The Silent Nature of Barry Lopez Essay -- Barry Lopez Essays

The Silent Nature of Barry Lopez In southern California, below Interstate 8 and west along the Mexican border, in the middle of the desert just beyond an arroyo, rests an ancient intaglio, a sawbuck carved out of st genius (Horse 401). If by chance you were to love across such a natural relic, perhaps you would first off demand a picture. Perhaps you would initially approach to get a nestled look. Perhaps you would immediately run your fingers over the coarse, intricate indentations of the nose, the ears, the hooves. However, when writer Barry Lopez first came upon the stone horse, he did nothing. He simply stood in his place. Still. Silent. And he did not just happen upon the horse he had been looking for it. Yet, at the volume of it, Lopez recalls being startled, and that I held my breath (401). This is not the only instance in which record inspires awe in the writer. It occurs again in Orchids on the Volcanoes as he watches sleeping Flamingos drift on a lagoon in Isla Rabi da, an island of the Galapagos. It occurs again in Learning to See as he witnesses a vivid fleeting pattern of light falling at downfall on a windbreak of trees in Mitchell, Oregon (236). In any encounter, Lopez observes nature with passionate reverence and spirituality that renders him speechless. But he does not write merely to relay his reaction. Barry Lopez wants us to replenish our dwindling honor for nature by sharing in the experience that nature affords us. by dint of his naturalist essays, Lopez restrains that immediate urge we fork over to pet the horsey, take a Polaroid, and move on. He persuades us to appreciate the urge. He strives to teach us about the inherently liberating spirit of nature, about how in just experiencing one moment with nature ever... ...ea lion pup, rudely shunned by the other adults, waits with decisive cheer for a mother who clearly will never way out from the sea. You extend your fingers here to the damp, soft rims of orchids, blooming whit e on the flanks of smutty volcanoes. (53)Lopez invites us to partake in the spiritual connection we share with nature and history, which awards us both independence in our world and compelling extension to it. He bids us to notice the complexity of natures beauty (54), and-like the effect it continues to have on Barry Lopez time and time again-to let it render us speechless. kit and boodle CitedGrice, Gordon G. The Black Widow. Encounters Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert DiYanni. Boston McGraw-Hill, 2000. 313-317.Lopez, Barry. The careen Horse. Hoy II. 399-406.Lopez, Barry. About This Life. New York Vintage, 1998.