Watching the animals come and go, and feeling the land swell up to meet them and then feeling it grow still at their departure, I came to think of the migrations as breath, as the land breathing. In spring a great inhalation of light and animals. The long-bated breath of summer. And an exhalation that propelled them all south in the fall.
Barry LopezOne of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret.
Barry LopezWhat does it mean to grow rich? Is it to have red-blooded adventures and to make a โfortune,โ which is what brought the whalers and other entrepreneurs north? Or is it, rather, to have a good family life and to be imbued with a far-reaching and intimate knowledge of oneโs homeland, which is what the Tununirmiut told the whalers at Pondโs Bay wealth was? Is it to retain a capacity for awe and astonishment in our lives, to continue to hunger after what is genuine and worthy? Is it to live at moral peace with the universe?
Barry Lopez