An Unbroken Grace

"When I first arrived at the home of Barry Lopez one November day in 2018, he pointed to a fresh Douglas fir stump and said, "We had to put down that tree." The Douglas fir was one of many old-growth trees surrounding Barry's home at Finn Rock, Oregon, along the McKenzie River. The tree had become diseased and Barry worried that it might fall on the house, so a few days before my visit, he and a neighbor got out their chainsaws and put down the tree. That's the phrase Barry used, put down, as one might speak with regret after euthanizing an animal." 

Fred Bahnson reflects on the life of Barry Lopez, a storyteller whose encounters with mystery and the more-than-human informed his practice of writing stories that illuminate and heal."

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