Ari Berk & Carolyn Dunn

One of the reasons people and animals share such a close relationship is that people have always learned important lessons from animals: what to eat, and what not to eat; when it is safe, or when there is danger about. Have you ever walked in a park or forest where there were no birds singing and no small animals to be seen? It's unsettling, isn't it? Where have the birds gone? And why did they leave? Often, animals can warn us of trouble before we are able to detect it for ourselves. Many people have been saved from fires by their pets, who, sensing the danger early, woke their owners and allowed them to get to safety. By carefully watching animals and their behavior, people can learn, and have learned, a great deal about their environment.

Can these signs and symbols still speak? Images, memories, stories, and objects all carry the past into the present. As we think about these messages from the past, we might wonder, too, about what kind of signs we are leaving for the future. How will our children's children know of us? What markers of our passing do we leave upon the land? Some of these signs, because of the material they're made from, or the care taken in making them, may last longer than others and have different stories to tell.

Imagine standing in a room in a large museum. As you look around the dimly lit gallery, you begin to recognize shapes: a basket, an arrow, a beautifully decorated carving, a shield. Some of the objects are unrecognizable to you. What if these objects could speak? What would they tell you about themselves? How have they been used? Where did they come from? How did they get to this museum? Whom do they belong to?

People are not alone in making art. Even the smallest animals can create things of beauty. Even the smallest animals have power and can help set things right in the world. Beautiful things are being made all the time and can still work great wonders. A tiny web of silk, a small jar of earth, can hold a glowing ember of the sun to help light the world.

When a person sets out upon a journey - whether to hunt for food or knowledge, to make war, or even to visit the Otherworld - they are never the same when they return. Traveling changes us. Journeys shapes our memories and expand our experiences. Those things we bring back from the hunt - either food or knowledge - sustain us and keep us curious about the world. Think of your own travels and adventures out upon the land or in foreign countries: What wonderful stories do you have to tell? What experiences have you "hunted" or sought on your travels? What have you learned from the land? The stories told about journeys are as important (perhaps more important) than the destination. The journey lasts for only a fixed time, but the stories told of it, the wisdom brought back, can keep traveling forever, keep living, even after the tellers have traveled on.

Everything has an origin in it, and animals are no exception.

But there's always a story behind the story. That's how the story never ends: Someone is always telling it, someone is always listening. A story is told about something someone else did once so that we won't make that same mistake now.

Or perhaps it has another form that only you can see and imagine. What story does the simple stone tell? Where did it come from? Isn't it like stones you yourself have picked up on your travels? Why do we keep such things? Reminders of all that has gone before, perhaps they keep us.

Such stories ask us to remember that there are little things in the world around us that we hardly notice but which contain great beauty and strength; that we might learn by taking a closer at places we already thought we knew; that we overlook important knowledge by not asking enough questions of the land around us; that some places in the wilderness are not for us to visit; that there are always small, secret wonders hiding in nature, just out of view.