NORTH DAKOTA IN AUGUST

MY SACRED LIFE IN NORTH DAKOTA

"Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain..."

Robert Browning wrote, "Oh to be in England, now that spring is there." I write, "Oh to be in North Dakota, now that August's here." This landscape is sacred to me.

I have never understood why they call Big Sky, Montana, "Big Sky." To me, the sky is small, hemmed in by mountains. In cities, I am hemmed in by buildings. In the woods of Minnesota, I am hemmed in by trees.

Don't get me wrong. I love each of those places. But I can always breathe a little easier when I am on the prairie. My lungs expand more freely when the air is clean and clear. North Dakota, "Clean and green in the summertime, white and bright in the wintertime."

This sacred space, once trod by Native Americans, who revered and honored the land. This space that does not shout out its beauty to you, but entices you in small ways. To appreciate North Dakota's beauty, sometimes you must bend close to the ground.

Bend close to the ground and pull the soft dusty green sage through your fingers. Bend close to watch the grasshoppers - so benign now, so insidious in the Dirty 30s. Visit a prairie dog town and watch the animals pop out of the burrows as if they were in a game of "Mole."

Stop and listen, to the meadowlark. Can any sound be more heart stopping? Listen to the cottonwoods softly slapping their leaves against each other. Listen - can you hear hymns coming from the old country church?

Yes, there are the abandoned homesteads and the crumbling barns. The North Dakota Tourism Department does not like to promote images like these. But, hush, can you hear the murmur of voices talking about the weather and the crops?

Feel the long blue stem grass - tawny as a lion - as it brushes against your pants. Smell the chaff from the harvest. Glory in a sunset unfettered by buildings or trees.

Oh, North Dakota can be majestic too. Drive west along Highway 2 the length of the state in August. See the sunflowers - field after field, brilliant masses of yellow - all turned toward the rising sun in the mornings. Drive back the other direction in the evening and these gracious ladies have all turned their heads to the setting sun.

Stand on a promontory in the Badlands and be in awe at the power of nature to scrub and scrub away at the landscape until only multi-colored buttes remain.

Stand in awe at the terrible beauty of thunderstorms and tornadoes.

Stand in awe of the loneliness, if you must. In his book, "Travels With Charlie," John Steinbeck remembers never feeling so alone in his life as the time he camped out near Jamestown ND, under a bowl of ink black sky and stars.

But I revel in the loneliness, the starkness. I am never afraid here, as I would be in the city.

I know to seek beauty where many would find none. To search for the tiny orange mallow and scarlet gaura flowers. To love the squabbling of the king birds. To be seduced by the sight of ancient purple lilacs against ancient silvered buildings.

To be home.