ASP Podcast #19: Stories of Healing and Connection with Hank Lentfer
Naturalist, Author Hank Lentfer
Listen to Hank and Dan with your favorite podcast player, or via Apple Podcasts
Dan Kowalski: We're recording this in a time of increasing darkness for the human condition. We're in the midst of a historic shift, as a despot has unleashed mind-bending brutality and suffering on the souls of Ukrainians and also hapless Russians. The Alaska Story Project is dedicated to offer stories that have the power to connect and heal as something of a counterpoint or antidote to what's all over the news right now.
For this podcast, Alaskan author Hank Lentfer shares some of his original writing. He's lived a life never far from the world, both rich and raw, that’s uniquely Alaska. He's also part of a community of writers working with the themes of being human, inseparable from the larger living planet.
Hank Lentfer:
Reflecting on the role of stories in my life, a passage from Barry Lopez's fable Crow and Weasel.
The story that's deepest in my memory is right on the edge of what I can recall takes place up in the Arctic.
Reading from Ravens Witness the Alaska life of Richard K. Nelson. Excerpt:
“We yearn to pull together with neighbors and celebrate our collective success. So why do we find ourselves living in such rancorous times? How did stories of unity get buried by the din of voices tearing us apart? When did caring for our country become a partisan issue? And by country I don't mean a flag, song or pledge but our actual home ground the soil rivers, forest, tundra, air and climate that make life possible.”
“When the ice cracked, my Inupiaq neighbors sought solid ground. But how do we respond to the widening split between economic desire and ecological reality? Where is solid ground when coal plants and Kentucky deepen droughts in Kenya? We cannot bridge the growing gulf between economics and ecology until we see personal well-being as inseparable from the planet's health. We must pull together, expanding the circle of caring beyond immediate family and neighbors.”
Hank shares an audio piece of natural sounds recorded in Glacier Bay with anthropologist and writer Richard K. Nelson: “10 Sounds That Make You Feel More Alive”
Hank reads, excerpt: “The luck I pray for, and the answer I await, is the voice of cranes. Though on the wing, the answer comes not so much from above is from behind—behind time back before primates even existed, with their insane potential to burden your brains with thoughts like being imprisoned in a windowless cell; before time was even a thing to be named, served, live out, endured or enjoyed at any given moment, through ice ages and asteroid strikes, sun flares and volcanic eruptions, night and day, fall and winter—there has been one if not 1,000 cranes calling somewhere on the planet. That long lineage of sound drops from the sky age fall is Sandhills migrate from Alaska tundra to California cornfields only when that 10 million year old procession of prayers reaches my ear, would I set down my sandwich rig the pole stand up and fish.”
What makes a good story? Hank: “I'm drawn to stories that blur boundaries, stories that work against our tendency to cut the fabric of life into neat squares and organize it to label people as Democrats or Republicans or evangelicals or atheist, or the world as natural or unnatural. So any story that helps stitch those squares back into their proper orientation. And a good story in my mind reveals the pain and the folly and darkness of isolation. A good story can illuminate and celebrate the restorative powers of connection. And the best stories do both.”
Pay attention, hone in on any story that blurs boundaries or awakens us from the delusion of separateness. Retell the story at the dinner table, at church, the grocery store. And remember this you don't have to write a book or produce a podcast to be a storyteller. Our lives are stories, every decision, each interaction, the choice between generosity and greed, between gratitude agreements, kindness or callousness, tells a story. And our stories are not finished. We get to write a little each day. I try and remember that when I wake up, that the hours in front of me are a blank page and I get to choose the story I tell before I go to bed.
Special thanks to Christian Arthur for original music