Wisdom and Conservation at Bailey Mountain
We can’t get over a sense of presence, of awareness emanating from that impressive form rising up from the land.
What is a mountain? Perhaps it is a sheltering giant, looking down over our village with a presence that we can feel all the time. The mountain has a say in how the wind blows, how the sun angles down to touch the little houses and fields of the human beings beneath it.
Just like our awareness, the clouds cling to the mountain, making it feel larger. What attracts our eyes and compels our feelings to cling to it as well, even when we are involved in other things? Sometimes a mountain can feel dangerous, requiring great respect. Sometimes a mountain seems protective, abundant and supportive of us people at its feet. But, we can’t get over a sense of presence, of awareness emanating from that impressive form rising up from the otherwise humble and workable land.
In Mars Hill, there’s a mountain loved by so many people that it is now protected from development and preserved in its current naturalized state. The efforts of many people with big hearts, normal people like students, teachers and farmers who felt an emotional connection with that place, changed the rules. Now, conservation and restoration efforts are taking place on its flanks, like the project where over 650 native saplings were planted in what used to be an overgrown field.*
The loving people who planted the trees are devoting their careers to such efforts. They are scientists, or scientists-to-be.
Many of the students in Professor Laura Boggess’ Conservation Biology class at Mars Hill University had their hand in this offering of care to the mountain.
Students in Professor Laura Boggess’ Conservation Biology class had their hand in caring for the mountain.
On December 9, 2021, I journeyed to Bailey Mountain, hiked up and sat under a massive old tree there to meet her class. We thought we might do a nature-connection exercise. We ended up having a rousing discussion about what role wisdom might have in relationship with science and conservation.
As the students and professor shared their hopes, dreams and frustrations about the process of conservation in our modern times, the emotional care everyone there felt for the state of the beautiful world around us became as clear as the sunlight slanting down to warm us on this chilly day. One student, an insect-lover, posed a question that pointed to a larger issue: how might one inspire modern people, busy with their technology and their own problems to embrace saving insects that are endangered? Insects aren’t cuddly like koalas or huge and magnificent like the rhinos. It seemed to be an uphill battle with no easy fix.
I posed the question, “Will biology alone achieve our dreams for conservation, or is something else necessary? Something that our ancestors knew, but perhaps has fallen by the wayside in our times?”
We spent some time discussing wisdom, comparing it to scientific knowledge and noticing how these two ways of knowing might work together to bring benefit. We shared about the wise people who have influenced each of us.
I wondered whether some students were challenged to consider the possibility that something more than scientific thought was needed to heal the imbalances we see and feel in the living world around us. Some were inspired, and I left wishing I could offer more conversation with those who were interested, including, “What is wisdom, anyway?” and “What are some tools and steps to gaining wisdom?” If a discussion like this ever happens, I’m sure that many of them will have excellent insights to offer, since their grandparents and mentors have inspired them with their wisdom.
But, for that day, we had reached our limit. The sun had shifted across the sky, the weather had gotten a little chillier, and the lab-time was over and the next class was calling. Just before we ended our time, a small but insistent wind blew in, and the leaves on the great tree above us spoke in their gentle voice, adding the tree’s dose of wisdom to our musings.
Just yesterday, I received a thank you card from the class, where each of the students and the professor honored our experience by taking a moment to remember our time together with appreciation. I was so glad to read the words, “Thank you for opening our eyes to something new!”
Bailey Mountain shared its blessings with us that day: its warming sun, its sheltering branches, its gentle slopes that we climbed on our walk. I am grateful for our time there discussing uniquely human concerns, and the commitment and dedication of these bright and aware young people. May they stand up in the world as leaders in conservation, tapping into both knowledge and wisdom to work with the rhythms of the living world for the benefit of us all.
* Bailey Mountain is protected in perpetuity, and the Friends of Bailey Mountain are stewarding it along with the town of Mars Hill. The trees were planted to protect the stream and provide habitat for wildlife.
Initiated as a tradition-holder in the Nahua/Mexican weather worker lineage in May 2003 by don Lucio Campos de Elizalde of Nepopualco, Morelos, Mexico, Erin Everett is a weather worker, life counselor, ceremonial leader, and tepahtiani traditional healer. She is known in Nahuatl as a quiatlzques and in Spanish as a tiempera. As are many in this tradition, she was struck by lightning in her youth, which is a known calling to this path. A native of western North Carolina, she and her colleagues work with weather in the Asheville, NC geographical region. More information about Erin, her husband, Adam, and their work, tradition, and teachers can be found at seedsoftradition.org.