In the grasslands of the intermountain west, a seed doesn’t need to be planted in the soil. It falls into a crack in the living skin of the earth, which grows over it, takes it into itself, stores it water and brings it forth.

Big Bar Esker

The grasslands of the intermountain west are not a series of mountain valleys but cracks in the earth, in which people live. The forests high up above these hot cracks, which protect humans, deer, bears and fish, and concentrate the energy of the forests so these peoples have sustenance, are identical to the cracks that take the grass seed in, only larger, and on a mammalian scale.

Vaseaux Lake

The Earth is alive here.