On Common Ground--uncommonly rich

 

Interestingly enough, Mt. St. Helens, in faraway Washington state, begat the whole idea. Brian Hazlett, Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Briar Cliff University, Sioux City, picked up a book he thought he'd like (and did), a hybrid compilation of essays, poems, and visual art, put together by a group of naturalists and artists drawn together by a landscape almost hallowed in their minds. Professor Hazlett thought the whole idea something grand, something worth doing here, in the northernmost reaches of the Loess Hills.

So he and a colleague, Ryan Allen, of Briar Cliff's English Department, gathered a gang of writers and naturalists from the Loess Hills region and invited them to retreat for a weekend at one of the region's most spectacular preserves, the Broken Kettle Grassland, just north of Sioux City, to gather and mix, to speak and listen, to observe and behold the breathtaking hills of Broken Kettle.  

And they did--actually helped out with a prairie burn, observed and studied Broken Kettle's bison herd, chatted with and listened to each other, and did some fulfilling contemplation on and in the natural wonders of the far northern edge of the Loess Hills. 

On Common Ground: Learning and Living in the Loess Hills, just now published, tells the tale and is the tale, a collection of writing, of poems and art work, spiritual work, that celebrates 200 miles of sheer beauty along the Missouri River by observing Broken Kettle, the Hills' far northern gem.

Here's the essence, a drawing that tells the story. One of the participants, hiking stick in hand, explains something of the prairie to the others, the Hills in the background. Delight with Yucca, this sketch is titled, fully to the point. What Common Ground features is delight, pure and simple. It's a hymn to creation, a collection of writing that is itself a delight.