Prairie Discovery and Recovery

“There is the nature we discover and the nature we recover. There is wildness and there is wildness. And sometimes, our own wholeness depends on the nature we attempt to make whole.” –Gavin Van Horn

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What does it mean to restore a prairie?

Is it seeding an acre of degraded ground with golden Alexanders?

Planting milkweeds in our backyard, in hopes a monarch butterfly will drop by?

Delighting in the discovery of a monarch egg, dotted on a leaf?

Is it showing up to witness coneflowers pushing out petals?

Making time to walk the tallgrass trails when the short-lived blooms of spiderwort follow the whims of the weather?  Open and close. Open and close.

Or watching the first wild quinine buds appear, cradled by prehistoric leaves. Like dinosaur’s teeth, aren’t they?

What will happen to us when we make room for the simple pleasure of pure white anemones?

Or as we bask in the blast of sunshine from hoary puccoon?

What does it mean to discover the oddball plants, like green dragon in bloom?

Or porcupine grass, threading its needles of seed.

And wild onion, unknotting itself; that graceful alien, with its kinks and curls.

All of this in June. And the creatures, too.

From the ordinary—

—to the iridescent and extraordinary.

“There is wildness and there is wildness.”

In recovery is discovery. We discover more—then we  long for more.  We think of what has been. And what could be. We work toward wholeness. Restoration.

It changes us.

Why not go see?

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Gavin Van Horn’s quote that opens this post is from his essay, “Healing the Urban Wild.” It’s part of his new edited volume, Wildness: Relations of People and Place (with John Hausdoerffer) from University of Chicago Press. Gavin is the Director of Cultures of Conservation for the Center for Humans and Nature in Chicago, and also editor of City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness. Check out Gavin’s books and also the blog at Center for Humans and Nature.

All photos copyright Cindy Crosby (top to bottom): golden Alexanders (Zizea aurea), Prairie Pondwalk and Dragonfly Landing, Lisle Park District, Lisle, IL; monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) laying eggs on common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; monarch egg (Danaus plexippus) on common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), author’s backyard, Glen Ellyn, IL; pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; ohio spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild quinine (Parthenium integrifolium), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis) Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canenscens), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; green dragon (Arisaema triphyllum), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL: porcupine grass (Hesperostipa spartea), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; wild onion (Allium canadense), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos), Prairie Pondwalk and Dragonfly Landing, Lisle Parks, Lisle, IL; ebony jewelwing damselfly (Calopteryx maculata), Schulenberg Prairie, The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL; bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus or Rana catesbeiana),  Nachusa Grasslands, The Nature Conservancy, Franklin Grove, IL.

Special thanks to Bern Olker, volunteer for Tuesdays in the Tallgrass, who showed me the place where the green dragon grows.