Rewilding the soul with Yellowstone wolves & Spiral Jetty
Thanks for reading Life is Strange, a chronicle of my cross country road trip! This post is about my second day in Yellowstone and my visit to Spiral Jetty in Utah. Hope you enjoy, and I hope it inspires you to get out into that great big green world out there sometime soon.
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Well, I think the past two days have been some of my favorite days of my entire life. I’ll try to do some justice to them, but once again, it’s after midnight and I just rolled into a Motel 6 after a full driving day, so bear with me.
Thursday was my second day in Yellowstone. On the first day, admittedly, I was less than impressed; the heat, the crowdedness, and my own sleepiness were getting in the way a bit. That night I made the right decision by turning in early in my Montana motel, and so then, with some help from a delicious, very caffeinated coffee from a local bookstore called Book Peddler, I awoke recharged and ready to explore.
My first stop wasn’t actually in the park. I started out by heading to the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center on the outskirts of Yellowstone. The first thing I saw was a truly tremendous grizzly named Sam. Oddly enough, crows and grizzlies seem to get along well, and Sam and his battalion of huge black crows made a strangely adorable picture.
But I was really there to see the wolves.
Rewilding the Land, Rewilding the Soul
Maybe it’s because I grew up with a husky, or maybe it’s the influence of the excellent tome Women Who Run With the Wolves, but wolves are some of my all-time favorite animals. I spent about an hour watching a family of wolves roam around in their enclosure, lounging in the hot sun and digging in the earth and generally being majestic.
The center houses animals that cannot survive in the wild, either because of injuries or because they’re too acclimated to humans, but it’s still a bit saddening to know that these wolves will never know the feeling of racing across an open prairie like their wild neighbors do.
Wolves occupy a unique space in Yellowstone’s ecosystem. By the mid-1900s, they were all but absent from the park, decimated by hunting and human activity, but a massive restoration effort in the late 20th century rehabilitated their population.
As the wolves returned to the park, something strange began to happen. Dwindling deer and elk populations began to climb back up. Within ten years, songbirds had returned to the park along with aspen and eagles and countless other creatures. Riverbanks had stabilized and weeping willows began to spring up again alongside the shore.
It turned out that wolves, the park’s apex predators, actually play an instrumental role in the preservation of their entire ecosystem. As wolves returned, deer and elk stopped grazing so freely by the rivers and in the prairies, making room for new fauna like willows, which reinforced disintegrating riverbanks. Once the ecosystem was restored to its natural balance, everything started falling into place.
The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone is one of the more successful and visible examples of something called rewilding — a term that’s usually defined as the process of restoring ecologically devastated or human-altered places (funny how they’re usually the same thing!) to their natural states.
Rewilding often means bringing razed rainforests back to their natural forms or reintroducing absent animals to their natural habitats, but it doesn’t have to happen separately or against humans. Rewilding can also mean adding butterfly-lush community gardens to cities, or planting radiation-absorbing mushrooms at the sites of nuclear disasters.
In my mind, rewilding means listening to the natural lessons of the earth, which contains every lesson we need to know, and letting nature do its thing rather than constantly fighting against the ebb and flow of natural processes and natural feelings.
Recently, I’ve heard the term used often in self-help spaces, popping up in the context of “rewinding the soul” or using internal rewilding tactics to bring the spirit back to its wild, unconditioned state, before it learned things like shame, suppression, or hatred.
This of course doesn’t always happen effortlessly, and there’s not a clear binary between the wild and the tame, just like there’s not a clear binary between good and evil (or between most binary pairs, really).
Even though I love the idea of returning landscapes to their natural states, I’m hesitant to glorify an idyllic, unblemished, “natural” state of living, because these ideals are often exclusionary and even dangerous. And the truth is that we’ve conditioned the world past the point of no return, and just letting things go and separating ourselves from nature isn’t the solution.
Instead, I’m interested in a rewilding that looks like a synergy of nature and human — a dissolution of boundaries, a kind of synergistic dance between the primordial and the evolved. Gardens in cities, fungi medicine, reconnecting with each other through natural rituals… these sorts of symbioses, I think, are also powerful examples of rewilding.
I was thinking about all this as I watched the wolves in the center wandering around, digging in the earth. The animals in the rehabilitation center have not been rewilded, per say, but their presence is an example of a way that humans can work synergistically with the landscape.
Certainly, seeing the wolves so close reminded me of how much I love those creatures (I was particularly fond of the biggest boy, a giant grey dude named Boulder), and this whole trip has felt like a rewilding exercise for me — reminding me of my closeness to nature, and reminding me of my wild, true spirit.
The Underground Spring That Connects All Things
After stopping at the center, I drove back into the park and headed towards the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, stopping at a series of pristine overlooks, where I stared out over the show-stopping waterfall that has inspired a billion oil paintings.
After admiring the falls and the canyon, which somehow reminded me of my favorite childhood movie Spirit, I moved on towards some of the geothermal pools. On the way, I stopped at a series of bubbling hot springs that had intriguing names like The Black Cauldron, the Mud Volcano, and The Dragon’s Mouth.
From a looping boardwalk, I admired a steaming, bubbling mud pool that had once been a volcano until it literally imploded in on itself, and wandered on to admire gurgling springs and gleaming lakes rimmed by tiny beaches.
It was there that I began to understand the real magic of Yellowstone. Underneath the park’s idyllic forests, there’s fire and gas that burns so hot it could melt your boots off — and everywhere, there are places where that heat breaks through the surface, pops out like a chick through an eggshell and bleeds out these strange, alien-looking colors, and hisses of gas and explosions of water.
It’s supernatural and disorienting, to feel all that energy beneath your feet and to see it bubbling up in the form of the park’s many hot springs, burning with a stunningly bright rage.
Next, I headed to a boardwalk that took me close to Yellowstone Lake. At this point the sun was beginning to set, dyeing the pools and springs around me gorgeous shades of blue and orange. White sand and ponderosa pines added additional layers of beauty, but I think my favorite sight was the coiled hot springs that bubbled and writhed on the edge of the lake, forming a surreal kind of geothermal beach.
As I began to walk back from the shore, I was confronted by another astounding sight: A family of elk were walking towards me, and quickly.
One of them, seemingly completely unbothered by my presence, walked up until she was about a foot away from me, and stood grazing there for a long time. Then another tiny, adorable calf wandered out onto the beach on gangly legs, and hobbled close to me before veering back into the woods.
It was an unforgettable sight, and it was also strangely charming to watch how the other humans around me reacted as they realized what was happening. Everybody just kind of froze, humbled and a little awed by these animals’ proximity.
It also made me kind of sad that the animals are so used to humans that they’re completely unafraid, but such is life in one of America’s most popular national parks, I suppose.
I made my way around a bright blue pool, and then to the Abyss Pool, a dark and ominous black wound in the earth that seemed to go down into the ground forever. (Most of these sites are better described in my poems in the previous post, so check those out for a deeper look…)
My final stop was a random collection of springs I hadn’t even seen on the map. I walked around a boardwalk as it grew dark, staring at the bright orange stains made by bacteria on the rocky surface, admiring surreal, eyelike gorges in the ground that shone an astounding blue in their cores. At one point, a geyser exploded right before my eyes.
Soon it became almost completely dark. I was entirely alone and halfway around the boardwalk when I spotted a looming, massive shape — a bison lurking in the shadows, not so far away from me. (I turned right back around and went back the way I came, thank you very much).
The springs moved me in a way that I really think only the poems can express, but mostly I will say that the presence of the underground geothermal springs in Yellowstone reminded me of how interconnected we all are — connected to a much greater force of energy that thrums under and around and within us always, and that bursts up into the realm of the visible at certain rare, unforgettable moments in time.
Old Faithful Comes In Clutch
Anyways, after leaving those springs I began driving through the park and quickly realized I was running low on gas. At this point it was totally dark, and I was one of the only people on the road.
A gas station I’d plugged in on the map I’d fortuitously downloaded earlier (there is no service in the park) simply did not exist, and I found myself wheeling past ominous-looking pines without a hope of ever escaping the park save for a risky hour’s drive back to the town I’d come from.
Then I remembered Old Faithful. I suppose she lived up to her name — because there in the Old Faithful complex, I found what was probably the only open gas station in the entire park.
Refueled at last, I drove back the way I’d come, deciding to forgo any attempts to camp illegally in the park. (Next time I’ll be sure to reserve a campsite months in advance, but that simply was not going to happen this time).
On the way back I had to stop for a bison, which crossed the road with painstaking slowness. It looked like the oldest, raggediest, ghostliest creature I’d ever seen, its eyes like bright moons in the car’s headlights.
After a night at a motel, I set out the next morning, coffee in hand. I made the decision to extend my trip down south, so I regretfully decided to skip Grand Teton, figuring I should go there when I have more time and fewer bad knees.
I waved goodbye to Wyoming, mystically trippy land of oozing hot springs, and blew a kiss to Montana, which I did not explore nearly enough. But when is there ever enough time for anything worth doing in this life?
Attachment Styles and Hot Springs in Idaho
One long stint in traffic and a few hours on the freeway later, and I arrived at the purportedly World Famous Lava Hot Springs in Idaho.
On the way down, I listened to an interesting podcast episode about the connection between narcissism and attachment disorders. The podcast is worth a listen in its entirety, but essentially, it connects racism to narcissism and narcissism to attachment disorders, which stem from a lack of proper care in around the first two years of life.
It also connected white people’s obsessions with colonialism, Manifest Destiny, and capitalism/consumerism to deep-rooted generational attachment trauma that creates an addiction to controlling others (or aiding and abetting that control) through systemic and interpersonal violence.
The whole thing was deeply thought provoking, and I did (finally) make an appointment with a therapist immediately after listening. I think everyone should be in therapy (just by nature of being alive we need therapy! Life is rough!) and though I know my parents did about the absolute best job parents can do raising a kid (hi Mom and Dad, who I know are reading this), there are definitely still a few things I need to process from this year, and there are so many things I know I need to work on about myself.
For example, there’s the weird little fact that I almost never cry or get angry, traits I honestly truly think I was born with, but that are probably worth examining. I also have some blind spots when it comes to other people, and I admittedly have some trouble with relationships and social anxiety (no doubt part of my utter joy on this solo road trip).
And also, the more I think about my life on this trip, the more I know I want my career and work to involve giving back and helping and healing people in some capacity (more on that later, probably), and it’s absolutely essential to heal yourself first before you embark on any of that sort of mission.
It’s necessary to go to the deep roots of your implicit biases and your personality and your blind spots before you can do the same for others, or before you can even really authentically be with others, and there’s some work there in those areas I think it’s really time for me to do.
Anyways, after all that, I arrived at the hot springs, ready to soak. At first I was slightly unimpressed; the hot springs looked like a couple long swimming pools, and the place had a kind of kitschy atmosphere.
Then I entered the springs. Somehow or other, those naturally heated waters felt like one giant massage on my body, and let me tell you, it was bliss.
My favorite hot spring, strangely enough, was actually the freezing cold 40-degree one. The ice bath was electrifying, and dipping right back into the 104-degree pool after a cold rinse (and then back again) had me feeling exquisitely alive. By the end I was resonating with the gold Buddha sculpture on the edge of one of the pools.
While sitting in the hottest pool, I checked the map to see where I might go next. Then I saw it. I was only a few hours away from Spiral Jetty.
I shot from pool to pool and was out of there in minutes. Soon I was rolling through the extraordinary mountain ranges of Idaho. Idaho, who knew you had such glorious mountains??!! Green as the hills of Ireland, they are, and just as lush — and pockmarked by idyllic farmhouses, spud farms, hay barrels, the works.
I did see some crumbling farmhouses and factories, but — and maybe it’s my extremely rose-colored glasses that I’ve certainly been wearing on this trip — but America is looking damn fine from here. Say what you want about how fucked up America is (and there’s a lot to say) but it is, O it is, indeed, The Beautiful.
Anyways, soon enough the farmhouses disappeared and suddenly I was in the mountains of Utah.
Spirals of Time at Spiral Jetty
The moment I entered Utah, the sky darkened, a thunderstorm warning popped up on my car’s screen, and I became convinced I was about to be picked up by a tornado and carried to Wonderland.
It began to pour as I rolled further from civilization and deeper into the mountains. The storm raged on full-force, and for a few minutes I could barely see the highway. I inched through winding mountain roads, clinging to the steering wheel and hoping I wasn’t about to get blown away.
As quickly as it came, the storm ended, and I found myself driving past a gigantic steel mill splashed improbably in the imposing mountains. Then the GPS took me off road, and soon service disappeared as did all sight of industry or human civilization. I was in the desert now, amidst wild sagebrush and endless tall grass, rattling along an unpaved road as the sky changed color, recovering from the furious storm.
After about 30 minutes of driving, I arrived at my destination. The first thing I saw was the improbable blue lake. Splashed in the heart of this dry mountainous desert, the glittering Great Salt Lake looked like an oasis, like some kind of a portal to a strange heaven.
I stepped out of the car and immediately noticed a rainbow spreading overhead. Then I turned and saw it, larger than life and strangely humble against the magnificent vistas around it: Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty.
Spiral Jetty is an art piece constructed in 1970 by Smithson, who is well known for innovative earthworks — pieces that utilize nature itself as art materials, and that integrate art with natural landscapes. I had written about it in an art history essay years ago, and now here I was.
The jetty is 1,500 feet long, made of 6,000 tons of black basalt rock moved into a spiral formation. For decades it’s been part of this shoreline, sometimes immersed under the waves, sometimes encrusted with salt crystals after the waters recede. It’s in constant dialogue with the ocean itself, harmonizing with the undoubtedly artistic changes that define the natural world.
Part of the art piece is definitely the process of getting to the remote location, and that’s to say nothing of the multi-sensory experience that seeing the jetty in person entails. There’s the smell of salt, and the incredible wind; there’s the radiant sunset above it all, staining the clouds gold; and there’s the sense of timeless ecstasy that comes from being in the presence of the true natural sublime.
I scrambled down an outcrop until I reached the spiral, walked along its curves until I stopped in the heart of it. From there I just stood for a while, staring out at the heavens. There’s something very spiritual about the art installation, and while there, I was thinking of the symbolic significance of spirals themselves — and how this spiral comes out of the shoreline just like we all emanate in spirals from some much larger ocean of energy… and how we’re all mirrors of each other curling around the same center.
The spiral is also an interesting example of how human creativity can work with the earth, imitating the earth’s natural processes and infusing our art (and hopefully also our lives) with the land’s deep-rooted wisdom. The jetty is designed to erode and disappear and reemerge again, and I think that there’s power in that idea — that our creativity, and the scope of our lives and even our civilization, can embrace nature, wildness, and cyclical patterns of growth.
Perhaps we can follow spiral patterns instead of clinging to linear or binary ideas of life and time and even meaning. Rewilding, as a philosophy, proposes that we don’t have to continue valorizing clinical detachment or endless growth unattainable ideals of perfection. It implies that everything we need is within us and in the natural world around us.
If life imitates art, then perhaps art could be a place to start seeding new worlds and rewilding burned-out places and patterns that no longer serve us. There’s so much healing to be found in learning to work with the earth in compassionate synergy instead of trying to subsume and control and divide and sell it, and the same goes for how we treat each other and even ourselves.
Of course, these are ancient ideas, and of course most of our modern world is so far from embodying them. To slow the onset of climate disaster, we’ll need to make these changes on a cultural, communal, and individual level, and that’s no small task. But the longer we wait, the worse things will get.
I stayed at the jetty until the sun went down, and then began the drive deeper into the desert.
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