The Practice of the Wild: Essays by Gary Snyder

197 Pages·1990·3.115 MB·English

by  Gary Snyder

Essays by
Gary Snyder
North Point Press
San Francisco 1990
This book is for Carole
on the trail
http://avaxho.me/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Contents
BY WAY OF THANKS ix
THE ETIQUETTE OF FREEDOM 3
The Compact 3, The Words Nature, Wild, and
Wilderness 8, Wildness it, The World Is Watching 18,
Back Home 22
THE PLACE, THE REGION, AND THE COMMONS 25
The World Is Places 2 5, Understanding the Commons 2 9,
Bioregional Perspectives 3 7, Finding "Nisenan County" 44
TAWNY GRAMMAR 48
The Same Old Song andDance 48, The Kuuvangmiut
and the Humanities 53, Nature's Writing 66, Mother
Leopards 68
GOOD, WILD, SACRED 78
Weeding Out the Wild 78, Waterholes 81, Shrines 86, True
Nature 90
BLUE MOUNTAINS CONSTANTLY WALKING 97
Fudo and Kannon 97, This 102, Homeless 103, Larger
Than a Wolf, Smaller Than an Elk 106, Decomposed no,
Walking on Water 113
viii ° CONTENTS
ANCIENT FORESTS OF THE FAR WEST 116
After the Clearcut 116, At Work in the Woods 119,
Evergreen 126, Excursus: Sailor Meadow, Sierra
Nevada 133, Us Yokels 139
ON THE PATH, OFF THE TRAIL 144
Work in Place of Place 144, Freedom at Work 149
THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A BEAR 155
The Story 133, On "The Woman Who Married a Bear"
161, Maria Johns and the Telling of This Story 169,
Arkadia 170, At the Bear Dance 171
SURVIVAL AND SACRAMENT 175
An End to Birth 175, Cultured or Crabbed 178,
Grace 182
BIBLIOGRAPHY 187
By Way of Thanks
Most of the essays in this book had their inception in talks, work
shops, and conversations that took place over the last fifteen years. I
owe much to the many fine people and places that called these
thoughts forth. Although my work and curiosity take me far afield,
I am foremost a person of the Yuba River country in the Sierra Ne
vada of northern California. The San Juan Ridge and the many
people there with whom I share work, rituals, and ideas are at the
core of this exercise. First I want to thank the person to whom this
book is dedicated, my wife and partner Carole Koda, who read and
discussed it all while in progress. Jerry Tecklin, Bob Greensfelder,
Jean Greensfelder, Jim Pyle, Pat Ferris, Gen Snyder, Kai Snyder,
Chuck Dockham, Bruce Boyd, Holly Tornheim, Steve Beckwitt,
Eric Beckwitt, David Tecklin, Steve Sanfield, Lennie Brackett, Don
Harkin, Michael Killigrew, Robin Martin, Arlo Acton, Tony Mo-
ciun, David Samuels, Nelson Foster, Masa Uehara, Paul Noel,
DeOnne Noel, Will Staple, Michael Brackney, Bob Erickson, Moth
Lorenzon, Robbie Thompson, Ann Greensfelder, Sara Greens
felder, and Jacquie Bellon have all given me particular (often non
verbal) pointers. The whole San Juan Ridge community has been
teacher and friend.
I have learned much from my many trips to Alaska. Gary Hol-
thaus of the Alaska Humanities Forum taught me where to go and
shared his deep appreciation of the north with me at community
gatherings in places as diverse as Aleknagik, Fort Yukon, Juneau,
Homer, Sitka, and Bethel. Steve Grubis led me down the Kobuk
x ° BY WAY OF THANKS
River and Bonnie and Hans Boenish put us up. Ron and Suzie Scol-
lon introduced me to their work in Athapaskan and other northern
language groups, and to the snowy mountains north of Haines.
Dick Dauenhauer and Nora Marks Dauenhauer showed me a little of
the southeast Alaskan cultural milieu. Jim Kari introduced me to
the subtleties of place names. Dick Nelson led me over muskeg and
surf into pathless wilds. I thank Roger Rom for teaming up with the
University of Alaska to sponsor two successive summer field trips we
led in the Brooks Range and James Katz for putting together a float
ing seminar on the Tatshenshini River. Jan Straley had us chasing
Humpback Whales' flukes (as part of her research) in Icy Straits, and
Jonathan White sailed the Crusader right through Ford's Terror just
to look at a yosemite full of ice and water.
Many of my colleagues at the University of California at Davis
share the interest in wildness and the interaction of nature and cul
ture. I have especially appreciated the insights of David Robertson,
Jack Hicks, Will Baker, Scott McLean, and David Scofield Wilson.
Students in my lectures and seminars have tested my notions and
opened my outlook with their fresh and perceptive views. Several
small but timely University Research Grants, and the friendly and
interested cooperation of the faculty and staff of the English De
partment, all helped.
Some of these essays first took form as talks given at the San Fran
cisco Jung Institute (several as stimulating collaborations with
James Hillman, Gioia Timpanelli, and Ursula Le Guin). I also gave
sections of this book as talks at the Teton Science School in Jackson
Hole, at Lindisfarne Association gatherings, at the Schumacher So
ciety's annual meeting in Bristol, England, at the Wilderness Con
ference of 1984 sponsored by the University of Montana, at the
Hudson Valley Watershed Conference, at Hollyhock Farm in Brit
ish Columbia, and many other places. John Stokes (and the Austra
lian Arts Council) made it possible for Nanao Sakaki and me to travel
BY WAY OF THANKS ° xi
extensively in Australia and visit parts of the central desert that are
not usually open to visitors.
Many friends read and offered sound advice on all or parts of the
work-in-progress. David Padwa and Peter Coyote gave me bold and
useful encouragement, as did Jim Dodge and Peter Berg. Max
Oelschlager and Wendell Berry made keen suggestions.
Nanao Sakaki of Japan and Turtle Island, Lee Swenson, George
Sessions, Tom Lyon of Utah and the Rockies, Paul Shepard, Drum
Hadley of Guadalupe Canyon Ranch, Dave Foreman of Earth First!,
Dolores La Chappelle, Sherman Paul, Malcolm Margolin, Bob Uhl
of Kotzebue, Alaska, Jerry Martien of Areata, Kurt Hoelting of Pe
tersburg, Alaska, Jerry Gorsline of Port Townsend, Fraser and Ali
Lang of Bridge River, British Columbia, Kelly Kindscher of Kan
sas, Gary Lawless of Maine, Dale Pendell now of Santa Cruz, Greg
Keeler of Bozeman, Allen Ginsberg of New York and Boulder, Jack
Turner of the Tetons, Jack Loeffler of SantaFe, Jim Snyder of Yosem-
ite, Ed Grumbine, Jaan Kaplinski of Estonia, Julia Martin of Cape
town, South Africa, John Seed of New South Wales, Sansei Yamao
of Yakushima, Japan, Peter Bluecloud of Akwesasne, Paul Winter,
Lewis MacAdams of The Friends of the L. A. River, Non and Bird of
the mountains near Trinidad, Colorado, Dan Kozlowsky of Wis
consin, Clayton Eshleman of Sulfur, Michael McClure of the Class
Mammalia, and Morinaga Soko Roshi of Daishu-in are a few among
the many remarkable friends whose lives and works have been part of
my meditations as I put together this text.
I am grateful to Catherine McClellan, professor emerita of an
thropology at the University of Wisconsin, for permission to retell
the version of "The Woman Who Married a Bear" that she heard
from Maria Johns in the early years of her career, as well as her mem
ories of Maria Johns.
I thank Gary Capshaw for the gift of the desk and his memories of
Lew Welch. I especially want to thank Yvon and Malinda Chouinard
xii · BY WAY OF THANKS
and the Patagonia Corporation for generous and swiftly expedited fi
nancial help in the final year of writing.
With so many good friends and critics it would seem hard to be
lieve that there might still be errors or infelicities. Whatever they
are, they belong entirely to me.
The Practice
of the Wild
The Compact
One June afternoon in the early seventies I walked through the
crackly gold grasses to a neat but unpainted cabin at the back end of
a ranch near the drainage of the South Yuba in northern California.
It had no glass in the windows, no door. It was shaded by a huge
Black Oak. The house looked abandoned and my friend, a student of
native California literature and languages, walked right in. Off to
the side, at a bare wooden table, with a mug of coffee, sat a solid old
gray-haired Indian man. He acknowledged us, greeted my friend,
and gravely offered us instant coffee and canned milk. He was fine,
he said, but he would never go back to a VA hospital again. From
now on if he got sick he would stay where he was. He liked being
home. We spoke for some time of people and places along the west
ern slope of the northern Sierra Nevada, the territories of Concow