While we the living, not sleeping, move through days of snow and cloud, rain and fog, the willow stems lie dormant, perhaps dreaming, or perhaps only sleeping. Listening to the rill of the river ...

On the ground, my encounters with the habituated mother bear of yearling cubs were becoming increasingly tense. We were both ...

As I look back on a topsy-turvy 2025, while testing out my new year’s mantra – radical optimism – I’m grateful for the chance to share with you, our community, some personal thoughts and exciting ...

AFEW YEARS AGO, while living on the Diné Nation, I first heard a striking proclamation that rang through the community with profound urgency: “Tó éí íín´á!”—“water is life.” I saw these words in bold ...

HE IS HUNCHED DOWN feeding on the carcass of a newly dead bison by the northeast shore of Yellowstone Lake. He eats methodically, gratefully, his muzzle smeared with blood, his forearms and ruff ...

Ellen Wayland-Smith: You describe your book at one point as “a bridge between words—poetry—and the land, which have always been my two primal loves.” This question of language, and how to listen to/be ...

AFTER ABOUT A YEAR AND A HALF of dating, Sam and I decided he should move into my house. We had each lived with partners before, but those moves had been swayed by financial stress and global ...

THE CHICKEN WAS UNWELL. She no longer ran to the summons of the leftovers pail to scratch at the compost heap with the other hens. Morning found her in a corner of the henhouse facing the wall, with ...

A MOTHER FINDS IT USEFUL sometimes to step outside her life so that she can look back in. To see her home and the things inside it more clearly without the barbed attachments of purpose or emotion; to ...

I first encountered Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, Braiding Sweetgrass, in the ecology section of my local bookstore. For Orion's Winter 2025/26 issue, we're chasing elusive cryptids and grappling with ...