The Awakening (A Letter to Bears)

March 23, 2019

Dear Bears,

Good morning. I hope you had a deep, satisfying, rejuvenating nap. I missed you.

I’m certainly not in a very credible position to give advice about staying out of trouble, but for what it’s worth: Please, PLEASE!, stay away from people; we are bad news for bears.

If you do by chance cross paths with homo sapiens — which is, unfortunately, becoming increasingly difficult to avoid — I hope they give you all the space, understanding and respect you deserve. Either way, turn and flee for your safe space (what little we’ve left for you).

May you have a long, healthy, safe, wonderful and wild year — and may the huckleberries be plump and bountiful. You’re lucky to be a bear!

Sincerely,

Your friend and admirer,

Dave

Sacred Grizzlies? (Griz Bless America!)

One of several considerations recently before a federal judge: Native American tribes from seven states and Canada claim that lifting protections for grizzly bears, and allowing the hunting of grizzlies, violates their religious freedom because they consider the grizzly sacred.

This may not seem the strongest case in context of the modern world. But consider this: Many of the same people ridiculing it believe in talking snakes, immaculate conception and a resurrected guy who walked on water.  Some of them believe it’s a violation of their religious freedoms to bake a cake for certain individuals because of cherry-picked words from a contradictory, archaic book written thousands of years ago and translated numerous times into dozens of conflicting versions. 

Personally, I believe if there’s a god at all it’s tied to the energy that runs through all things; the sun and the rain and the air and the sedges and the elk and the trout and the huckleberries that run through me and back to Earth. (As Edward Abbey put it, i’m an “Earthiest,” I believe in what I can touch, smell, hear, taste and walk on.) And I believe one of the quickest routes to god is through the digestive system of a grizzly bear. 

I’m going with the original Americans on this one. Thank Griz for the First Amendment!