Changing Seasons

For me the sweet smell of spring this year brings with it a stale reality reflecting the cycle of life. Spring has always been one of my favorite seasons. A time to reflect on the mysteries of growth and new opportunity. When the earth lays dormant all winter and looks as though all existence is void, then with what seems like the blink of an eye it is alive and thriving with life. It lifts up my spirits and gives me a deep felt feeling that is both fresh and invigorating after a long winter. I love to see the first few tiny ferns peeking up out of the ground. The bladderwack on the beach begins to puff back up, getting ready to reproduce itself with each incoming tide. The deer begin to relax and know their food will be simpler to obtain, and the birds find it easier to survive. The brief moment between the break of a harsh winter and freedom of spring brings relief to most living creatures.
This is where I find myself now, caught in this brief moment; looking back and looking forward. While I feel my mind lifting I feel a heavy weight upon my heart. It seems that within me it is more fall than spring. A time when things have lived a beautiful expressive season and then return to the earth to rest for awhile.

This spring has brought with it a time to lay to rest my best friend Horace. My valued friend of 14 years. I remember the day I picked him up as a puppy, the furriest little thing. Over the years his gentle soul has taught me how to share a bond between two spirits, of two different worlds. From Horace I have learned what trust is, and what the word loyalty really means. Loyalty means that there are no other options. That trust builds loyalty and vice versa. That in a world full of broken commitments and loose responsibities, I could believe in us- because he did. When I was younger than I am now, I couldn’t commit to anyone or anything and held responsibility at bay. Horace was a presence that I was able to hold close and I gave all that commitment to him, thus our bond grew infinite. He taught me other things as well; patience, understanding, compassion, pride and fortitude. Horace lived a stoic existence never expressing how much pain he may have been in. From 3 months old when he overcame his Parvo, to the plates and pins in his leg, to his magician acts of breaking through windows and squeezing through tight spaces, to jumping off balconies and piers; he was always there with a gentle presence. All of these things must have brought him tremendous pain and although treated, I wonder how much of it he was still left to feel. Anxieties in his mind made life hard at times- too stubborn to allow them to ease. But his tolerant nature led him to always be there to greet us all, there to sit by our side with his paw extended to say hello. Horace is a friend that I admire for so many reasons. He has been my closest companion for most of my adult life and the pain of losing him is settling in. Nevertheless, I know in my heart that his pain is much more than mine and that is why I am faced with this intricate decision.

Never have I tried to talk myself out of something or into something so hard. The inner struggle has begun to consume my waking moments and haunt me. The guilt I have begun to feel was absent until now even though I knew this day would come. Most all pet owners are faced with this situation at some time, but few verbalize the guilt. The thoughts are constant and many. My thoughts are stripped of purpose and then digested again to only come up with an opposite conclusion. One day I think he has a few years left, the next I accept that it is the right time. Up and down, back and forth. The magnitude of the situation can not be measured. It is beyond words and left only to feelings. This decision has brought with it a haunting loneliness. My emotions confused, there are no answers to the questions that I continue to ask myself. The changing of this season will bring both life and death. It is the cycle of life that reminds me that each life has a purpose, and that Horace will always be appreciated.

Horace is such a unique dog that has touched so many lives. I admire him as a friend with a beautiful spirit and gentle disposition that has touched my life and shared with me a gift that will not be found again. His presence in my life has given me a purpose and confidence to believe in a relationship that depends on two creatures to give unconditionally to each other without question, knowing that love will always be returned. I have been blessed with the time that he has chosen to give to me. I am so thankful to Horace for sharing himself with me. In all our 14 years together his loyal character and friendship have never faltered.
I will miss him dearly.

Horace~

The Wise One
The Guardian

A free spirit that sits on top of the hill with his face into the wind, contemplating what it is bringing to his senses and taking in the view of it all.

Winding My Way Through

It seems like forever and a day since I first arrived here Alaska. This will be the 4th summer. My free spirit has found an endless playground up here and an ability to obtain goals. Maybe a sense of direction, in a land that is vast, open and free. My reckless adrenaline seeking life that I led before moving here has now transitioned into a strange peace within and a fulfilling sense of awareness. I seem to have traded in the play outdoors thing for the real outdoors thing.

I have managed to move into to the wilderness instead of just spending time in it. I now get my adrenaline from the mere strategy of surviving in nature, not from playing here. Although I still play a lot- the sense of danger is heightened and the score a bit higher. I walk through dense woods with a shotgun instead of my water bottle. I dress like a fat mummy for the -40 degree winter instead of the trendy little snow bunny out for a few hours. I feel I am alive, I feel naked in a world that tests wisdom above all else. Maybe I feel alive because I am confronted with nature's ruthlessness and death here in the wild. This land is desolate, unforgiving, wild and merciless. My spirit feels tame in its reckless measure of life.

It is hard to imagine the disillusioned person I was. My values have not changed and I continue to experience life day to day with the direct attitude of obtaining happiness and knowledge before materialism. I have learned, however, that there is no extent to our potential if we continue to expand ourselves and remain open to all opportunities. We are able to walk anywhere if we leave doors open and bridges unburned. I find that with hope and confidence I am able to achieve more than I believed possible. That my visions become reality when I believe in myself. I owe a tremendous amount to those of you in my life that have pushed me onward. When we place ourselves in an environment that is challenging it fills us with a certain level of fear; thus bringing out our courage and a profound understanding of our self worth.

I am reminded every day of where I am and why I am here. All of us look around at other people and try to understand ourselves. I have found that for me it is the ability to be in the wild, away from society on a daily basis. Able to penetrate the level of raw self awareness in the natural realm of things. I have had to escape from my own mind in order to acknowledge what was inside of it. I felt lost in the city. My soul was lost when living there; I was never able to find it. I seemed to have no sense of who I was or why I was, I was missing the core values to my own self existence. I searched endlessly for something, not knowing what, only knowing there was something more. Always searching, always splintered, feeling alone and lost. I used to become so lost at times that when I would run away into the woods to put things back into perceptive- there was no perceptive. Now I am calm, at peace and free from my own mind that was becoming impenetrable.

All of us sacrifice something to get what we want. I consider things more as trade offs than sacrifices these days. I trade hormone injected meat for fresh fish and deer. Humble income for uncompromising happiness and experience. A cold winter for the Aurora Borealis. Daily social interaction for quiet solitude. Access to less fruit and vegetables in the winter time for no pollution or illness contracted from other people. Less access to those fruit and vegetables during the winter in exchange for wild raspberries, blueberries, strawberries in the summer! Fast paced traffic for the slow rhythms of life. Roads and cars for the bush plane. Ice cold rivers for the beautiful glaciers. People for the brown bears, fox, otters, seals, whales, deer, ermine, eagles, ravens, squirrels, moose, fireweed, wild salmon, halibut, wild flowers, oh the wild flowers! Did I mention people in exchange for the Brown Bear?!

We create our own power source out here with a generator. We control how much power we use. Soon solar and wind power will become our way of life. Each time I turn it on or off it gives me a true satisfaction to know how detached from society I am. When it is off, there is no communication with the outside world. There is no hot water, no electricity, no sound. I have also lived places in the bush without a generator and only propane gas, in which the sense of isolation and desperation settle in even further. It reminds me how far off the grid I am and how little or how much impact I am having on the environment around me.

My life has changed from an outdoorsy city girl to an outdoor wilderness girl. I used to consider myself an outdoor girl-an adventure guide that was always camping, backpacking, hiking, snowboarding, climbing and best of all whitewater rafting! But I wasn't really an outdoors girl; I was just a play outdoors girl. I have finally become one.

I have become more of a naturalist-adding intrinsic value to my purpose.
I have also become a bear guide. While this does provide me with a high dosage of adrenaline, it is more humbling than anything. The Brown Bear offers me a deeper understanding of the world in which I interact and why I chose to be here. It is from them that I have learned tolerance and grace. They have taught me that humans are not rational predators and there is an order of existence that we seem to have forgotten about. I love knowing that there is other intelligent beings out in the wilderness that are not human. One that is both reasoning and unpredictable. I can only hope that by guiding and educating people on the Brown Bear that it will aid in protecting the future of this magnificent animal. This has given me some purpose in life.

We have no road to get here, no path or trail to follow up the mountain, no trace of us on the map. I am happy here in this world of mountains and valleys, marine life and land animals. The land of air taxis and bush orders. It is here amidst the pristine wilderness where my mind has found a certain level of peace. It has led me away from wasting precious energy on things that don't really matter. It guides my inner conscious in the direction in which I continue to become increasingly humble and self aware.

I hear the water and the trees
I believe that they speak to me
Telling me of time
That has no capacity for the trivial.

~Susan Morrison~