vol. 5 AOS 6
Greetings,
It’s been two weeks now since I moved to Montana, and I am still getting my bearings, but of all the places I have ever lived (and for good or for ill, that would be many, many places), and all the places I have visited in my global perambulations, I detect here an emphasis on community that surpasses “growth” and “progress” unless it’s to grow a stronger sense of community and to make progress toward creating a stronger community.
The common thread is, unsurprisingly, the land.
There is so much natural beauty, all of it so easy to access, it's almost too easy to take it for granted. In so much of this nation, and ever more so here in the West, access to what is beautiful is too expensive and precious to be shared with everyone, just those who can afford it.
But here, bike paths into the wilderness, walking paths that wind around streams and up into the mountains, open spaces, community gardens...they're just there.
Everywhere.
And unlike back East, and depressingly more so every day in the South, where McMansions have obliterated fields of wild flowers and clumps of lilacs, Montana is bursting with many such blooms of sweet fragrance and color.
What lacks is the whiff of exclusivity.
All people need fresh air, and something restful for their eye to behold. And so it is.
But, for how long will this remain the ethos?
When we see the land as a commodity to be exploited and not the source of our life's bounty to be respected, then it is a scarcity and made available only at a premium.
The commencement of the landmark case, Held v. Montana is a belwether of this potential loss of shared terrestial resources here in the Treasure State (a dubious moniker that might not bode well for the future), but also of there being a shift in humanity’s awareness that it’s time to seek and deploy any means possible to restore the supremacy of the sovereignty of the land, a subject I explore with my cohost Elisabeth Grace in this week's Off the Charts: A Stellar Newscast.
Held v. Montana is a case brought in 2020 by 16 youths from across the state who are witnesses to climate change’s deleterious affects as children of ranchers or others who live close to the land. Only one, Rikki Held, the daughter of a rancher, was of age when the case was filed, and thus it is named for her.
The young Montanans are collectively suing the oldsters in the state legislature and by extension, the governor’s office, for their various and nefarious violations of the sovereignty of the land per the state’s own Constitution which guarantees the state will protect its land’s beauty. Not its profitability, its beauty.
Here’s the preamble:
We the people of Montana grateful to God for the quiet beauty of our state, the grandeur of our mountains, the vastness of our rolling plains, and desiring to improve the quality of life, equality of opportunity and to secure the blessings of liberty for this and future generations do ordain and establish this constitution.
The defendants are accused of doing away with environmental guidance for energy resource extraction and keeping power affordable for state residents (these aren’t just accusations, but facts). The defense says that now that they’ve trashed the laws and removed them from the books, the suit is moot.
What does that mean, sovereignty? It means supreme authority.
Fight it all you want but, it is Nature, the elements, and thus the land that has supreme authority over us all. Humans have a 100% mortality rate. Nature is infinite.
Making the earth into our bitch is just the rage of a narcissistic child who can’t be king forever.
When you can walk out your door, along a river, and into the wilderness, and then back in time for lunch, and the rest of your workday, however — why not preserve that kind of sovereignty, the kind that supports community?
Sadly, some see that as a threat to their delusions of grander grandeur. They dress their pique over the youths’ claims in words like progress, equality, democracy, freedom. They defend their having abolished the laws that supported the state’s Constitutional intentions as supportive of energy independence.
But when has there been a time when that kind of bait and switch didn’t end up in diminished access to nature, longer commutes, less pay, toxic air, Superfund sites, and beauty only for the few?
It’s all so last century, like penny farthings and gas lamps. Or stealing land and murdering its occupants en masse.
Answering my own question, I can’t think of any time in our history, and certainly not in that of the American West, that such blah blah trends toward the people. And that seems to me the real issue at stake, even if it is by way of preserving the land.
From the Archives:
Peace,
Whitney
W, I'm so glad you're settling out there in a way that seems to combine your keen appreciation of the world with your ferocious defense of its incalculable value. Thanks for this gorgeous, thoughtful essay. xo