming events.
00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:49.680
Um, this first one would be before this airs, but I'll just tell you because it's kind of interesting.
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:58.960
So Boulder County Nature Association invited me to read some poetry at their ecosystem symposium that was April 4th.
00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:05.119
And they had found a poem that I had written for Summit County, Colorado, and asked, would I read that?
00:27:05.279 --> 00:27:09.599
And I was like, Well, sure, I'll read that, but I've lived in Boulder County 30 years.
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:12.160
I'm happy to write you your own poem, you know.
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:17.359
And they were like, Well, we don't really want to give you a big project to do.
00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:19.599
And I was like, I like a project though.
00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:25.759
So I decided, well, is there a way that I could walk across the county and write about it?
00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:33.599
So it's still, even with our record low snowpack year, it's still a little ambitious to get to the divide right now.
00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:44.319
So I cut myself a little slack with that, and I started at the Hesi Trailhead in Eldora, Colorado, which is about 8,500 feet, I think.
00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:47.759
And then I walked east down to the county line.
00:27:47.839 --> 00:27:49.119
I was section hiking it.
00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:59.039
So like I went home and slept at everything, and then somebody would drive me to the next top of the path, you know, and then I would keep walking downhill.
00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:13.680
And so I wrote a line for each mile, and so it's 47 miles, and I made a little seven-minute film of that experience and showed that at the symposium.
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:34.640
And then a woman who was in the audience there said, Well, I run this adventure film series, and on Friday, the 17th, I'm showing this documentary about these guys in the 1970s who cross-country skied across the entire state of Colorado from like Durango to the Pooder River.
00:28:34.880 --> 00:28:39.599
And I think it would be great to pair your movie with theirs if you can go, Aaron.
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:46.319
So this Friday I'll be showing that, which is really so fun and unexpected.
00:28:46.880 --> 00:29:04.400
And then I am reading at the Trident Cafe in Boulder April 28th from 6:30 to 7:30 in a reading called Ecology of Place, along with Rodham Markham and Ann Haven McDonnell.
00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:10.720
So two other amazing eco-poets who I'm so excited to read with.
00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:21.039
And I've also asked, tried in, I'm not sure, but my students and I put on this writing contest for kids called the Wooly Bear Writing Contest.
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:28.880
So I've asked them if we could maybe have as our opening act before we go on our contest winners, and I'm waiting to hear back from them.
00:29:29.039 --> 00:29:33.440
So we may have some youth poets from 515 to 615 too.
00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:34.880
That's so cool.
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:35.839
Yeah.
00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:38.640
Yay! Gather everyone.
00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:39.920
Wonderful.
00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:45.039
So, do you have any other events coming up this summer where people can find you?
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:45.839
Yeah.
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:51.359
So in the summer, I lead these free monthly hike and writes.
00:29:51.680 --> 00:29:58.799
So registration will come open mid to late May at wildriders.org.
00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:00.400
There'll be a form there.
00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:24.000
And so I have a different hike each month, and usually it's multi-generational, and we kind of do the same kind of things we do in class, but we'll sometimes have the more ambitious hike than we would undertake on our weekly classes, or maybe a little bit further away than we usually drive in class.
00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:33.680
And it's a chance for parents, grandparents, people not affiliated with class at all to come check it out and do some writing outside.
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:42.480
I also will be presenting at the first Poets for Science gathering at Kent State in November.
00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:46.720
They had a call for proposals for workshops from attendees.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:52.480
So I will be presenting along with Bryce Myero and Maurice Beati.
00:30:52.799 --> 00:31:05.119
We're doing a generative workshop called Water Speaks, where we're going to be talking about writing with water as an ally and trying some fun techniques around that.
00:31:05.359 --> 00:31:15.279
So I would imagine a bunch of your listeners would be interested in Poets for Science and all the good work that they are doing, and they should try to come in November.
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:23.759
I think it's an amazing slate of poets who are the main presenters there, and I'm so excited to be a little part of that.
00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:25.359
Definitely.
00:31:25.599 --> 00:31:30.400
That's um like exactly what I would like to do around that time.
00:31:31.119 --> 00:31:32.400
Yeah, check it out.
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:35.279
That's been on my mind in a big way lately.
00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:39.759
So I'm glad that you're generating activities for others to write about it.
00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:40.559
Thank you.
00:31:40.880 --> 00:31:43.839
Okay, where can people find your books?
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.599
Where's a good spot?
00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:48.160
So my book is really available anywhere.
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:54.160
You can go to bookshop.org and buy it there, and it will benefit your local independent bookstore.
00:31:54.319 --> 00:31:55.680
That's what I would recommend.
00:31:55.920 --> 00:32:00.079
But it's also on the big guys, too, like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:04.079
So what the river may bring, impressions of interior Alaska.
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:12.480
And I'm donating all the proceeds from the sales to environmental education programs at Kayakuk National Wildlife Refuge.
00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:16.319
So I've been able to donate over$300 so far.
00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:23.039
And so far, they've bought 12 camp chairs for their middle school spring outing program.
00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:45.599
Just so fun to think about those books turning into seats for kids in the woods in Alaska, especially during this time of slashed budgets and slashed staff to have a little way to contribute back to those communities that are caretakers of the wilderness is really satisfying.
00:32:46.079 --> 00:32:46.640
Wow.
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:48.960
I really like who you are as a person.
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.240
I know I feel the same about you.
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:58.960
I have rented fire towers twice to sleep in, but I think that's such a romantic job.
00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:01.920
I'd love to hear more about your experience there.
00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:06.720
I have seen Denali from a distance, but not been within the park.
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:09.200
So I'd love to hear more about that too.
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:33.279
Yeah, I a lot of people do romanticize it, but when I was deep in it, when I was working 12 days in a row with two days off and having car issues because I was parking on a mountain for 12 days at a time, and animals were chewing the heck out of my wires on my car, so I couldn't really use my four-wheel drive to get up the mountain, which I needed.
00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:58.079
You know, like it wasn't the easiest life ever, but it was also very fulfilling to be able to do whatever I wanted with my time, you know, as long as I was still looking around for fire every 20 minutes and present, that's all I needed to do.
00:33:59.039 --> 00:34:06.400
But I worked with some great people and some not great people, and I had people around me that cared and others that didn't.
00:34:06.640 --> 00:34:08.639
And so it really makes it break.
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:18.159
And when you were talking about smoke in Colorado, I was thinking about how I was inhaling it on the mountain because the smoke just wouldn't go away.
00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:22.320
And I was living in a tiny house with cracks.
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:38.159
My first poem in that Marshall Fire manuscript because it was like, what this is the last, you know, like what more could happen when the town burns down.
00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:42.880
So it's like our latest catastrophe, half the town burning down.
00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:46.559
You know, it's just it was a very dark time then.
00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:50.719
Yeah, I brought my Marshall Fire manuscript.
00:34:50.800 --> 00:34:52.639
I might have that in car once here.
00:34:53.039 --> 00:34:53.840
Yeah, that'd be great.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:03.199
We could read because Ponderosa pine forests are really adapted for fire, you know, and lodgeable pine forests are adapted for stand replacing fire.
00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:08.880
So it's supposed to happen, but the local grass fire is not supposed to destroy half of the community.
00:35:09.119 --> 00:35:10.079
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:10.639 --> 00:35:11.679
How that's supposed to work.
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:14.880
And that's the part that we gotta figure out.
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:16.719
Okay, here it is.
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:30.000
I found the poem that said NCAR fire, but that was just when it was happening, and I was worried that it was going to come into the city because they did evacuate for that one too, when we were still digging out from Marshall Fire.
00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:32.960
But okay, it's called Passion and Flain.
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:40.400
Ambling along the NCAR fire, the land's gone more green than black or gray.
00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:47.920
Yes, needles have browned and bark has blackened, but there's the overall sense that the fire behaved.
00:35:48.239 --> 00:35:56.079
So unlike the twisted, charred, urban Armageddon Marshall Fire aftermath we drive by every day.
00:35:56.320 --> 00:36:08.639
It's good to sit still now in this green, burned place, to align my heart with the cleansing, renewing energy that naturally can be flame.
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.960
It is possible to kindle yet not consume.
00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:23.039
And as this element teeters back into balance, my chest warms with reverence for it, like the sacred heart flanked by flame.
00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:25.920
So we don't have to hate fire, right?
00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:26.960
Yes.
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:28.400
Like anything else.
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:30.159
We don't have to hate it.
00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:31.679
Yeah.
00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:34.480
So what is your relationship with fire now?
00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:38.800
Um conscious concern.
00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:43.119
We have a cabin or outside of Rollinsville, Colorado.
00:36:43.199 --> 00:36:46.400
So it's an hour away, it's at 9,200 feet.
00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:49.920
It is where my heart lives now.
00:36:50.239 --> 00:36:55.920
I mean, I my body lives down here in town, but I'm up at the cabin as much as I can be.
00:36:56.480 --> 00:36:59.920
And that could so easily go up.
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:04.639
But it's lovely to be there now.
00:37:04.800 --> 00:37:06.239
Well, I can be.
00:37:41.360 --> 00:37:43.760
So my sister was here in Louisville.
00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:51.679
And that morning she sent me a photo and was like, Wow, the California fires are so bad right now.
00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:56.400
And I looked at that smoke and thought, that is not California fire.
00:37:56.559 --> 00:38:07.920
And so I went on Facebook for our local town group and saw that the fire was already at the police station at the entrance to Old Town, the part of Louisville where we live.
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:11.039
And I called her and was like, Our town is on fire.
00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:13.039
You need to evacuate now.
00:38:13.199 --> 00:38:15.360
And she was like, What are you talking about?
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:20.320
Because she really had just assumed it was smoke from elsewhere.
00:38:20.559 --> 00:38:22.960
And you know, she was able to get out.
00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:34.079
My mom, my sister, and I, all of our houses were fine, but it affected the whole community to lose a thousand homes, you know.
00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:45.440
Yeah, it's like my dog's brother's home was destroyed, and my son's kindergarten teacher's home was destroyed.
00:38:45.679 --> 00:39:00.719
But we are seeing people building back, but it's not like we were able to keep all of the community intact in the wake of the fire, so it definitely has had long-lasting repercussions.
00:39:01.199 --> 00:39:12.000
So yeah, I fear it, and as a biologist, I understand its role, and I feel for all the people who were displaced.
00:39:12.239 --> 00:39:23.119
I really feel like this is our local climate change uh diaspora, you know, it's our local climate change catastrophe story.
00:39:24.159 --> 00:39:37.599
Yeah, and I hope that the story doesn't repeat itself and that we can find ways to fireproof and be ready for what's to come.
00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:44.320
I mean, even looking at our yard, I think, okay, yeah, we gotta clean this up and get ready for summer.
00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:54.880
So yeah, and Colorado is doing a bunch to really encourage fire hardening and the wildland urban interface, and that is really encouraging.
00:39:54.960 --> 00:39:57.760
And there have been a lot of workshops.
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:06.320
Friends of Cold Creek has been offering some firewise workshops about how to make your landscaping more fireproof.
00:40:06.639 --> 00:40:18.239
So, yeah, people are definitely stepping up to try to take responsibility and help avoid another urban catastrophe like the Marshall Fire from happening again.
00:40:18.559 --> 00:40:24.719
Yeah, it is tragic and it's horrible to have so much loss.
00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:37.840
And I'm grateful that people survived, and right Colorado's coming together to make it a little easier to move forward with living with fire.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:39.119
So yeah.
00:40:39.519 --> 00:40:44.000
But anyway, thank you so much for speaking with me today, Aaron.
00:40:44.320 --> 00:40:50.400
Yeah, and I hope we stay connected and I'm really serious about enjoying collaboration and yes.
00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:54.480
Maybe there's something else we can do further down the road.
00:40:54.719 --> 00:40:58.239
That sounds great, and I love your poetry.
00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:05.039
So thank you very much for writing and for giving hope to your readers.
00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:11.119
Well, thank you for this platform and for connecting all of us on the heart path.
00:41:11.679 --> 00:41:12.559
Thank you.
00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:13.599
Yay.
