Reading the Wild - Hardcover

It's easy to think of ourselves as the center of all this life, particularly if you live in a city, but man is really part of a network of life on earth. Like all networks, each piece helps to hold together the whole. But we are the one animal with the power and intelligence to protect this sacred circle of life.

Reading the Wild, with Bev Doolittle's famously detailed watercolor paintings, gives us clues, from both Indian lore and modern science, to understanding the animal life around us. With a little knowledge and a willingness to pay attention, a walk through the woods, or even a single tree, can become a scavenger hunt for the signs and the wonders of animal life.

From a tiny frog that lives above the treeline in the Sierra Nevada, to the great grizzly bear who was associated with healing and medicine by many Native Peoples, Reading the Wild will fill you with wonder and from there it's just a small step to respect for, a preservation of, our wilderness.

Native Americans knew a great deal about bears. Many tribes associated bears with healing. Perhaps this was because bears ate the roots and leaves of the plants Indians used for soothing aches and pains, and for helping wounds heal. The Lakota called these healing herbs bear medicine. In the language of the Zuni Pueblo, the word for doctor is the same as the word for bear. Whenever a Zuni Pueblo doctor went to help a sick person, he wore a string of bear claws around his neck. He would ask the spirit of the bear for help in curing illness and healing wounds. The Blackfeet Indian's name for grizzly bear translates to real bear, which grizzlies certainly are.

Bears do look and act like people, more that most large animals. They can stand on their hind legs and walk upright. When they sit, they hold their front legs up like arms. Bears are omnivores, so they eat what people eat - not just grass or only meat but vegetables and fruit, nuts, salad greens, mushrooms, and berries. They even go fishing!