WINGED FEAST
“The mountains have always been here, and in them, the bears.” – Rick Bass
Between craggy rocks and splintered deadwood the grizzly forages, ever-focused on the bounties that even the most barren of landscapes can offer. She follows her instincts across the rugged talus slope, pausing to paw through nooks and crannies that shelter the treasure she seeks. From the bear-fist blow in the trunk of a felled snag erupts a bounty of moths, freshly pupated and ripe for the taking.
Ravenously she feasts, enveloped by a lofty silence broken only by whispers from thousands of fluttering wings.
This year I’ve been wrestling with the idea of “abundance”–what does it mean to live in an abundant world? To have an abundant life? To allow abundance to be seen, felt, touched, explored, accessible both personally and collectively?
Grizzly bears experience extreme lack of resources during the winter months so must search for food during the summer and fall, building up stores to carry them through the lean times.
The tiny cutworm moths this grizzly is gorging on seem unable to nourish such a large animal. Nevertheless, she collects them by the thousands, satiated by the sheer volume of their combined nutrients.
Like her, I too have learned to search for and to ravenously gather every tiny flicker of abundance I can find, building up a store of hope and comfort for those inevitably lean times.
Graphite on cotton paper. 22″ x 30″