As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself thinking of prairie grass.
Those of you who have attended one of our workshops know that we offer the image of prairie grass as a way into reflecting on and connecting across difference.
Prairies host an abundance of plant types. There is no one kind of prairie grass; rather, there are many: big bluestem, little bluestem, Indiangrass, switchgrass, buffalo grass, hairy grama, and prairie cordgrass, to name just a few.
On the prairie, the roots of these various grasses intertwine below the ground; their stems and heads rustle together as the wind blows.
Prairie grass has deep roots, often reaching down into the soil 10 or 12 or even 15 feet. Yet even the tall grasses stand only to perhaps 8 feet. Seeing ourselves as similar to prairie grass invites reflection on our own identities: “Above ground” are the parts of who we are that are readily apparent to others, while the “in the soil” parts are sometimes hidden from view.
Exploring our own prairie-grass-ness helps open us up to understanding and connecting with someone else’s. We know that there is much more to a person than what we see on the surface. Our roots are deep; each of us is a complex individual.
Prairie once covered more than a third of the United States, extending from the Rocky Mountains east across the Mississippi River. Prairie blanketed the nation’s heartland.
And with the prairies came wildfires.
I can’t help but see the sweep of the orchestrated chaos of this past year as a kind of wildfire. 2025 has blown away delusions of the safety and security of food, health care, housing, education. The belief that we had a shared commitment to everyone being treated with dignity has gone up in flames. This wildfire has burned through paper walls that we believed protected the functioning of our democracy. And it has seared into our memories images of violence by the government – on the streets of our cities and in the waters of the Caribbean.
Prairie wildfires leave smoke and ash, blackened hillsides and flatlands in their wake.
But wildfires also stimulate new growth.
All over the country, seeds are sprouting and new shoots of growth are appearing. People are organizing, talking, listening, connecting, gathering, helping, supporting, collaborating, protecting, walking together, laughing, celebrating our shared humanity.
These relationships that connect us – this civity culture – can be the foundation for working together to be with each other going forward in a way that nourishes us all.
We hold within ourselves the capacity for our own regeneration.
We are an abundance of diversity, and that diversity is our strength and our resilience.
We are prairie grass.