Page Lambert: All Things Literary & All Things Natural

Sometimes, deep inside a good novel, you feel the throbbing lifeblood of its author—an agony that shines at the edges with a certain ecstasy, like gazing at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and feeling the anguish of Michelangelo in every brushstroke. The hand of the artist has become one with the hand of God, and our own lives are touched by both. I come late to the books of Ojibwa writer Richard Wagamese, but his novel Medicine Walk touches the reader with this same authenticity—the bittersweet pain and joy of the human experience—as lived by the author and expressed through his characters. In the essay “Returning to Harmony” (appearing in the collection Speaking My Truth), Richard Wagamese writes of his own childhood: “When I was born, my family still lived the seasonal nomadic life of traditional Ojibwa people. In the great rolling territories surrounding the Winnipeg River in Northwestern Ontario, they fished, hunted, and trapped. Their years were marked by t...

I often smile when walking past Maggie’s garden shed here in our mountain community. A brown fiberglass bear hangs on the shed door, poised in greeting and dressed (based on Maggie’s artistic mood) in various clever outfits. He might be wearing a fishing hat and be outfitted with rod, reel and creel. Or, if the Denver Rockies are winning, a purple baseball cap might be perched between his ears, a catcher’s mitt in his paw. If tennis’s grand slam season has arrived, he might be swinging a tennis racket. Last fall, a black bear bullied Maggie’s brown bear (and the garden shed) into submission, ripping off a hand and strips of wooden trim. Perhaps the black bear was reminding all of us not to trifle too lightheartedly with the real nature of Bear. Reading Priscilla Stuckey’s new book, Tamed by a Bear: Coming Home to Nature~Spirit~Self, you might ask what is a bear’s real nature? You might also ask about the word “nature,” arguing (as I’m about to do) with Oxford’s primar...

The hour is late. The day, filled with packing and riding, rain and anticipation, stretches behind like a scene in a rear view mirror. Tomorrow morning Sheri Griffith and I leave to drive to Wyoming to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our Literature & Land of the Horse Retreat , held at the Vee Bar Guest Ranch. A few years ago, this Sandhill Crane surprised us in the meadow during one of our horseback rides. Wild irises bloomed among vibrant yellow flowers against a backdrop of spring green. How does one take in all the beauty and goodness, when the heart has been weighed down by the barrage of nightly newscasts? Start with a deep breath, I imagine. Listen to the sound of your horse's footsteps. His breathing. The creak of saddle leather. Watch the red-winged blackbird perched on the cattail. Think of Sandhill Cranes, mated for life. Think of the ancient crane that walked the earth two and a half million years ago. Think of the ancient Equus galloping across the tundra he...

Words flow through Mary Sojourner’s veins. I’m not exaggerating. Nothing else could explain the way her stories pulse off the page. You’ve probably heard that all you must do to be a writer is open a vein and bleed, right? Well, wrong. You’ve also got to clean up the mess. Not all writers, especially writers who enter their work heart first, have a mind capable of resurrecting the messy emotional outpouring. Mary has that kind of brilliant mind. With Mary’s stories, the words flow through her veins, and into the veins of her characters—an infusion that pumps humanity right back into the reader. Her stories are earthy, and deceivingly simple because they are so accessible - like a vitamin injection, a tonic to the soul. Over 15 years ago, I stood on the shoulder of a Wyoming highway with Mary Sojourner , overlooking rolling grasslands that edged up to the ponderosa slopes of the Bearlodge Mountains. I pointed east to Sundance Mountain, then west toward Devils’ Tower and the M...