Hidden Treasure: Finding solace

The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich

By Jim Matthews

If you have ever suffered great loss, you probably know the difference between sympathy and solace. Everyone you meet is sorry that you have lost a child, but only a few are able to offer what you thirst for: soul-healing comfort that reaches inside of you and reassures you that life goes on and you are foolish to waste its blessings. Grief can be suffocating. For Gretel Ehrlich, the long painful crawl back to faith and hope after the death of her lover came through the wide open spaces of Wyoming, where she went to make a film documentary and eventually settled. The story of her jouney to wholeness and beyond is revealed in brief glimpses contained within the collection of detailed and poetic observations of shepherding and ranch life she discovered.

Many writers are fine observers, but few are as gifted with the keen discernment Ehrlich displays; seeing the small details that matter in telling the story of shepherds who choose to live in isolation to better protect their sheep. Wyoming has spectacular landscapes, and under Ehrlich’s pen they move and undulate and constantly transform as she rides across it, becoming an influential character in the story she tells. She has written a book that celebrates the natural wonders of Wyoming available to all as well as the small wonders shared mostly by the shepherds, cowboys, and ranchers.

As she lives in this unknown (to her) world, she heals, unintentionally ministered to by the everyday people she encounters working on a sheep ranch. These folks dance, fight, argue, ponder, and acknowledge some form of Higher Power that created this rich and at times unsparing wonder of a land. A filmmaker, Ehrlich sees with a cinematographer’s eye and writes with a command of the language that few possess. This is a relatively short book that invites the reader to delight in both the images invoked and the language used to create them. It is a book best consumed slowly with thought and feeling. It is an old book that, like a good saddle, wears well and takes you safely along. It is a heart song of a book, appropriate for all, but of special interest to anyone who has suffered significant loss. Having found solace in Wyoming, she offers it to her readers as fellow travelers on this surprising journey we call life.

I found this book online at Orphans Treasure Box for $3.09 and have found it worth ten times that amount. OTB has an online bookstore of near 40,000 titles, all of them listed for their quality or popularity. It has become my go-to site when I seek a book electronically. If I order and pay online, I can pick it up without a delivery charge.

I hope that you are that rare person that profound grief passes by. If not, I wish you the solace to be found in Gretel Ehrlich’s amazing book.