>>REVIEW
AN ALBERTA BESTIARY: ANIMALS OF THE ROLLING HILLS
Zahava Hanan
U of C Press, 92 pp.
To walk among nature is to walk among swirls of poetry, listening to the rhymes among its contours, reading the verse in its play of light and shadow, and feeling the tempo within its winds. All is circular, from day to night, from season to season, from bud to leaf to ground litter, and back to bud.
To be truly connected to the land’s current is to be part of this circle, sharing habitat equally with other living things. Step down from the peak of the pyramid; step away from dominance and dominion over all else that swims, walks and flies on this planet.
It is from within this circle that author Zahava Hanan gives us her Alberta Bestiary, a collection of reflective stories and poems in the tradition of medieval bestiaries that teach us our position in life. The setting for Hanan’s stories is the land around her ranching home in the Alberta foothills, a mesh of cottonwood and willow bush, riverway and marshy bank, thick grass and flattened hollow, and steep hill and naked rock.
A bestiary, or book of beasts, is meant to teach through storytelling. The ancient tradition is rooted in Hellenistic Alexandria, as a way to pass along moral guidance. A sort of Aesop’s Fables, with lessons offered through observation of all living things, from irrational and complex humans to the simple energy of other massive mammals.
Don’t expect to learn scientific details about the fauna of Alberta’s wilderness. Instead, expect to learn your place in the ebb and flow of natural life. Expect to quietly sit, watch and embrace the energy imparted by those who walk the same trails used by Hanan.
Through lyrical prose and black-and-white photography, her bestiary invites us into a world where wild creatures are certain of their place, whether a butterfly on a thistle stem, a bounding deer, or an overhead V of flying geese. Her relationship to other creatures is one of kinship, and this bond ripples in concentric circles from those animals that share her home – Willow the cat and Buckie the dog – to those that live near her ranch, such as Farmer the horse and Snowflake the cow, and finally, reaching those, like the bear and wolf, that wander beyond her physical touch. Her homestead is in the middle of this pond teeming with life.
Lessons taught are as simple as those passed along by Willow, who teaches Hanan about "pure presence," the value of living the moment. Hanan’s horse teaches her about the balance of power, held in a rein that offers control but gives freedom. She respects wildness and understands disobedience, an expression of those times when animals are not accessible, like when her secret retreat is in flood. When she walks among cattle, she eases them along slowly rather than resorting to whips. Whether watching a bear or handling bovines, she exudes sensibility and empathy. She has no desire to subdue or conquer.
Hanan’s tribute to Buckie embraces the core of her book. In writing of his "magnitude of presence," she is writing of life. The land upon which we walk gives us life, as does the sky above, and the water running through it. Treat it well, and it will replenish our spirit and body. Treat it poorly, and it will respond with harsh reprimand.
We are part of nature’s poem, a single verse but with a single beat in its overall rhythm. Hanan’s book invites us to rhyme with other living things. Together, we are a harmonic chorus. Apart, we are but lost chords. |
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