Perhaps the greatest difficulty in listening to the prairie—or any part of nature—is that we must come in humility, even vulnerability.

“The more profoundly we listen to nature, the more we are open to the teachings we need from it and the more we comprehend its needs from us. As long as there is prairie—native, remnant, or restoration—it is speaking profoundly to us about our relationship with it.”

—Thomas Dean, Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit