Today I walked into the tribal exhibit at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park — my Dad’s idea. Just to the left of the door sat a series of simple animal sketches, each labeled with a phrase. The exhibit had quickly exhausted my Dad’s interest, but the little drawings had captured mine.

I have never been the type to be inspired to the point of tears by acrylic on canvas and maybe never really understood the phenomenon. I’ve been feeling a lot more these days though, and looking more deeply at the things I pass.

I finished scanning the sketches as Dad engaged in his ritualized practice of ‘waiting outside’. I came to the last one: a sweet brown bear sitting on his bottom with legs sprawled and front paws down looking with sad eyes at a hovering Blue Jay.

The phrase read: I’ll protect you. They are all afraid of me.

My chest sunk and eyes became pressurized.

I guess you could take the phrase and drawing different ways (it is art after all) but all I felt was sad for the bear, and more sad for how our culture has trained our perspective towards them.

Back when I was a child visiting the Navajo Nation, a Navajo man told me stories of the animals, the people and the land with such reverence for them. He respected them deeply. He understood what the earth did for him, and knew what his place in it was.

Nature wasn’t something to fear, it was something to commune with and communicate with.

But that was back then. Things have changed.

West Yellowstone is filled with bear spray rental signs and tourists carrying tingling bells. Signs everywhere caution hikers to carry spray and be ‘bear aware’. Perhaps the intention is to go forth in nature with an understanding of what’s out there, but most people are ignorant, afraid or avoidant. They have forgotten how to communicate.

Animals communicate with vibration. With heat, with sound, with hormones, with eye contact and gestures. Humans communicate this way too, but in modern culture, are less attentive to this aspect of themselves.

When you respect another person, you listen to them. You take their word as truth. You are transparent with them. You honor their space.

When you fear someone, you attack them. You run from them. You pull up defenses against them prematurely. You expect conflict.

With animals, it is the same. When you walk into their space with fear, you’re communicating to them they should have a reason to watch you and to be wary of you. When you walk into their space with respect for them you communicate neutrality. You carry a willingness to see what they’re telling you and heed it.

Nature showed me this many years ago. During my years living in the supposedly snake-filled high desert of Arizona I only saw two rattle snakes.

The first time, I was walking with a friend, who was a huge Harry Potter fan, and had repeatedly declared her fear of running into snakes. I shrugged and said that I never see them.

As we finished our walk, she suddenly screamed. After dealing with the burning sensation on my forehead that had been so sudden and sharp that it had distracted me (not joking at all — I guess Voldemort may have tried to kill me when I was a baby), I looked up to see a small rattler. I felt awe. I had never seen one before.

I walked closer to look and he sat quietly looking back. After a minute, I stepped away and my friend took her turn. She was met with a warning rattle and a hissing tongue.

There was contrast there. Her and I communicated differently.

The second time I saw one, I was running full speed down the trail and nearly stepped on the little guy. He sat calmly, having just eaten something large, looked at me, and slowly slithered his way to the side of the trail. I was grateful to have seen him.

There are a lot of different ways to communicate, but the universal language everything shares is energy. Conscious or not, you are picking up on and sending energetic signals constantly. There is a huge difference between the energy of respect and the energy of fear. Think about it…feel it.

Yesterday, Dad and I stood looking at some bison in a field. They walked closer. They told me they just wanted to eat the grass closer to us and to pass by to the other side of the trail.

They were feeling peaceful.

As they approached, faces down munching on the grass, Dad rang the bear bell instinctively and fearfully.

They looked up. They looked us in the eyes and the energy shifted. Was there a reason to be on guard?, they asked. I looked back with calm eyes and held the male’s gaze.

We are just here.

I communicated to Dad that they were just wanting to eat the grass. They weren’t worried about us. We were just there doing what we wanted, and so were they.

We were speaking the same language.