WASHINGTON CASCADES 46°42’29.5”N 121°40’19.8”W
this mountain is my world . A realm of ancient glaciers and howling winds carry the stories of ice-aged ancestors. I am a modern matriarch. My days have stretched far beyond those of most Cascade red foxes. Unlike my kin, whose lives burned brightly and fleetingly, I bear the mark of age. My steps are measured and deliberate, shifting with nature’s rhythms as seasons spin their tales. Winters of today no longer resemble the winters of my youth. The subtle yet perceptible changes in the air and landscape suggest that the world around me is evolving in ways that I have yet to understand. Each moon is a fading echo of a once vibrant world. Memories of playful kits and plentiful prey erode into those of loneliness and hunger. I imagine the world of my intuition. Old growth forests and biodiverse meadows thrive in harmony. Deep snow blankets our dens with warmth and protection from predators unable to navigate the soft, high-elevation snowpack. Summer air is thick with the perfume of wildflowers and rodents. Today, the changing seasons, once my ally, have become unpredictable. The meadows I depend on—previously too cold for trees to take root—are becoming forests, hemmed by encroaching roadways and scars of human recreation. My sanctuary grows smaller by the day. As encounters increased, I learned that humans left offerings of food. It was a curious gesture, one that initially sparked suspicion in me. But as the seasons wore on, I came to depend on them. After all, sitting on a snowbank demands much less energy than a miles-long hunt. But this connection between our worlds would prove to be deadly. My children refused to learn hunting skills. They became ill from man-made sustenance. Many were lured to the road and lost their lives to car strikes. The humans, with their warm-hearted yet misguided gestures, only added to our plight. This year, as summer seared the earth, fires burned faster and farther. Boisterous streams evaporated into mere whispers. Glaciers turned to rock. Birdsongs became faint and few. My grandchildren, born amidst uncertainty, looked to me for guidance, their innocent eyes reflecting both resilience and vulnerability. The looming specter of extinction cast a long shadow over our familial bond. Could I secure a future for them? I am running out of time. In the silent language that transcends words, I sat by the road and locked eyes with my human cohabitants, begging for their recognition of our shared demise. I pleaded for their compassion to extend beyond fleeting gestures of goodwill. I longed for their hearts to recognize the delicate dance of life and embrace the guardianship that nature endlessly offers. Most moved too quickly to connect. But one—a fellow mother—stopped and listened. She understood. She made sacrifices so that she could continue to seek me out and learn from me. She told her friends. She told the world. GRETCHEN KAY STUART “Darkness comes earlier and earlier now. The cold wind kisses the firs as they whisper about winter.”
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MOTHER VOLUME THREE
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