It is nice to be back up in the mountains after about a month of traveling, didn't realize just how much I miss these high hills and the peace that they give to me. Counted over 60 elk in a valley down below, then made it home and awoke to snow flurries a few mornings back. Glanced out the window while pouring a cup of coffee and six wild turkeys were pecking along outside. Yes, it's already cold here but the temperature seems to match the solitude. Time to store cotton shirts away and put wool shirts out, finish a rifle I've been slowly working on in case some hooved food appears outside and generally make sure all is ready for the winter.

When I lived in the modern world, I'd have said it is quiet here. Now I know better, listening to crows, coyotes and other critters talking while the wind gives the pine trees their own voices. Linear thought is replaced by circular feeling, a sense that all of nature here is interconnected. It feels like snow is coming. The little red squirrel who lives in an old shed out back races to store pine cones before the white flakes arrive. No other weather forecast is necessary. I just start to know a few of these things. But, I'd been puzzled by some of the animal behavior I'd seen and was surprised to hear what others had to say on that subject, making me realize I still have far to go in order to understand some of what the natural world is trying to tell me.

As the seasons changed from warm to cold, I first noticed how the coyotes started banding together in larger and larger packs. My guess was because the coyotes could hunt deer or elk better in groups, and there seemed to suddenly be deer and elk all over the place, even standing around my little "home" as if I did not exist. I thought it must be what those animals did as the temperature dropped, perhaps moving into this high little valley, or perhaps I'd blended into the landscape so well that my presence no longer mattered - a rather egocentric viewpoint, as if I mattered. I was to find that I do, but for reasons that at the time I'd not have grasped.

A few weeks passed with the coyotes, elk and deer behaving the same way. I was in town one day and mentioned this to some people who have lived here all their lives. They said there was a mountain lion near where I live. The coyotes get together because an individual coyote is likely to get killed by the lion. And the deer and elk are herded up around my place because I am there. They sense that it's safer around me because I would keep the mountain lion at a distance. Rather than me being invisible, I have become part of their world, an important part it would seem. I was told not to be shocked if I ended up with quite a group of grass-eating critters nearby this winter. As long as the lion remained, its prey would gather around me.

I didn't hear any scientific reasoning or biological concepts stated by anyone with an alphabet after their name, only that the animals just know and that is all. These aren't things that stand based on western cultural demands of proof, examined in such minute detail that there is no longer a "whole." This knowing (at least to native cultures like the Lakota people here) is just accepted fact and no proof is needed. The proof is here by its own volition. Things happen for reasons, both seen and unseen by us, more questioning means less knowledge. Another comment was that all things are interconnected because the Creator wants it that way, it is what it is.

So, the Creator wants me to live in a shack in the mountains this winter so that the elk and deer feel safe? "Yes. That's your purpose now. Accept your purpose, the Creator gave it to you. It is a gift. Stop thinking so much," was one reply. Stop thinking, learn to just know and accept. That's a more enlightened and refreshing view of life than anything I've ever heard. Another person said, "Nature will tell you what you need to know. Take the time to listen." That feels like good advice, I believe I will try to follow it.