Last evening, not long before midnight, I left my slowly darkening house and took a seat on the front porch. The day had been a busy one, as summer days tend to be in Alaska. My mind had grown busy, too, after absorbing the most recent news reports and reading several online commentaries about our soon-to-be-ex-governor. I’d even begun my own new blog entry, a response to what some other, way more conservative, “Alaska Voices” had written about Sarah Palin and one of Palin’s chief nemeses, liberal blogger Shannyn Moore. I grew weary working on the commentary, so I left it for morning. At last my day’s writing, errands, and household chores were done. I’d already turned off the TV and said a long-distance “good night” to Helene in Oregon, so after shutting down the computer I breathed in the quiet of the house, then stepped outside and into the cooling late-night air. As much time as I spend outdoors, I don’t often sit quietly outside late at night, even in summer. I’m not sure why, because it almost always calms me. I could hear the rush of traffic on Northern Lights Boulevard and the occasional whine and roar of jets at the airport, but my own neighborhood was silent and still and that deep stillness is what I took in, along with the dimming shapes of birch and spruce trees and the dark zigzagging form of a dragonfly on the hunt. As I sat there, my body relaxed and my mind gradually emptied out in the best sort of way. Happily I felt no need to look for insights or wisdom or answers, but was content to simply be with the yard, the neighborhood, and the midsummer night, with its still bright, nearly midnight sky, such an amazing spectacle when I take a moment to notice it.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, this morning I’ve found a new direction for my blog to take, one that’s less political and more reflective. And still provocative, I hope. Before continuing, I might add that from the start I’ve had some reservations about blogging, fearing that it might distract me from my “real work” as nature writer. (Yeah, I know, I’m getting way too serious, a fault that many of us nature writer types apparently share.) Here I will try to interweave the two, while seeking clarity. One of writing’s greatest gifts to me is exactly that: clarity. It helps me to better comprehend what’s most important to me – what’s meaningful, essential – and also to more fully understand the world and my place in it. If I can provide some clarity to the reader, or a different way of looking at the world, or at least some food for thought, all the better.

These last few weeks I’ve been deeply stirred by the language and ideas of some remarkable poets and essayists. Li-Young Lee, Gary Holthaus, and Robin Kimmerer, in particular, have prompted me to reflect upon my own work as nature writer and my relationship with the larger world, including its spiritual dimensions . Beyond that I’ve been moved to (re)consider larger questions about mystery and mysticism and what might be called the divine, or sacred, and to think about what we humans come to value and find meaningful during our short lifespans. Heavy stuff, eh? Yet to me it’s somehow had a lightening, spirit-lifting effect.

At that same time, I’ve been jolted by two major cultural events: first, Michael Jackson’s death – or, to be more specific, the amazing response to his death; and second, Gov. Sarah Palin’s announcement that she’s resigning her job as governor, and its aftermath.

Somehow, in ways I’m still trying to figure out, all these things are connected. Here I’ll try to sort some of this stuff out.

The “stirring up” actually began a day before the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, when I left my 87-year-old mother, Torie (for whom I’m the primary care giver), at a temporary assisted living home, so that I might have three weeks off for travel, adventure, inspiration, and some much-needed time in the company of my long-distance sweetheart, Helene. Then I dropped my collie mix, Coya, at the kennel. Given the circumstances, neither act should have bothered me, but they did, at least a bit; I felt some guilt over “abandoning” my charges. Helene rightly pointed out I was being way too hard on myself and even I recognized the foolishness of such thinking, but so it goes sometimes. In a curious way, my becoming unsettled over these matters may have opened me, emotionally, to what came next, in both Homer and later Sitka.

I think it’s fair to say that most writing conference attendees expect – or at least hope – to learn more about the craft of writing and the business of getting published. But in Homer I was most blown away by a poet, Li-Young Lee, who talked little about craft, at least in the traditional sense, and nothing, that I recall, about how to get published. Of course being the keynote speaker and main attraction, he was likely brought to Homer for inspiration. In that regard, he was hugely successful, at least for me. I know little about poetry and I knew almost nothing about Lee entering the conference. But I found myself deeply moved by his poems, his reading of those poems, and his discussion of what poetry both means to him and does for him.

As I’ve commented elsewhere, I came away from the conference certain that Lee is a serious student of poetry and other practices, including spiritual disciplines. He talked about poetry as a way of letting go of ego and touching upon – or seeking – a greater truth, a larger, transcendent, reality. As I heard it, he experiences poetry as a spiritual practice. And I experienced the power of his practice, his work, at the poetry reading he gave. The entire reading – his presence and words and what lay behind the words and images and emotions he evoked, the energy in that darkened auditorium – all of it was profoundly stirring. I sense that Lee is a humble person and he constantly reminded us, sometimes playfully, that he doesn’t have the answers to the deeper questions that concern him, or even to how (or why) his poetry works. But I also sensed great insights and – dare I say it? – wisdom in his approach to poetry and life. Both his work and ideas have continued to resonate in unexpected ways, while playing – I’m sure of it – somewhere in my internal landscape.

The Sitka Symposium, too, was powerful, as I’ve always found it to be. Among the highlights for me were the back-to-back readings by two of the guest faculty, Gary Holthaus and Robin Kimmerer, who in their essays and poems mixed humor and surprise with provocative images and ideas. They, like Lee, stirred my emotions and thoughts in unexpected ways. Holthaus later followed up with a stimulating discussion about the challenges to building a sustainable, enduring culture that is not so destructive to the Earth and its inhabitants, both human and otherwise. Among the parts that most got my attention were those that touched on language and the importance of story.

“We’re all storytellers,” Holthaus reminded us. “It’s part of the human condition.” He then encouraged us to tell the stories “that show us how to be human” and how to live well – and respectfully – on the Earth. Of special interest to me, as nature writer, was his emphasis on language that “clarifies our being in nature. . . . There is only one sacred place, one nature. We need language that honors all of it.” Nature writers, he noted, “need to find the sacred in the ugly and the demeaned” as well as the beautiful and uplifting. We need to find the “right words” that make the world real; we need to use language that emphasizes respect and reverence for all of nature, including degraded human landscapes, as demanding as that task is. I loved the thoughtfulness of Holthaus’s own language, the risks he took, the challenges he laid out. Like Li-Young Lee, he has given me plenty to ponder and digest.

Here’s where things began to get screwy. The same night that Holthaus and Kimmerer shared their poems and essays, Helene and I and a couple of friends headed to a bar for post-reading drinks and conversation. As it turned out, the bar had big-screen TVs. And all of them were blaring the news of Michael Jackson’s death. It was, for me, the worst follow-up to what had been an emotional, inspiring couple of readings. If I’d been alone, I could have ignored the news. But my companions at the table insisted on discussing Jackson’s death and life, his dancing and singing, his talent and troubles. Though I can appreciate his abilities, even what some would call genius, I have never been a Michael Jackson fan. And in his later years, when the awful saga of his personal life overwhelmed even his remarkable artistry, I’d come to believe that he symbolizes many of the worst aspects of our celebrity obsessed culture, our nation’s cult of personality. Jackson, it seemed, was a person with enough star power and money that he could buy himself out of almost any horrific circumstance.

Eventually the conversation moved on, though the images and words continued to play in the background. Once again, I felt unsettled, out of sorts. The juxtaposition of the readings and the Jackson drama disturbed me greatly.

And now we have the Palin distraction and our nation’s continued obsession with celebrity. Though confounded by Sarah Palin’s reasoning, I am in a way happy to see her go. It’s utterly ridiculous to believe she is doing this for “Alaska’s good,” and yet I think her departure – presumably to the national stage – will indeed ultimately benefit the state. I’m among the many who saw a different, more ambitious, combative and, yes, mean-spirited side to Palin once she became the Republican nominee for vice-president last year (though in retrospect, it appears she has always been highly ambitious). And I believe she became disinterested in governing Alaska once she got a taste of the national spotlight. Yes, she has charisma. Indeed, she’s a maverick. But a leader? Apparently not. And I think the Republicans who adore her so will also eventually learn she is not the savior they so desire.

It’s been a strange few days. Michael Jackson’s memorial service makes it clear that he has touched and inspired an enormous number of people, despite his troubled life and troubling middle-aged behaviors. Sarah Palin, too, for all her nonsense, still has her legions of fans and in her own maverick way is something of a media darling. In their own ways, they have lessons to teach. Acceptance without judgment might be one for me. Can I do it? I’m not sure.

What confounding creatures we humans are. And what a weird culture we Americans have created. Jackson and Palin and their worshipping fans represent much of what we are as a culture and species. But so too do Li-Young Lee, Gary Holthaus, and Robin Kimmerer. The stories (and poems) of the latter three are the sort I wish to know; theirs is the language that inspires and will, I suspect, now inform my own work, as I go about telling my own stories about how we might live more decently and reverently on this planet, the Earth. And yet I can’t ignore the other stories, or their power.

I have been caught up in this latest whirlwind of American politics and entertainment for long enough. It’s time to end this blog, get back to work. Though I suppose this blogging is now part of that work.

But no more work today. It’s evening again, as I finish these jottings. I think I’ll head back outside for some quiet, some calm.