A WOODCHUCK IS WOOLLY. Who knows what he thinks? He hibernates in his underground lair, a groundhog by any other name, his tail not quite reaching his nose. He slumbers all winter there, living off ...

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But, if you’re feeling like you could use some more quiet tenderness in your life and reading (who doesn’t these days?), try ...

Writer, naturalist, whale watcher, and longtime Orion contributor Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of several books of ...

I DROVE DOWN WASHINGTON TURNPIKE, a straight sandy road cutting through the pine country of Wharton State Forest, the largest tract of wilderness in New Jersey. Surrounding me were trunks of slash ...

THE WILLOWS ARE SLEEPING, luminous in the shortening light. Frozen within them is the mandate for spring, which always comes. The four seasons are the basic code for the existence of all life. We have ...

BRENDAN AND I wouldn’t ever speak directly about our estrangement. There were some topics we’d learned to avoid entirely to “keep the peace,” as my mother would say. I bit my tongue when the topic of ...

As I look back on a topsy-turvy 2025, while testing out my new year’s mantra – radical optimism – I’m grateful for the chance to share with you, our community, some personal thoughts and exciting ...

TERESA AVIÑA won’t open the windows or door of her small apartment, despite a heat that plagues the soul. On the kitchen table, beside two jugs of bottled water, a small, green, electric fan pushes ...

THE FIRST THINGS I SEE are the tails of the planes. They jut like hundreds of dorsal fins rising from prehistoric fish that have been lined up by a butcher on a massive table of thin brown grass. It ...

ON THE FISHCAMP SPIT of Nuvurak, in 1974, Bob Uhl taught me how to make rice. “Four cups of water.” He paused and thought for moment. “One cup of rice.” He was wearing hip boots, stacking salmon net ...