Pigeon River Country: A Michigan Forest

Afterword: Presence

afterword Presence Over the years since we ‹rst published The Pigeon River Country, a fundamental question has persisted: What draws us to places like this forest, where the outdoors itself predominates, extends far beyond an easy walk, contains plants and animals in their natural settings, woodlands, meadows, and streams? The usual answers—that it’s pretty, quiet, and restful—seem super‹cial and are not entirely accurate. Sometimes the outdoors is none of those things: severe storms can bare ugly teeth, putting dirt and debris in our eyes, toppling branches and trees down upon us, crashing bolts of electricity deep into our psyche if not our person. Blizzards can immobilize and kill. Black›ies and crawling insects can drive us to distraction. Can we look at the forest honestly and still ‹nd what attracts us? All of the mammals alive when our ‹rst edition was published in 1985 are long dead, with the possible exception of a few black bear. Ursus americanus , the only bear species in Michigan, lives ‹ve to 30 years in the wild, elk not more than 15 to 20 years in ideal conditions, bobcats 10 to 15, white-tailed deer, coyotes, fox, and muskrat ‹ve to 10 years. Some raccoons , badgers, mink, long-tailed weasels, and porcupines get as old as 10; martens, beavers, and bats as old as 15; and northern river otter as old as 20. But most mammals in the Pigeon River Country and elsewhere die much sooner: woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks, bog lemmings, shrews, voles, moles, and mice all in a year or two. Some say the basic message of nature is indifference, con›ict, hostility, and death. While deer, elk, porcupines, rabbits, hares, muskrat, woodchucks , beaver, and voles are vegetarians, most mammals consume other mammals; the half-ounce least weasel eats mice, small birds, moles, and voles. Yet we know from personal experience that in returning to the for295 est, or any place outdoors where our own civilization is hardly in evidence, there is something deeply satisfying. In leaving the Pigeon River valley myself nearly a decade ago for life in a cultural mecca, the contrast could not be clearer. Sometimes just stepping outside into a yard surrounded by trees brings a rush reminiscent of those long moments spent in the forest. There’s the air, the sound. There’s something else, more profound. In the outdoors, everything is communicating. We’re immersed in electromagnetic and chemical ‹elds of information. Life operates in a delicate balance, constantly monitoring temperature, velocity, and all the elements essential to continued existence. Plants continuously interact with their surroundings. All living beings do the same as they try to remain in balance . An imbalance can cascade into a breakdown in organization, death of one form dissolving into others. This interaction among living things draws us to the outdoors. It operates at all levels from our connection with the sun and stars to activity at the cellular level and below. When we look closely at something outdoors, its color or shape, we shift from thinking to sensing. Our cardiac cycle slows, our eyes dilate, peripheral vision increases, and pinpoint sharpness decreases. Brain activity is embedded within the heart’s wave patterns. Brain alpha waves are reduced. The hippocampus starts sorting the magnetic information coming to the heart, looking for patterns of information, ‹nding meaning from this background of data. Recent cardiological research is con‹rming that the human heart is an instrument of unmatched power in both perceiving and communicating with the world beyond the human body. The heart generates electromagnetic energy in a wide range of frequencies. It makes hormones and sends them into a stream of messages throughout the body. The heart physically affects how we feel and how we think. Fluctuating ‹elds of information coming in contact with us are the very source of “the deep feelings that come from our immersion in wild landscapes,” according to Stephen Harrod Buhner, who studies the living earth. The plants we’re standing near use the same hormones we do. All organisms with two or more cells produce hormones. They help plants bend and turn, help animals survive through seasons, and no doubt do much more involving emotions, which are the hormones’ specialty. We are not divorced from these beings; we are a collection of many of them, sharing packages of codes for burning oxygen, extracting nutrients, sensing, and feeling. We can get in our cars and drive alone to the forest. But when we get there we...