Kurtis

His entire life Kurtis had been considered a bit strange. After all, he talked to animals and treated them as though they were as good as humans. He opposed every damn, every dirt bike trail, every road, every building . . . he opposed anything that would make those mountains more accessible, more enjoyable or more beneficial to humans. He was a pain in the proverbial ass. After all, save the environment is okay for a twenty year old until it starts getting in the way of human enjoyment and comfort, then one has to grow up and realize that that sort of ecological nonsense just gets in the way of progress. If you want to see animals we can always build zoos. If those mountains were going to bring in some real money they had to forget that Wilderness Act shit, start building hotels, roads, dirt bike trails and other attractions. They also had to get rid of bears and mountain lions so people didn't have to worry about where they went.

This way of thinking kept Kurtis in an almost constant state of upset. He didn't care what people thought of him, but he was beginning to feel totally alone in the struggle to save the wilderness. He seemed to lose one battle after another.

But this day Kurtis had won. He had stopped a resort from building a road up the side of a mountain and building a hotel on top. Of course there would have to be the necessities - water, sewage, electricity, gas, internet, telephone and television. The local community was irate. They had been told that this hotel would bring lots of money and jobs to their town. Who gave a dam about picas and other animals. They could go somewhere else. Kurtis had convinced the judge that he should uphold the protection of the wilderness.

Kurtis had been in the city several days to attend court. His celebration was to hike up the mountain as soon as he arrived home. Some locals, returning from the same court, went to the local bar to drown their sorrows. Anger turned to hate which turned to revenge.

When Kurtis came down the mountain he first saw the smoke. Then he saw the fire. Hateful people had set his cabin on fire. Kurtis stood in silence watching all of his earthly belongings burn. He knew what he had to do.

For some reason the arsonists had not bothered his old truck. In the back was his pack. It had all of his camping and survival gear in it. He loaded the 3 liter bladder with water from the well. Next to the well was Kurtis' storage shed under which was his root cellar. Here he gathered dried fruit and vegetables, rice, a large bag of tea, dried fish, a bag full of herbs and spices, eight large cakes of Tamamuhara running food, some flour, sugar, a box of salt, a small cook stove and a fifth of Big Horn Montana Bourbon. "Medicinal," he thought to himself with a sad smile.

Once loaded his pack stood a good 10-12 inches above his head with his sleeping bag tied to the underside of the pack. He didn't want to think about how much it weighed but this was survival. With a sad last look at his burning home he hoisted the heavy pack on his back and headed back up the mountain.

He only went a couple of miles that first evening before bedding down for the night. The next day he hiked up to a back-country lake favored by fishermen. There was a campground at the south end of the lake where he camped the second night. It was September and fishermen were not going to hike this far into the high country because of the chances of snow. Kurtis used the fishing line from his survival kit to catch a small mountain whitefish. The night before he had just drank water and nibbled on some Running Food. This, by comparison, was a banquet and he went to sleep satisfied.

The next morning Kurtis studied his topographic map. These mountains were his home, but he had to give some serious thought to where he should go to be the safest and farthest from humans. His attention was drawn to a cluster of small lakes in a hanging valley high up Great Eagle Mountain. They were 8,400 feet up the 10,326 foot mountain. There were no trails for miles and if someone did decide to climb the mountain they would approach from the south west and he could go undetected. He was going to go up the side of Harkin Mountain to the saddle between Harkin and Great Eagle. Then the slope around the east side of No Joy Peak would put him on a steep but not too difficult to traverse slope down to the hanging valley.

Harkin Mountain was 8,264 feet and he would have to climb within 300 feet of its summit. No Joy Peak was 8,690 and he would have to go within 500 feet of its summit. If he could make good time he would probably stop for the night in the saddle between Harkin and No Joy.

The valley was heavily wooded for an elevation of 5,200 feet. Kurtis followed the creek that he knew came down from an unnamed lake just below the saddle. It went due south from his campsite and then turned up a narrow valley to his south east. It was easy hiking but Kurtis knew that was only going to last for a few miles. He would have to start up the side of Harkin a good mile or so before the lake. If he didn't he would be faced with a sheer wall.

The climb up Harkin Mountain took Kurtis the better part of two hours crossing the broad steep mountainside back and forth looking for the best route. He had broken out of the tree-line by 6,400 feet and was ready to start south just below the mountain peak at about 7,200 feet. The saddle was in sight shortly before it started to snow. Kurtis knew that, if it continued to snow, visibility would fall and footing would become treacherous. It was time to make camp.

According to his Casio Pathfinder, it was mid-afternoon and he was at 7,360 feet up. The landscape was barren and rapidly becoming a blanket of white. Kurtis found a large bolder and pitched his tent on the leeward side as close to the rock as he could get. That would provide him some protection from the wind. Snow on the tent would actually add some insulation.

The previous nights had been cold and he had built a fire. This night was different. He was not going to try to build a fire in the wind and he didn't want to use what little fuel he had for the cook stove. Result - he drank cold water with his running food.

Running Food is a super-nutritious mixture that is still used today by the Tamamuhara Indians who literally run through the mountains of north-central Mexico. Kurtis knew that he was getting the nutrition that he needed even though his stomach did complain about not being physically full.

Kurtis peeked out of the tent. There was a wall of white. He had made a good decision. His sleeping bag was rated at minus twenty degrees. He took off his outer layer of clothes inside the sleeping bag and put them by his feet so that he would have warm dry clothes when he got up.

In the high Rockies about the only time you can count on there not being snow is the month of July and maybe some of August. Otherwise snow is almost as likely as rain at lower elevations. Kurtis slept soundly and awakened early, as was his habit. He noticed the quiet. He could tell that the tent was covered with snow.

Kurtis made a small vent by pushing the snow away from the tent door and lighted his portable cook stove to make tea and give him a bit of warmth. After the tea and Running Food Kurtis bundled up, struck camp, and headed toward the ridge where he would drop into the hanging valley on the east side of Great Eagle Mountain.

He did not have far to go, distance-wise, to get to the ridge, but he had at least a 1,330 foot climb unless he went a bit farther east at a lower elevation and then worked his way back at that same elevation. The first four to five hundred feet were tough in the snow and the grade was getting steeper. Kurtis decided that he had plenty of time so it would be much safer to go along the north flank of the east-west ridge protruding from No Joy Peak and then return west on the south flank of that ridge at close to the elevation of the hanging valley.

Just the distance of this detour required several hours resulting in him not arriving above the lakes until mid-afternoon. The detour had actually saved him from a seriously steep descent. Coming across the side of the ridge at about 7,200 feet he found that he had to descend a less steep slope and only had to drop about 160 feet.

Kurtis found a large outcropping near the largest lake that looked like a giant tooth. If he built his shelter on the east side of this tooth it would afford him protection from wind as well as avalanches. For an avalanche to actually hurt him it would have to drop from the mountain, cross the lake and a wide open area then bring down the giant tooth. Besides the fact that there were no signs of avalanche chutes Kurtis figured that the massive tooth; which was 30-40 feet thick, 200 feet wide and 80 feet high; would withstand just about anything an avalanche could dish. There was no more than 150 yards before the edge of the hanging valley and a 400 foot drop into the valley below.

For the fourth night of Kurtis' exile, he set up camp on the leeward side of the great tooth. A short distance away there was a fair stand of aspin and white mountain pine. Kurtis dragged enough wood from the stand to the tooth to make a small shelter. He rolled a number of large snow balls and made two L-shaped walls which, up against the tooth created three walls and a door for the shelter. He used the wood he had collected to make a roof. He put a tarp on the roof and then another layer of wood. Inside Kurtis set up his tent. Near the stone wall he started a fire. The smoke went up the wall and out the small gap Kurtis had made for this purpose. 

As Kurtis ate his meal of fish, rice and green tea in his modified igloo he thought about his self-imposed exile. To this point he had been driven by pain and anger - no, more like excruciating pain and rage - and focused upon escape and survival. He hadn't really taken the time to think about what he had done. He had made a decision without considering the consequence. He had just known that he could not stay among people. He hadn't thought about how and/or if he could survive. He just knew that he could not survive among people. He had spent his life trying to protect the wilderness that is so essential to life on this planet while also trying to help people enjoy the wilderness without destroying it.

For people to attempt to kill him and destroy his home because he saved them from a disastrous decision was more than he could take. He had proven that the hotel would destroy the ecosystem which meant that it would destroy the wilderness which provides the livelihood for every person in the town. He had proven that the hotel wouldn't bring money or jobs. They were contracting the construction with a company five hundred miles away that didn't give a shit about the people in that town. When the hotel was built the professional staff were all coming from other company hotels. The only jobs any local people would get would be as waiters and chamber maids - seasonal work at minimum wage and no benefits. Kurtis hadn't been against the idea of developing a park or wilderness preserve where the local community could be rewarded by jobs and revenue for protecting the mountains. But while Kurtis had won in court, greed and human arrogance had won his community. This was just an example of the larger problem. It was just a single cell in a terminal cancer. Kurtis concluded that he no longer had any fight left. He was totally burned out. He did not just think he had done the right thing, he was sure of it. He would probably not survive the winter but he determined that he would rather die in the loving arms of the nature he had loved and fought for for so many years than survive in the hell created by his fellow humans.

The fifth morning of his exile, Kurtis awakened to a cold, crisp day. The sun was beginning to show above the horizon as he rekindled his fire and made a simple breakfast of dried fish and tea. After his breakfast he started looking for a spot to build a permanent shelter.

The snow crunched under his boots as he walked along the giant tooth looking for the ideal spot. As luck would have it, he found that spot almost immediately.

Despite the snow, Kurtis could tell that the contour of the ground came almost straight out from the boulder for ten to twelve feet and then dropped sharply about five feet before leveling off. This natural shelf could be the foundation for a modified sod house. Kurtis figured that he could dig his living area in this shelf and then he would only have to do a few rows of logs to give him head room. He already had a vision of his new home. Digging into the earth would provide lots of insulation and make it easier to heat.

All Kurtis had was a camp shovel. It was going to be a long hard job, so he got right to it. The first thing to do was to clear away the snow. He started moving the show to the west side of his project where it would act as a wind break using his shovel and folding canvass bucket. Moving the snow took him all morning. By noon he had cleared an area big enough to dig a ten by twelve whole. He wondered whether or not he was taking on a bit too much, but he could always stop and make do with a smaller cabin or dig further and enlarge it.

It was warm for noon in the high country. His thermometer said that it was 58 and the sun was shinning. Kurtis decided to take a little time to fish in the nearby lake and by one o'clock he had caught four nice mountain whitefish. To save time he packed the fish in the snow to save for dinner, ate some running food and went back to his digging.

By the time the sun was about to disappear below the western horizon one could see a distinct outline of a cabin. It was a simple rectangle about ten feet by twelve feet. The front wall was a good three feet thick. This would not only be good insulation but good support for the logs that would complete the cabin and hold the roof. Kurtis decided that he would build the fireplace in the spring, if he survived the winter, because it was going to take more time than he had before winter set in for good. He would just have to use a smoke hole and build his fire on the floor.

Kurtis cut some large branches from trees that he had selected for the log cabin portion and lay them over his work. This way, if it were to snow, he would be able to clear the area just by pulling away the branches.

Kurtis was happy with the progress he had made. He lighted his fire before he lost the last of the light and prepared himself a feast to celebrate. As he watched his fire slowly die, he sipped some of his Montana bourbon and considered his situation. He had spent most of his life in the mountains but he was realistic enough to know that his chances of surviving the brutal winter of the high country was not good. He knew that the temperatures would drop well into the negative numbers. If he didn't finish his hut and fill it with food before winter's grip, he would have no chance of survival. The strange thing, he thought to himself, was that he never doubted his decision to come here. He never worried about surviving. He knew what he had to do to survive and he would do his best. He was where he belonged, and, live or die, that truth would never change.

* * *

The next few weeks were beautiful, clear and rather warm for the high country. It was always cold at night and there was occasional snow, but, for the most part, the weather was making Kurtis' building and food gathering actually enjoyable. He tried to alternate activities so that nothing went totally undone.

Kurtis was able to make great progress on his hut. He had made a sled out of tree branches and a tarp that allowed him to take a lot more earth out of the hut per load than with his canvass bucket. That saved a lot of time. By the second week of October he was putting the roof on his hut.

The lakes near Kurtis' camp were filled with fish. He tried to fish a bit each day, smoking and drying his catch. Going down to lower elevations he gathered cow parsnip, glacier lily, pine nuts, white pine needles, golden rod and even found some berries - huckleberries and wild wax currents - that had been missed by the bears. Most of the huckleberries were actually dried on the plant but Kurtis was going to dry them anyway. But he realized that this wasn't going to be enough. Perhaps if he had had an entire summer he might have been able to gather, dry, smoke and prepare enough food for the winter, but these few weeks were not enough. He had to go into "civilization" and buy food.

Carefully covering his work and packing his backpack, Kurtis descended into the Gibson valley south and west of his camp and followed the creek several miles until he came across a clearing where there was a small cabin, out-house and barn. This was the home of Stanley and Mabel Sturgous. Stan and Mabel were wildlife researchers and had lived here for about eight years while they studied the Elk. They were good friends and people whom Kurtis could trust.

Mabel was a short , petite woman whom one would not guess, from her appearance, to be a strong and highly skilled back-country trekker and researcher. Somewhere in her thirties, she stood only five feet tall with long bright red hair. The look on Mabel's face when she opened the door was one of shock and great relief. "Oh, my god," she almost screamed. Leaping forward and throwing her arms around Kurtis, "Stan! Stan! It's Kurtis" she called.

Stan was Mabel's physical opposite. He was a good six feet, four inches tall and had to stoop to go through the door. His salt and pepper hair fell down his back in a pony-tail almost as long as Kurtis' and longer than Mabel's. He was several years older than Mabel but he didn't look it. He stepped out of the cabin and enclosed both Kurtis and Mabel in a big bear hug.

"My god, man, we thought you were dead," he exclaimed. "The sheriff searched the woods for miles around your cabin for you after they found it burned."

"Did he put on a good show?" Kurtis asked.

"What do you mean?" Mabel looked puzzled.

"I didn't really get to see the faces of the people who torched my cabin," Kurtis explained, "but I'd bet you almost anything he struck the match."

As they entered the cabin Kurtis continued with the story of the hearing and his self-imposed exile. The sheriff, he continued, had a lot invested in the hotel. He had stood to make a fortune. Bribery. Bribery which Kurtis could prove but didn't mention in court. 

"What can we do to help?" asked Stan.

"I need supplies. I've stored away fish, plants and berries but there just isn't time to put away enough to get through the winter. Would you be able to buy supplies for me?"

"Of course," the couple said in unison.

"In fact," said Stanley, "you can use Clarabell. Then you can take a lot more to your camp."

"That would be wonderful!" The Sturgous were good friends.

Kurtis made a shopping list and waited while Stanley and Mabel went to town in their old pickup. It would be several hours. Kurtis passed the time reading the Sturgous' notes. They had been tracking some elk whom they had tagged the year before. The tags were GPS. The University of Montana tracked them. Stanley and Mabel spent their time sitting in the mountains with powerful spotting scopes watching the animals. Understanding the behavior and movement of the animals along with their life cycle was crucial to understanding and protecting the health of this ecosystem. Protecting the health of the ecosytem also effected the amount and quality of water that nourished the farmers in the valley. Their work was vital.  

Mabel and Stanley returned with a truck full of supplies. It was too late for Kurtis to start back so Mabel made a big pot of stew and cornbread which they all enjoyed with a glass of wine. Kurtis tried to remember the last time he had eaten so well. After dinner the three friends talked about the environmental crisis and Kurtis' self-imposed exile. While there was more and more scientific evidence that humanity must return to its roots and make great strides in repairing the damage it had inflicted upon the earth just in order to survive, there were more vocal and unreasonable religious conservatives pressuring congressional representative to accept their denial on religious grounds clinging to their archaic anthropomorphic deity. Kurtis felt that he would totally lose his composure if he were to every again hear anyone say "the Bible says...."  How could they risk the life and well-being of the entire planet based upon a four to five thousand year old book based upon myths and stories and written by people who hardly knew where babies came from nevertheless have any knowledge of earth science, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc., etc.? Such people wanted to sell the wilderness for commercial gain and eradicate species in the name of their god and human comfort. Kurtis told Mabel and Stanley that each fight was getting harder and harder.  He wasn't trying to save the earth for people. They were an invasive species. He wanted to save the earth for the sake of the rest of nature.  He had finally decided that he didn't care if humans destroyed themselves, but they were going to either destroy the earth or do significant damage in bringing about their own demise. He did not know how people like John Muir spent their entire lives fighting for the wilderness without going stark raving mad. 

Like Muir, Kurtis was a preservationist.  A preservationist is one who believes that wilderness must be preserved unhampered and untouched by humans.  Muir never argued that humans were an invasive species, but Kurtis wasn't sure that 'invasive species' was even a term or concept during Muir's life. He was sure that, were Muir alive today and knew about invasive species, he would agree with Kurtis' conclusion. 

"You're obvious preaching to the choir," said Stanley, "but you have to admit that all species put their survival above everything else."

"That's quite true," replied Kurtis, "but other species eat what they kill. Humans kill for fun and kill unnecessarily. To hunt and kill a bear solely for the pleasure of killing it, stuffing it and standing it in a corner, is not survival.  Purposely attempting to extinguish a species is not survival. Other species may not understand that they are a part of a delicate cycle of life on earth, but they play their part. Humans could understand but don't care to understand and do not play their part. When they spread out over every ecosystem and totally disrupt that systems balance, that is the behavior of an invasive species, not an indigenous species."

"Whoa," laughed Mabel. "We're on your side."

"I know," apologized Kurtis. "I know you are and I'm sorry, but it is getting harder and harder to try to explain to people that understanding this isn't anti-human. It is about the survival of the human species as well. Then you get nothing but blank, 'who-gives-a-shit' looks."  Kurtis took a long sip of his wine and leaned back looking at the ceiling. 

"I know it's hard," said Mabel. "But you are a great advocate. Most of the time those same sanctimonious, god-fearing, assholes are the ones who take away our funding when our research may well mean their prosperity as well as their survival. We're living off our retirement." 

"Yeah," joined Stanley, "if we don't get some funding soon we may be bunking with you."  They all laughed a hard and almost bitter laugh.  It was only funny visualizing all of them living in Kurtis' small cabin. The rest was not funny. It was heartbreaking. 

"You're good people," said Kurtis seriously.  "I don't have much, but I don't need much to live in the mountains. I'll fund your work." 

Soon the fire began to die and the three friends said good night. 

* * *

The next morning Kurtis' supplies were loaded onto Clarabell, the Sturgous' mule, along with a shovel, large cross-cut saw, and some other tools. Stanley had convinced Kurtis to let him come along to bring Carabell back. Kurtis gave Mabel a hug and the two men headed north along the creek into Gibson Valley.

The supplies made life a lot easier for Kurtis. It also gave him some hope that he would survive the winter. He had brought five large containers filled with food, cooking utensils, clothes, tools, nails and items to make his hut a bit more comfortable. With the saw Kurtis was able to make a saw pit which enabled him to make planks and shingles.

By the end of October the snow was beginning to accumulate and signs of winter were everywhere. Kurtis was returning from fishing and stood looking at his new home with pride. Since over half of the height was earth it was almost unnoticeable at a distance. The steep pitched roof actually had wooden shingles. There were two windows just below the logs that looked more like slits than windows, but they let in light. With the saw, the saw pit and other tools he had been able to frame the widows and make shutters. On either side of the door were long cords of wood. A few of the cords were covered with tarps. The rest were covered with branches to provide some protection from the snow.

Inside Kurtis had planked the floor and lined the walls. At the east end of the hut was a stone hearth. On both sides of the hearth fire wood was stacked to the ceiling. As he expected, he didn't have time to build a chimney. There were other boxes built into the back wall that provided storage. Two oil lamps hung from the ceiling equal distance from each side and one hanging above the food preparation area. There was a simple table and chair near the hearth, a narrow table against the back wall for food preparation, and a bed at the west end of the hut. Mabel had used blankets to pack some of the boxes he had brought from their place. He was still sleeping in his -20 sleeping bag but the blankets allowed him to sleep on top of the bag if it wasn't too cold and they added a homey, comfortable touch. They were also nice for sitting around the fire at night. A journal and four books lay on the table next to an oil lamp. One was the complete works of Jules Verne and another was the collected works of Arthur Conan Doyle. The third book was about surviving in the wilderness while the fourth book was entitled "The Skills of the hunter-gatherer". The wall above the food preparation area was covered with edible plants and herbs. Since Kurtis didn't have containers for them, it was easier to hang them.

As the snow began to accumulate and the day-time temperatures continued to drop, Kurtis made constant improvements on his hut in preparation for the days he could not go out. He tried to go fishing frequently and eat fresh fish to preserve his dried food supplies. He also made it a habit to spend a couple of hours cutting and chopping wood. He didn't want to have to go looking for wood in snow that would most likely be over his head. The snow was too deep to dig roots even if he could make the now dangerous descent into the tree-line.

Mosts people who think about spending the winter in the wilderness never think about bodily waste. We still poop and pee. If we don't, we're in big trouble. Kurtis had dug a pit toilet well away from his hut. Excrement attracts predators and while the bears were going into hibernation, there were other predators and bears do sometimes get up during the winter. For convenience he made himself a potty chair to go over his bucket which he covered with a piece of tarp.  He kept several large bags of sawdust from his building. Sawdust was a good absorbent and helped with smell. He would also put the ash from his fire and burned pine leave in the bucket and pit toilet to helpe to keep the bucket from smelling up the hut.

Long before refrigerators people kept perishables in what is called a root cellar. A root cellar may be anything from a simple box buried in the soft garden soil after the fall harvest to a permanent and roomy cellar dug into the side of a hill or in the ground near the house. The best root cellar stays cold but does not freeze and was near the house. Kurtis dug his root cellar right next to the hut.

As best as Kurtis could calculate it was the second week of November when the first big blizzard hit. He was glad that he had made his roof so steep. It had taken a lot more time and materials but the weight of so much snow would have crushed a less steep roof instead of sliding off like mini-avalanches. Kurtis had carefully chinked and daubed between the logs of his hut and the panels he had added later gave an extra layer of insulation and protection from drafts. The hut was actually warm enough that he could wear only a flannel shirt with his wool trousers.

Kurtis felt good about his hut and his preparations. He had worked hard. Now all that could be done was to survive. Sitting at his table near the fire with a large tin cup of hot white pine needle tea, Kurtis opened the journal. He thought a moment and began to write.

Day seventy-three of my self-imposed exile. I can not go out because of the storm. The wind is roaring around me but my huts is standing strong. I have no idea when I will be able to go outside again. To date I have been able to avoid using any of my winter provisions. I still have a bit of fresh fish for this evening. Now begins the ultimate test. I have done everything I could, in the time available, to relearn survival skills that my species has long forgotten and reunite myself with our true nature. Despite the hard work I have grown to love my new home and feel quite comfortable. The work is purposeful and rewarding. I look around my hut with pride. Barring injury, disease or animal attack, I feel confident that I should not only survive but experience a magnificent learning experience. Few humans, especially the contiguous forty-eight states, get to winter on top of the world.

* * *

It was mid-April. The snow in the Gibson valley was almost gone. Mabel and Stanley Sturgous were preparing for some spring expeditions into the back-country to try to find some of the elk they had tagged the year before. As they prepared they talked about Kurtis. They wondered whether he had survived the particularly harsh winter. In their valley they had had record snow fall. They could only imagine the amount of snow at over 8,000 feet up.

Ultimately they decided to combine a back country expedition with a visit to Kurtis' hut, if they could get there. They loaded a few extra food items just in case Kurtis had run out of food, clamped on their snow shoes, hoisted their packs and headed north up the Gibson Valley. Soon the landscape was solid white in all directions.

After several hours of difficult travel Stanley stopped and pointed to the hanging valley above them.

"Do you see that giant boulder sticking up like a tooth?" Stanley asked Mabel.

"Yes," she replied.

"Kurtis' hut is up against that boulder," said Stanley continuing their trek.

As they grew close to the hut both of the experienced back-country travelers showed signs of dismay. They didn't need to do more than look at each other to communicate their concern. There was no smoke coming from the hut.

They approached and called Kurtis' name. There was no reply.

They knocked on the door but there was no answer.

Hesitantly they went in side. The bed was neatly made and Kurtis' journal lay on the table. The fire was dead and there was scarcely a half-cord of wood next to the hearth. Having just opened the door and having been outside for so long they could not accurately judge the warmth of the room. After their long hike anything would feel warmer.

No words were exchanged. Obviously Kurtis had not died of starvation or the cold, but there were many other possibilities. They did not see any tracks near the cabin but, if there were, they could have easily been covered by snowfall. They stood outside the hut looking around when a figure appeared from the direction of the lakes.

It was Kurtis. He waved. He had a broad smile and held up a stringer of fish. His long braided hair protruded from under the ear-flaps of his rugged Tilly hat and his gray beard was bushy. He looked lean but walked toward them with strength and confidence.

As he approached the Sturgous saw another figure running toward Kurtis. It was a large black wolf. Stanley started to raise his rifle. "No!" yelled Kurtis as the wolf slowed and fell into step with Kurtis, "this is my friend Omahkapi'si."

Seeing the strangers Omahkapi'si began to growl and take a defensive posture. Kurtis leaned down, patted the animal on the back as he spoke softly into its ear. The wolf relaxed but remained vigilant as Kurtis ran the last few yards and gave his friends a bear hug.

After hugs, salutations and a brief explanation by the Sturgous as to why they were there, the three friends and Omahkapi'si went into the hut. As Kurtis lighted a fire he explained that he always extinguished his fire when he went out since he didn't have a proper fireplace. He didn't want to find himself without a home in the dead of winter.

Soon there was a warm fire and fresh fish cooking on the grill.

"I saved this to celebrate surviving the winter," explained Kurtis pulling a bottle of Montana Bourbon from a storage box in the wall. "Now seems an appropriate time to open it."

His friends smiled and laughed. It was indeed a time for celebration. Kurtis served up a gourmet meal of grilled fish on a bead of rice with a side of cooked plantain and wild onion and steaming hot white pine needle tea. For Omahkapi'si there was a large slab of meat on which the wolf chewed while lying near Kurtis. The friends ate as they listened to Kurtis tell his story.

Jack Gladstone - Program Review

We went to a terrific program by Blackfeet musician, song writer, historian and environmentalist, Jack Gladstone, with our great friends and colleagues, Tom and Kathy Spaulding. It was an outstanding program presented by Glacier National Park. As we were leaving and buying Mr. Gladstone's CD "Native Anthropology" I was given strict instruction by the ladies to write a review and made to understand that it was to more than adequately reflect what we had witnessed.

Jack Gladstone - the son of a Blackfeet father and a German mother - is called "Montana's Blackfeet Troubador". The word troubadour actually describes a medieval French poet who composed and sang songs, mostly about courtly love. With this understand I could not call Jack Gladstone a troubadour.

As Jack pointed out, his generation are returning to the reservation, supporting their history and culture in an effort to meet the "challenge, choice and promise of the 21st century." That just happens to be part of the title of his award winning CD, "Native Anthropology".

The music was excellent. Jack is not only an excellent performer, he is an outstanding composer and the man who played mandolin, keyboard and steel guitar was tremendous. Between songs he would tell us the history that prompted each song. He had a great video presentation behind his singing. A great deal of it was the work of Charlie Russell, the famous Montana artist of the early 20th century. His well researched and well documented stories and accounts dealt with the true invasion (colonization) by the white man, the life of Charlie Russell who spent his life painting the west that was being destroyed, the experiences of his parents and grandparents going back well into the 19th century, and the destruction of one of the last vestiges of the magnificent wilderness.

No, I wouldn't call Jack Gladstone a troubadour. I'd call Jack Gladstone a powerful protest singer. With the greatest of skill and gentlest of manner he smacks his audience with the two-by-four of reality.

At the end of the program the applause was what I would call barely adequate in light of the quality and message of the program. I wanted to stand up clap and shout. I wonder whether the others in the audience suffered from one of two scenario: (1) they were expecting a native American acting like the "Indian" of the 1950s - Tonto - and were a bit set back by the truth, or (2) they listened carefully and, realizing the truth of Jack's words, they felt a bit sad and embarrassed at the behavior of white Americans then and now, and their slightly subdued applause was saying, with heads bowed in respect, 'thank you for sharing the truth.' I certainly hope it was the latter.

Thank you, Jack Gladstone. Keep up the good work.

Living a Real Life

The forest is still and quiet. The giant trees stand like stately pillars holding up the roof of green. Among them there is no sign of movement. What light penetrates the heavy canopy of cedar and hemlock is soft like that just before the night. What animals are out there are quietly feeding or resting protected from the rain.

It was raining for a long time before the water began to reach the dry soil. We knew it was raining because we could hear it high above. The rain is beginning to penetrate the forest roof and drop gently on our roof. Gentle rain on a roof can be a soothing sound and lull one to sleep.

I made myself a giant cup of tea. As I looked out at the idyllic scene I began to slip into almost a trance-state while my mind was flooded with thoughts, ideas and passing philosophical questions - not the tough 'what is life?' type of question but the soft 'how am I so lucky to be enjoying this time?' type of question. Such is the philosophical enquiry of a rainy day deep in the wilderness away from the torments of so-called civilization. How could one not be overcome with awe of the gentleness of such great power? How could one not want to be here able to contemplate such beauty and grace? How could one not ask whether they are actually experiencing life as it was really meant to be?

Such a question does not ignore the dangers and frequent hardships of wilderness life. Surviving the winter, for example, is a danger and a hardship. Staying warm and having sufficient food dominates the thoughts and actions of all those spending the winter in the wilderness.

In the wilderness survival is a way of life, a way of behaving, the way of nature. Survival isn't a concept or philosophical hypothesis to be considered. It is a matter of living life. Actually it is a matter of living an uninhibited life, a full life, that is ultimately beneficial to all of nature.

We know that there must be predators. Some predators will die from accidents and some even from the failure to kill food, but their life in unimpeded by a fear of that reality. If a sufficient number of predators don't kill a sufficient number of ungulates the ungulates will over-graze causing plant loss and failure which will effect the flow and clarity of the water, etc., etc., with the end result of a dying ecosystem. Perhaps the best known study that proved this reality was in Yellowstone National Park where all of the wolves had been killed. There was a period in National Park Service history where they thought that they should kill all predators. Yellowstone began dying. It was literally saved by the re-introduction of wolves into the habitat. After the re-introduction streams improved, trees returned, meadows became healthy, and the ungulates as well as the predators had sufficient food.

Real life . . . a good life . . . isn't determined by death. We will hear people say at an old person's funeral that 'they had a full life.' Living a long time does not automatic translate into a good, happy or full life. I have known many people who have suffered greatly to an old age. One could not call their life good, happy or full. Just long. I have known people who have died young but who had died doing something they loved and were happy with their life. I look at myself and realize that there is a third group - viz. those who live into old age and are still experiencing a good, full and happy life. Occasionally I say to Pamela, "pinch me". I need to confirm that this isn't a dream.

I shudder at the word 'civilization' because the mere definition of the word assumes a false superiority of the crowded, artificial city over the rural or wilderness. I would challenge the idea that civilization is the 'real world', but I realize that, for perhaps a majority of people, it would be a fruitless effort to engage in such an argument. In modern society we have been taught that the city, 'civilization', etc., is not only real but superior and necessary. I can not tell you how many people I hear who have fallen in love with the wilderness yet speak of the necessity of returning to 'reality' or 'civilization.' They speak that way because they have been raised to believe that is a true statement. The only truth is that much of humanity must suffer incarceration in cities and densely populated areas because we are like the ungulates who have overpopulated and over-grazed the land because there are no predators.

Nature has perfected itself over billions of years of experience. We know that nature has the ability to recover and adapt. There are many, including many scientists and religious people, who believe that nature will recover and adapt to the destruction by the homo sapiens. It will start by eliminating homo sapiens.

The idea that humans really know better than nature and/or can improve upon nature is beyond absurd. Actually such a belief has proven to be exceptionally destructive. In reality, were it not for our horribly destructive behavior, humans would be a very insignificant part of nature. At this point in earth history we serve absolutely no positive or beneficial purpose. Even the lowly house fly serves a far greater purpose than humans. A cancer cell serves no beneficial purpose to the body but can mean the death of the body. Our bodies fight to remove the cancer cell. The only salvation from the cancer is to kill it.

I do not believe that we were destined to be what we are and I'm not going to bother arguing my case for this belief. I do believe that Dr. Yusal Noah Harari was correct when he said that humans would have quickly become extinct if they had remained the insignificant species of primates in northeastern Africa. He went on to talk about our ability to convince large groups of 'fictitious reality' as the means of our success. But that's a thesis in its own merit. I do believe that by exhibiting basic survival nature; viz. moving into new areas in search of food and shelter, and learning to adapt; we grew into what we are today. However, I do not believe that survival necessitated us purposely alienating ourselves from the nature which sustains us and losing our natural survival skills.

As I look at the forest I feel a sense of oneness. I feel in tune with the deer, bear and other animals I encounter. The other day we stood almost to toe-to-toe with a bear. He wanted to go by us to find food in the campground. We weren't going to let him. I was very respectful of his power and his ability to kill me and so I carried my bear spray. At the same time, looking into the bear's face I did not see anger or animosity. He was attempting to understand and analyze my behavior in the same way as I was trying to understand and analyze his. I never took my safety off my spray. He decided to try to go around me and we met on the other side of the tree.

Human superiority complex would have me believe that I intimidated him, causing him to leave. I knew that I was standing in front of him for his own safety. If he had been successful in passing me and finding human food in the campground it would have been his death warrant. I didn't want him to die that way. I didn't want him to die from being struck by a car. I wanted him to go back across the road and live the good life of a free and healthy bear. Could he understand that? Probably not in the way we think of understanding.

The young bear, moose, deer or any other animal which must be abandoned or run off by their own mothers for their own survival and the survival of the species probably do not understand that behavior in the way a human would explain understanding, but they accept and soon adapt.

In comparison to life in the city of a person with sufficient resources, I'm sure our wilderness life seems quite harsh and uninviting. They live in large areas that are cooled in heat and heated in the cold. There is a wasteful over-abundance of food, total lack of concern to conserve water and no concern for fuels. Only those known as the "haves" would argue the superiority of the heavily populated areas. The poor among the humans is the poorest of the poor in nature. The member of the herd who is not able to care for themselves and/or contribute to the survival of the herd will probably end up as food for a predator but not because the greed of one or more members of the herd. Greed is a human condition. Granted the strongest in the herd will get to breed more and be the first one to eat and eat its fill, but it won't hoard resources. It isn't greed. Many species will actually attempt to protect the weakest as long as possible. Our behavior as a species is definitely not superior to other animals, but I don't want to get started talking about human behavior. The point is, that while there are those who have the resources to enjoy the comforts of the city, that doesn't make the city either more comfortable or safer or more desirable. If one would research the ancestry of people now living in places like Glacier's North Fork, where there are no public utilities and they resist the blacktopping of the one road into the area, I believe you would find that they are the children of people who escaped the city to survive and in favor of a simpler life with the essentials of life.

While those who have the resources to enjoy the comforts of the city will; despite its restrictions, bad air and totally artificial facade; still argue its superiority, no one can argue that such a caged and limited life is our true nature. One can only deny that we are animals that have tried so hard to divest ourselves of our true identity that we are fubar.

It is possible to live in harmony with our true nature but it isn't easy. The only reason that it isn't easy is because we have become so conditioned, so habituated to what we have been taught are comforts that we must re-learn what was once instinctual. At one point in our human history, as an omnivore, we would have been similar to our brother bear. It seems that there is a chemical group called epigenes attached to DNA that may well be chemical memory that can be passed from generation to generation. Since scientists have found the epigene in humans and we are structurally almost identical to other mammals, I am going to assume that bears and other animals also have epigenes. Have we lost the epigene that helped us find our way to a salt-lick or food source? When I was in school in Dublin in the early 1970s there were some English scientists who were doing research to support their hypothesis that humans, at one time, had the navigational skills of other species. The greatest pianist will lose her ability to play if she goes for an extended period of time without playing a piano. The greatest pitcher or football player will lose their skills after a period of not playing no matter how great they originally were. For some time I ran 40-50 mile trail runs. To get so that running all day long was natural and comfortable I ran an average of 80 miles or more a week. After a couple of years I was more comfortable running than walking. When I came to the Rocky Mountains I learned that trail runners are known as 'fast food for mountain lions.' I stopped running 80 miles a week. I can still run but it is no longer more comfortable and I definitely can not do it all day long. As a species I believe that we have learned the hard way that if you don't use it you lose it.

If we accept and work to understand how we have been conditioned to believe that we are not natural animals, we can purposely re-learn skills long ago lost. I believe that I have some fairly good skills for living in the mountains and I am attempting to hone those skills and learn new ones. But I am not sure how long I would live if I were just to walk away into the woods. My intestines are elongated so that I do not have the ability to deal with spoiled food as do other species. I no longer have the epigene information, or whatever, that enables other species to find edible plants or safely traverse mountain passes in search of food and shelter.

Sitting here looking out at the forest I feel drawn. If I were not painfully aware of how much I still have to learn before I could ever consider returning to the nature that beckons me, I would gladly give so-called civilization . . . society . . . the finger and return to my true nature.

The rain has stopped. Watching life around me breathe in the freshness of the rain I can almost hear it give a sigh of contentment. Life has flourished for another day. Undoubtedly there were those who did not survive today but they did not die in vain. They were not sealed in boxes to keep them from being mingled with Mother Earth. Their bodies provide nutrients for the soil and likely food for others. Those who survive have grown and learned and will pass along their knowledge to the next generation. Other species do not want to suffer and do not want to die, but their lives are not tormented by the fear of death. They live with every ounce of their being, neither contemplating their death nor whether there is some sort of life after death.

We are a part of the nature and life of this magnificent planet. I feel so sad that so many people do not understand this or do not choose to believe it. As I gaze at any wilderness area; whether the heavily forested Pacific northwest, the badlands, the swamps of Florida, the great plains or desert; I see life and find peace. I want to walk into it and become whole again. But I realize that I can not do that. I must content myself with living close to the wilderness, spending as much time as possible in the wilderness trying to learn what my species has forgotten, doing my best to protect the nature I love, and endeavoring with my whole being to lead others to love, cherish, protect and live in peace with their true nature.

Wilder

My friend, Wilder, left last week. He had told me that he might, but I didn't believe him. I had gone by his camp earlier in the morning and we had talked a long time over coffee. He was quite calm and we had a good time. We talked about the seasons, the animals, and the mountains. We had a good time, but Wilder's face was lined with sadness and worry and this morning something in his eyes told me this was the day.

I saw his backpack leaning up against a tree with his poles. He took his pack anytime he hiked. He always said "you don't have to be twenty miles from the trail head to need this." Normally the pack he carried on a day hike contained only food, water and basic survival gear and weighed less than twenty-five pounds. One look at this pack and I knew that it was packed for a long trek. It had a sleeping bag and had to weigh in at forty pounds minimum.

I didn't say anything to him and I didn't ask any questions. He knew that I noticed his pack. Any other time he would have been anxious to tell me where he was going. If he had wanted, he would have told me. I usually give him a bear hug when we part. At our age we never know if we'll see each other again. I gave him a particularly tight squeeze and he did the same.

I don't usually stop by Wilder's place in the late afternoon. You don't just stop by. It's one of those places you must be intentionally going to. I tried to come up with all sorts of reasons I was stopping by so late, but it didn't matter. Wilder was gone. His camp was, as usual, pristine - no animal attractants and no rewards left out. Wilder and his pack were gone.

As I slowly walked back to my car I wondered if I would ever see him again. No, I concluded, not likely.

What could ever drive a man to shun society, scoff at many pleasures and luxuries, and purposely disappear into the wilderness? For most people to encounter such a man would be unbearably perplexing. Such a man must be mad. Would you not agree? Look at what he is abandoning. He totally divested himself of everything that humanity had spent centuries obtaining and developing. How was he to survive? How can any person live apart from civilization. Just consider the definition of civilization - "the stage of human social development and organization which is considered most advanced ... the comfort and convenience of modern life, regarded as available only in towns and cities." Besides the question of survival how could anyone stand living outside of society? Human society is the greatest thing on the face of the earth.

One man. Well, at least one man of whom we know . . . the one man about whom this is written, doesn't believe that. When we would talk he would actually express shame at being a human.

For his entire life Wilder had worked in what is called, by Americans, a helping professions. He had been at other peoples' beckon call twenty-four hours a day for his entire work life. He confessed that he was very naive. Despite how well he knew the human animal, he attempted to find and expected the best from them. The extent of his disappointment was unfathomable. You see, Wilder was 99% Buddhist.

The Dalai Lama once said that Buddhism is 99% philosophy of life and 1% religion. If anything could describe Wilder it was the 99% of Buddhism that is philosophy of life. He knew religion well and had studied it for decades before concluding that religion is one of humanities biggest evils. Buddhism teaches that humans are, by nature, good. Wilder wanted to believe that in the worst way.

Wilder grew up post World War II. He grew up during the escalation of the cold war where they had regular atomic bomb drills hiding under their desks at school. Anybody, even a grade school student, knew that the stupid desk wasn't going to protect them from the blast of an atomic bomb. He also had to contend with Joe McCarthy and 'a communist in every closet.' What a crock! But Joe was a Senator According to Wilder, he was fubar. Wilder was at the point where he felt that human society was fubar.

Wilder also had to deal with Viet Nam, civil rights, and other issues from the 1960s. Like hundreds of thousands of other men his age Wilder had to participate in an absurd war in which he not only had no desire to participate but a war which he felt was totally unjustified. Wilder didn't like any war but that one was just the first of a string of wars based solely on a profit motive. No matter how much the politicians tried to convince the population that these wars were patriotic, Wilder wouldn't buy it. Politicians were and are killing young people for political power and wealth.

I don't really have time to tell you everything about Wilder's life. Apart from being one of the lucky ones, his life wasn't particularly noteworthy. It was Wilder who would point out how lucky he was. He had a good education - a PhD - and was able to earn more in a day or two than most people around him could earn in a week. However, he was still far enough down the chain of command and power that he only ever saw a fraction of that. He would tell me how he tried to be a good Buddhist and be optimistic but the ugly reality of humanity would always drag him down. When he left he had accepted life in a fatalistic way. Early on he was aware of the true nature of the homo sapiens but every time he tried to work and make a difference he was beaten down. Each time he was beaten down it took more and more effort to get up and do it again.

Some friends wanted me to guide them on a hike a few days after Wilder left. I took advantage of the situation to track Wilder. All the way up the mountain, after we passed his camp, I told them stories of his love for all nature and how he worked to keep his own species from destroying the world.

"All animals desire and are entitled to the same things - peace and freedom from pain". For Wilder this meant the ability to survive and raise young without fear. It didn't mean that if you were a deer you wouldn't end up dinner for a mountain lion. It did mean the ability to live life to its fullest without someone or something destroying your food sources and slaughtering your species.

"Humans have a unique ability to rationalize and abstract," Wilder would say. "but it seems that this unique gift was more Pandora's Box."

A few hours above Wilder's camp we came to a Y in the trail. Knowing the trail I figured that Wilder probably took to the high country, but I couldn't be certain. The other fork of the trail led even deeper into the wilderness. I looked around carefully. It had been dry since Wilder would have passed this way but dry can also make tracking difficult. As the others watched me with curiosity, I noticed small holes in the earth. Wilder never hiked without his poles. He had turned north-east. There was a back-country campsite some miles up. Wilder never camped in the back-country without the proper permits, but since he had now been gone several days, I figured that he wasn't worrying about protocol any more.

As we followed Wilder's marks I shared how he did follow rules. Wilder felt that good order was beneficial to the entire pack, herd, tribe or species. He would point out that if you studied the social structure of other animal species you would find good order. There were rules but the rules always provided for the survival of the species not the pleasure and/or benefit of a few.

Wilder was appalled and ashamed of the way humans treated one another as well as other species. He would point out how we devise rules most often for the benefit of a few. He would talk about the social structure of species like mountain goats and point out that despite how difficult their society appeared there was no cruelty for the sake of cruelty. There is a hierarchy based upon strength and power among other animal species, but the power struggles are so that the strongest bull gets to breed first or most often. The strongest and most powerful eat first and eat their fill but still do not hoard food and keep it from the others. Carnivorous species kill other animals for food, not for pleasure. One of Wilder's favorite stories is about the grizzly bear who was drinking from a lake. Three ducks sat on a log within easy reach. The bear was evidently full. He did not need to kill the duck so he didn't. Wilder didn't believe that is true of humans.

About five miles further up the trail we arrived at a back-country campsite. I was looking around for signs of Wilder when one of my hiking companions held up a zip-lock bag containing sheets of paper. "It's addressed to you," he said. "It was here under a rock."

My pulse raced as I removed three sheets of lined paper from the bag.

"My dearest Othel, I knew that you would not be able to resist following me. Good job on the tracking. Omahkap'si would be proud of you."

Omahkap'si is the Blackfeet word for wolf.

"I'm sure you know what I'm doing. At this point in time I have no intentions of returning. I'll either die of old age or because my skills are not sufficient to the task of survival. Either way I will be where I want to be.

"I know you understand how disenfranchised I feel in my own society and how ashamed I am of my species. We create deities in our own image to justify rape and slaughter. You know that I have tried to either physically be a part of efforts to repair the damage we've done and educate people about the consequences of our behavior, or supported those who are doing so. But I'm afraid that I have finally lost hope.

"The affairs of the world and our society in specific drive me to believe that there is no turning back. There is no way to sufficiently reduce our carbon footprint, to reduce our population enough that we stop destroying the life sources of other species. To repair what we have done to date would require sacrifice that most humans would be unwilling to make. I no longer have the physical or emotional strength to endure. I look at the politicians who now want to govern our nation and am aghast. One preaches hatred and his only skill is corporate rape. You know that he will sell our beloved wilderness to some oil company for the profits. Even our best choice thinks that the only species entitled to life is homo sapiens. Humans do not want to accept that the world would be better off without us. We are the most destructive invasive species ever known and soon you will not have to believe in some archaic religion to know the meaning of hell.

"But, dear friend, I am like the old warrior who must pass the gauntlet. I do not know how my idols like John Muir continued to fight until death. It is not dying for the cause that is so repugnant. It is seeing how so many politicians are anxious to give our natural treasures to their rich friends to exploit and leave useless to any animal species that is so repulsive. It is seeing people willing to let them do it because they say 'you won't have gasoline or air conditioning if we don't do this.' It is religion trying to justify the rape of Mother Nature by saying some deity they fabricated told them humans can do that because they're the most important animal. I can handle people calling me names and ridiculing me because I don't think humans are the most important thing in the universe. What I really find hard is that it seems that so few people really care. They don't believe that they could actually see their children and grandchildren die because of human destructiveness, and when we do win a small victory, or even a big one, realizing that it isn't enough.

"No, dear friend, I have run out of hope and strength. I need to get to spend some time before I die in the wilderness I have worked so hard to protect and to die in its peace. I would rather my body feed brother Kiaayo than separated from the earth by boxes of metal and concrete like some relic.

"One thing I ask. Tell my story. If it helps one young person realize their oneness with all living things, my life will not have been in vain."

I stood looking at the paper and the small group stood looking at me. My eyes filled with tears. I scanned the forest that surrounded me. Wilder might be miles away or he might be watching. I held Wilder's letter high in the air and blubbered like a baby.

On the way back to Wilder's camp where we spent the night I took the first step at fulfilling his last request of me . . . "tell my story".

Pandora's Box

The Truth of Pandora's Box

Russell E. Vance, III PhD

with Pamela S. Smith, MS (i)

Most people - scholars to the "average joe" - view Pandora's Box as a myth. Rightly so. The scary thing is that I believe that there is some truth to the myth, which is not infrequent, and I think I know what happened.

Myths - gods, creation stories, etc. - are created and told in an attempt to explain what we do not understand. In this case, I believe that I have discovered the source of our own destruction and our attempt to destroy the world in which we live. It all happened in one of the frequent philosophical or scientific conversations that Pamela and I so enjoy.

Assuming that you agree that homo sapiens are destroying themselves and the world that supports them, what one word would you use to describe the cause? Greed? We do not seem to be happy with a most magnificent planet and the means to live and be happy. We want more wealth. We want to indulge ourselves with what we call luxury. We want more power. We want it all at the expense of our planet and other equally deserving species.

To have some idea of the extent of our lives in relationship to the world today, it would be less than a blink of an eye. Yet we believe that that infinitesimally small amount of time is more important than the existence of the world. Why?

This is the result of Pandora's Box. I believe that the content of Pandora's Box was the ability to abstract.

Pamela's input and argument is very helpful in such situations. My original idea was that Pandora's Box contained both greed and the ability to abstract. Pamela challenged that and after some lengthy discussion we came to the conclusion that the real cause of greed, among other things some of which are good, is the ability to abstract. Abstract thought can be used to consider complex phenomena in the universe and it can be used to justify an evil deed.

Let's use a standard definition of abstract - "existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence." (ii) Now we can consider that, through the complexity of abstract thought, how the homo sapien conceives of a deity who makes the human the most important animal on the planet. We have no physical or concrete evidence. We have only the complexity of abstract thought that concludes that we are the most important species on the earth because some homo sapiens created a deity to justify such a belief. We completely ignore the evidence that, if we were to suddenly disappear from the earth, the world would not miss us. To the contrary, the world would heal and prosper. Therefore we are not the most important species on the planet. As Pamela said, "cynano bacteria would be," because that is the most basic and oldest source of oxygen on the planet.

Hold your arms out to the side. Now consider that the finger tip of your right arm is the beginning of our planet and the finger tip of your left hand is current time. All of human existence would be in the last cell on your left finger-tip. We, as individuals, are on a microscopic part of that. How can we argue that we are more important than the whole or the future?

Analytical thinking might well be our salvation. Analytical thinking is what enables us to realize that the abstraction we use to justify our superiority complex and greed is full of shit.

Greed goes far beyond wanting whatever it is to survive and prosper. We don't find greed among other animal species. For example, they kill to eat, procreate and survive not for fun or a trophy.

I believe that we can make a convincing argument that greed is dependent upon the ability to abstract. As far as we can tell, no other animal species abstracts. Other species may manifest what we call selfishness, but we soon realize that their selfishness is different than ours. Their selfishness is dependent upon survival and the survival of the species. They put their survival above that of others because that is a natural part of survival of the species. Greed is very different. Greed does not care whether it promotes the survival of the species. When humans are greedy they do not care about the survival of homo sapiens. It is all about the comfort and pleasure of the individual for their insignificantly small existence on earth.

Whatever in the world could be the up-side to this? I ask this question so that this entire monogram isn't just one big downer. We are a part of nature. Everything is a part of nature. It just happens that, at this moment, we are a destructive part of nature. We do have the ability to be a productive part of nature. We can use both our abstract and analytic skills to find ways repair the damage we have done. We can use those skills to figure out how we can be a positive, not negative, part of the world - not believing that we are superior but accepting our place and living in concert and union with the rest of the natural world.

FOOT NOTES:

(i) for those of you who do not know Pamela, she is a biology professor who has a passionate love of nature and natural sciences - a true naturalist. She will climb a mountain to see stromatolites that billions of years ago were at the bottom of a shallow sea. She takes pictures of plants and searches the forest for specific plants such as an orchid that grows in the northern Rocky Mountains. She will stand toe-to-toe with a young black bear if it means his survival. We are the only couple I have ever know to take 5 hours to drive 40 miles of the Going-to-the-Sun Road because we stopped everywhere we were allowed and got out our topographic maps along with our natural history and geology books to study what we were seeing. Whether we are talking philosophy, quantum physics or natural science, our discussions are priceless.

(ii) New Oxford American Dictionary, third edition, 2005, Oxford University Press, Inc. eBook copyright @ 2008.

Consciousness - Search for a definition

CONSCIOUSNESS - Search for a Definition

Russell E. Vance, III, PhD.

I do think that I put the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse when I wrote about whether consciousness creates reality. As I became more serious about my investigation I realized that such a question is several steps advanced of those questions which have yet to be answered. One such question is 'what is consciousness?' Here I am not talking about a simple definition of a word which we casually apply to being aware of oneself and the phenomena around us. I am talking about the definition of a process or a condition. You see, I'm already in trouble. Perhaps I should state the question "what is consciousness? ... really!"

Facing this question I have, at this writing, identified seven (7) assumptions, six (6) questions, and concluded that none of it can be tested because the tested and the testor would be the same. Further there is no physical and objective way to test anything because whatever we "observe" is a matter of how our brain interprets the sensory input. We don't really see, hear, feel, taste or smell. Our brain interprets electro-chemical signals. The label or definition which we apply to whatever we think we see, hear, feel, taste or smell is something we have learned from some source. Well, you see the problem. I won't belabor this problem further, at least at this point.

After reviewing a number of different definitions of consciousness I realized that I didn't like any of them. They are all based upon an assumption(s) which I do not believe can be made. Since this paper is merely a preliminary report of progress, which is actually being written more for myself than for a reader, I'm not going to take the extensive amount of time required for a review of literature. Since I'm not writing for a faculty committee, you, my willing reader, must be my committee and judge whether skipping the review of literature at this point is acceptable.

I must share my list of assumptions to date.

Firstly, only a living organism can be conscious. Based upon current definitions of consciousness, which I have already confessed I do not like, only a living organism can be aware of itself and/or its surroundings. This obviously requires a lot more investigation. This can never be more than assumption because there is no way to test or prove that only a living organism can be conscious. In fact, I can only assume that you are alive and/or conscious because you tell me which is dependent upon my brain's interpretation of sensory input. There is no objective test because there is no test that is not dependent upon this interpretation.

Second assumption - consciousness is real. This is a true, unsubstantiated assumption. What I am calling the "matrix theory" would challenge this assumption. Laugh if you like, but the "matrix theory" is based upon the movie "The Matrix" where people only thought they were conscious. Please forgive me if I don't take the time, at this point, to explain further. I will clarify this soon. I think you get the basic idea and the basic challenge to our assumptions about consciousness. It seems obvious that I am thinking but how do I know that I am actually conscious? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The third assumption is that if only a living organism can be conscious and an inanimate or dead organism can not be conscious, then consciousness must be related to being alive. If consciousness has anything to do with awareness, a rock, for example, has very little change of being conscious. While most have little objection to this assumption, there are those who believe that objects such as rocks have, for the lack of a better term, metaphysical or magical properties which could imply or require consciousness.

My fourth assumption is that the only evidence we have that we are alive is that we think. You will quickly learn that I don't think anyone has improved upon Descarte's "cogito ergo sum". By the end of this monogram I will find my way back to Descarte. I will end up agreeing that because I think therefore I am, but what am I? But again I don't want to get ahead of myself.

Fifth. Something somewhere must be real otherwise there would be no foundation for my thinking. Whether there is universal consciousness or, as humans currently believe, we are individually conscious, I can not help but feel that there is something real behind it.

Assumption six might appear a bit self-centered but because you are merely the interpretation of my brain as a result of a variety of stimuli, I can only consider whether I am real and/or conscious. I can not speak for you. While I do believe in the interdependence of all things in the universe and the basic oneness of all things, which is a totally other discussion, I can not deny that my only evidence of your existence is the electro-chemical stimuli which my brain must interpret. This is, of course, assuming that my brain is physically real. If I can come to some concrete conclusion about my own reality and consciousness, then I can apply that to you, if you want.

You are going to laugh at assumption seven. It comes from the movie Star Trek IV. Spock is being tested by a computer that asked for Kiri-Kin-Tha's first law of metaphysics. The answer was "nothing unreal exists." This is my seventh assumption - nothing unreal exists. If nothing unreal exists, then all things real can, do or did exist. If we are real then we exist. As silly as this may seem, and whether or not Leonard Nimoy who wrote Star Trek IV, meant to be truly philosophical I believe that this could be an important premise.

This brings us to six questions : (1) how do we know that what we think, experience, etc., is real? (2) Am I conscious or do I just think I'm conscious? (3) Which came first consciousness or awareness? (4) How do I know that I'm aware? (5) Are sentient beings the only ones who can be conscious? (6) can any of this be tested?

I have no delusions of this being the final list of questions, but it is where I am beginning.

The first question goes back to the Matrix Theory. How do we know that what we think, experience, etc., is real? Reality is in my mind. Some people believe that gods and devils are real. It is in their minds. There is absolutely no way they can prove their reality and there is absolutely no way I can disprove it. They can say "but look at this miracle" or "so-and-so saw him", but that is still all in their minds, the result of electro-chemical stimuli interpreted by their brain. I can say "there is no physical or scientific evidence for a god or demons" but the same limitations apply to me. Bottom line . . . this is all a mind game. Sorry! Someone can say "but I saw ..." to which I must gently and as diplomatically as possible respond "your brain interpreted the electro-chemical stimuli as ..."

This, of course, leads us to the second question . . . am I conscious or do I just think I'm conscious? This seems like an absurd question if you are unwilling to consider the matrix theory. Again we must realize that everything is in the mind. What we see, hear, etc., is totally dependent upon sensory stimulation. What about what we call a dream? The dream is the mind at work. How do we test the difference between a dream and what we call reality? There is no test because it's all in the mind. I dare say that every person who reads this has, at some point in their life, dreamed that they were awake and it seemed real enough to believe while their bodies lay blissfully asleep.

I'm not going to spend any time here on the third question of which came first consciousness or awareness since this question is directly related to one of the definitions of consciousness. Since I haven't been able to define consciousness it is impossible to determine whether something I can't define came before awareness. Likewise I'm going to skip question four - how do I know that I'm aware? - because I haven't had time to consider the definition of awareness and my knee jerk reaction is that this can't be tested.

Question five - are sentient beings the only ones who can be conscious? This question led me into an area which I have at times considered but didn't expect to arise here. The basic accepted definition of sentient is "able to perceive or feel things". Okay, let's push this. Plants perceive their surroundings and changes in their environment as evidenced by adjustments they make. Plants can be said to feel as evidenced by their reaction to various stimuli. Therefore plants, it could be argued, are sentient. Are they therefore conscious? With the little argument I've provided it is hard to say they are not sentient. Botanist can make a convincing argument. I would love to follow this train of thought further but there isn't time here and I haven't had the opportunity to investigate. You can bet that I will.

The last question is the most important . . . can any of this be tested? Try as I might I must admit that the answer is "no". To test requires that we be both testor and the subject. It is totally dependent upon our own interpretation of the electro-chemical signals which constitute the answers. That's unacceptable. I can't test my own consciousness for this reason. If my brain's interpretation of electro-chemical stimuli is all that convinces me of your existence, how can I adequately test your consciousness?

This leaves me in a very bad position. Here I am searching for an explanation of the process of consciousness and I can't come up with an hypothesis that suits me. And even if I could come up with an hypothesis, I've concluded that there is no way to test said hypothesis. Time to call in the big guns. The Nobel Laureate in physics, Richard Feynman, said of scientific enquiry "First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important step."

I'm sure that Dr. Feynman is much more qualified to guess than am I, but people have been guessing about gods and all sorts of things since the beginning of recorded time and then selling it as 'truth', so I figure that if I'm honest about guessing, it's at least a start.

As I stated earlier I would find my way back to Decartes and here we are. "I think therefore I am", to which I added 'but what am I?' Whether individual or part of a universal consciousness. Whether independent, according to traditional physics and Abrahemic religions, or interdependent and impermanent as per quantum physics and Buddhist philosophy, Descartes' premise holds its own which is more than I can say for other hypotheses and definitions of consciousness.

I don't actually view Descartes' premise as a definition of consciousness but as a foundation or starting point for a definition. The other modern definitions all talk about awareness of self. There are a plethora of objections to and problems with this. The greatest stumbling block is that any definition of awareness must address or include consciousness. If you read these definitions you soon realize that to be aware you must be conscious, therefore how can you argue that to be conscious you must be aware? You have a circular argument. Then they add awareness of external phenomena. That runs head first into the problem of human sense and dependence upon the interpretation of electro-chemical stimuli by our brains. We could make the argument that whether or not the interpretation is accurate or verifiable it does indicate awareness which, in turn, indicates consciousness. However, it does not account for dreams and what psychology calls hallucinations. In medical school I was taught that the reason for an hallucination is a chemical breech across a hypothetical barrier between two portions of the brain. We still have no idea why that chemical imbalance causes one to see, hear, feel, taste and smell things which the external sensory organs of an observer do not see, hear, feel, taste or smell. In short, one can only assume the presence of external objects based upon the belief that our brain's interpretation of the electro-chemical stimuli is accurate. Although we do not really understand the process of a dream or hallucination we do have evidence that they exist which challenges all of our assumptions and raises the question of reality.

While I do believe that consciousness is a process unique to living organisms I do not believe that we can have a definition of consciousness that is dependent upon self-awareness. As I have briefly demonstrated, awareness is fraught with problems and I maintain that we have no viable definition for "self". The only reason that I believe that other homo sapiens have a sense of self is because my audio sensory receptors have sent electro-chemical stimuli to my brain which I have interpreted as telling me this. Since my belief that all homo sapiens have an awareness of self is an assumption which is not testable one can see how impossible it is to speak of the self-awareness of other animal species who do not send signals that are collected by my auditory sensory organ and interpreted as telling me yea or nay.

Even though I do believe that other species of animals do have self-awareness I believe that I would be wise to not have self-awareness as a requirement for consciousness. Apart from all the problems already indicated I believe that, to arrive at a general definition of consciousness, we must consider plant consciousness. Even though the process must obviously be quite different I do not see how I can consider one without the other. At some later point it would be appropriate to differentiate between animal and plant consciousness.

Many, if not most or all, scientist, philosophers, psychologists, researchers, et al., would contend that one is unconscious during sleep. They would also likely talk about the person who is rendered unconscious from a blow to the head. The state which they are calling unconsciousness is similar to sleep in that the unconscious individual does not interact with the world around them in a manner expected which is commonly called "conscious" or "awake". In this way common English vernacular uses 'conscious' and 'awake' interchangeably. Since we can not differentiate the process of thinking between when one is "awake/conscious" and "asleep/unconscious" I feel that I must assume that the process of thinking is the process of thinking whether awake or asleep.

We know that people dream and that dreaming appears to be some sort of thought process that can challenge our traditional definitions of consciousness and reality. Likewise I have known multiple patients who have been "rendered unconscious" yet report dreams and thought. Some have actually reported listening to the conversation of those who thought them unable to hear because of being "unconscious." For several decades first responders have been taught not to talk in front of an "unconscious" victim because they are known to hear and remember.

I had a situation many years ago where a patient appeared to be at death's door. They were not "conscious" and the family was called. The family sat at the death bed for an entire day. Obviously they talked about the dying person. Fortunately everything they had to say was loving and complimentary because the person did not die. When they "regained consciousness" they were able to give a running account of everything that had been said about them.

Unless we can identify different types of thinking - e.g. a difference between conscious-thought and unconscious-thought - we are confronted with a significant challenge to the very idea of unconsciousness while one is alive. Since we have no real idea of the actual physiological process of thinking we have no way to make such a differentiation, which would mean that we would be wise to discontinue the use of "unconscious". Further, from what we know about the brain as an organ, it will continue its transfer of electro-chemical signals, chemical exchange between cell transmitors and receptors, interpretation of signals, etc., until death. In short, death is the only point at which the thought process ceases.

As far as consciousness is concerned, it seems that we are forced to admit that we are only unconscious when we are dead. Otherwise we might be in an interactive state, a dream state, or a neutral state. The interactive state is that state where we are interacting with external phenomena and stimuli . . . kissing your lover, eating ice cream, looking at a beautiful landscape, listening to birds as you smell the freshness after a rain. I picked the word "neutral" to identify that state in which our brains are neither interacting with the external world nor actively dreaming. This is the state during which the brain is actively monitoring the various signals coming from sensors and organs and making decisions about how the body is to react to changes. For example, the brain might sense a drop in temperature and cause your body to curl up to conserve heat. It might sense a drop in oxygen level and cause you to take deep breaths. It might sense danger and cause you to awaken and taken protective action.

The dream state is that state in which the mind deals with internal constructs which we generally hold to be unreal. This forces me to spend at least a few moments considering reality. Even the famous philosopher, Martin Heidegger, in his equally famous work Being and Time, had to face the relationship between reality and consciousness. "In so far as Reality has the character of something independent and 'in itself', the question of the meaning of 'Reality' becomes linked with that of whether the Real can be independent 'of consciousness' or whether there can be a transcendence of consciousness into the 'sphere' of the Real." (1) Of course Heidegger was working at a disadvantage because he was still trying to make an ontological argument. Reality and consciousness, among many things, defy ontological definition or argument.

In their book Quantum and the Lotus, co-author Trinh Xuan Thuan noted the ancient Buddhist notion that "'reality' is never totally distinct from consciousness." (2) His co-author, Matthieu Ricard quoted renowned physicist, David Bohm, who concluded

Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality. (3)

Ricard concludes that "no matter how complex our instruments may be, no matter how sophisticated and subtle our theories and calculations, it's still our consciousness that finally interprets our observations." (4) That does sound a lot like what I've been saying.

All of this leads to my definition of consciousness.

animal consciousness =df the brain function/activity that (i) interprets and reacts to electro-chemical stimuli from sensory organs, initiates response to that stimuli, (ii) initiates and manages the thought process whether in interactive or dream state, (iii) ultimately determines what, for the individual, is real; and (iv) exists, functions or is active until the animal dies.

The next step is to subject this to extreme scrutiny to see if it can pass muster.

FOOT NOTES:

(1) Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. (An electronic edition without eISBN number. Location only - 6795)

(2) Ricard, Matthieu and Trinh Xuan Thuan (2001).Quantum and the Lotus. Three Rivers Press, NYC. p. 119 eISBN: 978-0-307-56612-6 (Originally published in French as L'Infini dans la Paume de la Main)

(3) David Bohn, lecture given at UC Berkeley in 1977.

(4) Quantum and the Lotus, p. 120