The significance of Lyn Dalebout’s departure in the early morning beginnings of the Perseid meteor shower feels kismet for those who knew her. The fiery bursts flitting about in the night sky are associated with transformation, wishes, and messages from the cosmos — akin to what Dalebout shared with her community.

A poet, naturalist, dancer, mentor and astrologer, Dalebout died of a heart attack at 6:30 a.m. July 17 at St. John’s Health after 70 trips around the sun.

She grew up trekking up and down the Wasatch, inspired by a love for the outdoors and an active family. Her father was the inventor of the Daleboot, a ski boot that pioneered customization.

Dalebout moved to the Tetons soon after she finished her bachelor’s degree at the University of Utah in 1980.

In college, she formed a lifelong friendship with Terry Tempest Williams. Dalebout’s sorority sister said she was always finding inspiration in the wild and in her friendships.

“Everything we did was outside and outside of the boundaries of structures,” Williams said, “and the baseline was always being in nature, and literature and ideas, and philosophies.

“There’s a whole generation of us in Jackson Hole that I think raised each other, and everyone went on to do their own radical work, but the centerpiece always came back to Lyn.”

Armed with a multidisciplinary botany, biology and literature degree dubbed Universal Studies — a spelling error on the part of the U, and a lifelong joke for Dalebout that she earned a Universal Studies degree instead of a University Studies degree — Dalebout followed her older sister Jan to the valley.

In 1981 the Dalebout siblings founded the Kelly Yurt Park. Their father stepped into help support the vision along with the Kent family’s summer campground to convert the space into a place “that could share the yurt life” as Dalebout said in a Jackon Hole Magazine article in 2017.

All corners of the Teton community and beyond were introduced to Dalebout through her writing and her sidereal astrology readings. Her astrological weather watch, EarthWord SkyWord began in February of 2011. Dalebout would carefully explain the magnetism of trines and retrograde, alongside local art and recognition of good friends in her monthly forecast.

Dalebout wrote that when she got her first astrology reading in 1979 on a whim, “it was so fascinating and on-target that astrology became a part-time passion” before becoming a career in 1994.

She practiced sidereal astrology, which differs from tropical astrology. Tropical astrology uses the Earth’s seasons as its basis, while sidereal astrology is based on the actual positions of stars and constellations, what Dalebout would call “real star” time. In the process, she also discovered she was a Pisces, not an Aires.

When she launched her EarthWord SkyWord blog in February of 2011, she wrote that it took her two years to accept her real-time galactic marker as a fish, but through her own evolution, she learned how to deepen the appreciation for duality, and wanted to share it with others.

“Our two eyes allow us to have peripheral vision, sometimes a very helpful thing, sometimes providing unending distraction,” Dalebout wrote on her blog.

“They see a world in constant creation, happening in every color of the rainbow and reel in our wild eclectic difference that keep it interesting. I know we must use our peripheral vision to navigate the daily details of life. When you do look out, may your vision be one of appreciation for the prismatic diversity of our Earth,” the post continued.

Her combination of poet, biologist and Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner, Dalebout wrote, enabled her to “seek personal harmony and awakening and to be a supportive guide for others hoping to instill, illuminate and inspire seeds of evolutionary awakening as we co-create and celebrate the beauty of our many worlds.”

Williams said she thinks of a kaleidoscope when she thinks about how to her describe her friend..

“She was so multi-faceted, but I think what all of us loved so much about her was her bawdy humor. Nobody could laugh harder.”

“She was totally fearless,” Williams said as she talked about what “ski maniacs” the Dalebout sisters were in their youth. “It was that twinkle and the blond hair — but also this positive bright light."

Dalebout embodied her poetics in her everyday life. She took solace often hiking on her own and she would describe it as “visiting” with the many corners of the Yellowstone ecosystem, carefully observing every detail from flora to fauna, and the practice regularly presented in her prose.

“What’s needed to be a free-ranging citizen — she wrote that in a book in the 90s and yet we’re just catching up with her,” Williams said.

At the same time Dalebout was living in the yurt, she was shelving and selling books for Valley Bookstore, where she worked for nearly a decade. Then-owner Steve Ashley described Dalebout’s smile as “amazing, and one that could light up any room.”

The staff at the time referred to themselves as “the valley girls.”

“When I first met Lyn, I knew immediately she was one of the most authentic and genuine loving people, and she really understood people,” Ashley said in a phone interview.

Ashley said that the bookstore experienced many phases, and the “Lyn Phase” welcomed the New Age era with a growing metaphysical section and matching music.

“It was the culture of the bookstore to always share the books that we love, and Lyn was just the most open-minded and positive person, people loved her, and they loved to work with her.”

“She was tied to that bear as soon as she knew about it,” Ashley said. “Some people have spirit animals, and Lyn, she went all in on something at a real authentic depth.”

In Dalebout’s farewell essay to 399, she recalled how she bonded with the bear she first encountered in 2007 and who became a beacon for the wild world around the globe.

“I consider her one of my greatest mentors,” Dalebout wrote. “I believe she knew she was a teacher to all of us. She chose to interact with us. She chose to guide us in how to live respectfully alongside wild ones. She became the wisest of elders as she gracefully and youthfully aged.”

In many ways Dalebout’s reflections on 399 for some now feel like they could have been talking about Dalebout herself.

“Lyn chose to explore the cosmos,” Williams said. “She was an explorer of her own community, and she was an explorer in the landscape that she was a part of, and I always thought of her spiritual practice as a practice of Earth Joy.”

The Perseids will peak Aug. 16-17, an apt time to bid farewell to a favorite astrological explorer — but for many it’s not a goodbye, it’s knowing Lyn will return with meteors next summer. Though Dalebout left her physical form after 70 years, her presence and insight will continue to radiate through her writing and friendships.

Dalebout is survived by her sister Jan Dalebout, her niece Grace Stillman, her nephews Liv Dalebout (Shilah,wife), Forrest Stillman, her great nieces Lyrical Stillman, Taylor Dalebout, Laityn Dalebout and great-nephew Traxton Dalebout.

A celebration of Lyn’s life will be held at noon on Saturday, Aug. 2 in Owen Bircher Park in Wilson. Attendees are asked to bring a blanket or chair and a favorite dish.