A Story of Us, a Story of Now

We must be able to see what we’ve turned a blind eye to.

We must choose to look around at this landscape, this sagebrush steppe, and this alpine tundra- and find ourselves in it again.

We must listen to the stories of those who have been here much longer than us, and be reminded of our role in this great beautiful weave.

We must move further than just an academic relationship to the state of our planet, and push ourselves beyond a framework of environmental management that seeks only seeks solutions.

We must search within our own living communities and find a relationship with the land.

We must turn to the aspens, the wildflowers, the robins, the sage, and the river as they all speak to us.

We must be willing to listen to their message and work together toward restoration.

Restoration of the land, yes.

But foremost a restoration of our relationship to the land.

Restoring our own identity as belonging to this place, as inextricable members of this community.

This is where we belong.

We are not masters, dominators, or directors over the land.

We are not on a pedestal above creation looking down to save it.

We are co-creators.

We are gifted with the opportunity to create connections, to mend wounds, to plant wild seeds and to rebuild relationships that have nourished us since time immemorial.

This land has not forgotten how to care for us, but we humans have forgotten our role in this sustained circle of care.

And as we work together with professionals in the field and hope for a better future for the environment, it is not enough for us to grow our portfolio, we must grow in our compassion and love for this land.

We must let our hearts break.

We must weep over the Gunnison sage grouse whose loyal existence serves as a reminder for the eternal return, but are not promised to be here for our own grandchildren.

We need to let our hearts break over the greenback cutthroat trout whose only home we’ve been degrading for centuries due to our own demands.

We must take responsibility for the vanishing species,

For the overwhelming presence of cheatgrass,

For the raging wildfires premature in their burnings,

For the disappearing water,

for unprecedented spring winds and record-breaking heat.

It is not enough for us to know these things.

It is not enough for us to carry them with us and have them motivate our studies.

It is not enough for us to be accredited masters of environmental management if we are not able to grieve and love this world.

For when we begin to see ourselves embedded within this vast and beautiful terrain, we have no option to look away.

When we see ourselves in this great story, not just as the creators of the catastrophe, but as co-creators in restoration, we find the strength to love and grieve and dance in ancient relationship...

So we must use the time that we’ve been given to not just study and understand the dynamic landscapes within The Gunnison Valley,

but we must learn the names of the mountains, the medicine, the color of aspens in every season, the refuge of willows, the fragrance of the blooming sage, the gift of the sun, and the abundance of food resiliently growing in the roots below our feet--

we must open ourselves to all that is still here patiently waiting for us to remember our relationship with them.

A relationship beyond recreation and dominion, an active reciprocal relationship of love.

We must love this land as it loves us.

For if we do not love this world as ourselves, we will be able to look away.

We will look at the crisis we’ve created through a cultural lens of human consumerism and justify the necessary means to preserve our status quo.

So let us not look away from what we are learning.

Let us move closer, lean deeper into the grief and let it wildly transform us into a relationship of empathy and understanding with the natural world that loves us back so deeply.

Let us bear witness to the radical transformation that accompanies belonging. Let’s allow our time in the field, on the river, around the starlit campfires with friends to move us into something greater than ourselves.

So that our personal shifts might inform a cultural one.

We must let our hearts break for the human narrative of exceptionalism and work towards beginning again.

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Created and Edited by: Mackenzie Sains

Music: The Golden West by Marisa Anderson

Video Filter Created by: Janmahaven

Created through Western Colorado University's Masters in Environmental Management Program as a response to the prompt, "What is the story of your community and communities? What challenge does your story of self and story of us compel you to face? How might you create and call upon your communities to take action?"