Prairie Dogs in Sun Salutation

 Prairie Dogs in Sun Salutation

    I took a walk this afternoon and tuned my pocket radio to Weekend Edition on NPR.  The guest was Terry Tempest Williams and she was being interviewed about her new book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World.  I have not read her book, but gleaned from the conversation that she discusses through a mosaic of words, the connections of human life to nature's unerring cycles.  She is an environmentalist and spiritual writer who sees nature as a force for healing.  She suggests that we just need to slow down and pay attention.

    As part of her research, she spent time in Utah studying prairie dogs in their natural habitat.  Utah prairie dogs are endangered after decades of being subjected to human encroachment, hunting and poisoning.  They graze on the same grass that cattle use for grazing, so cattle farmers are less than amenable to their presence.  The prairie dogs are highly intelligent, living in complex family units in elaborate underground tunnels.  Their vocalizations have been studied and it has been determined they have a very distinctive language of sounds and chirps that alert each other to very specific dangers.  

    All of this was interesting to me, but the following information grabbed my full attention:  Every single morning, she saw all the prairie dogs stand outside their burrows with their paws pressed together for a full thirty minutes facing the rising sun.  They did this in total stillness.  At the end of the day, they returned to their burrows thirty minutes before the sun went down and once again faced the sun with their paws pressed together in total stillness.  
    I am interested in animal intelligence and find myself awed by the kind of research and discovery that Ms. Williams has been a part of.  There is so much more to learn about how animals communicate and behave.  It's encouraging to hear of ongoing efforts being made to try to understand their complex worlds.  If we can understand that we are all part of a natural continuum and that all creatures deserve respect, we will come closer to understanding the mysteries that surround us.  If the prairie dogs understand that it is important to pause each morning and evening in stillness, there may still be hope for us.