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Wandering into the Wild


Beyond the expanding urban cities, and past the secluded rural towns, awaits the wilderness.

That is where I want to go; what naturalist and environmental philosopher John Muir called, “the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed” places.

They are Thoreau’s, Walden Pond. They are conservationist Ansel Adams,’ Kings Canyon where the giant General Grant tree grows, or the Sierra Nevada, where groves of the massive sequoia rise into the sky, the tallest trees in the world. Those great places also exist in poet Mary Oliver’s nature settings, who said of flowers, “There is nothing in the world that can be said against them.”

Wouldn’t it be nice for a change, to be there? A place where nothing could be said against anyone.

I want to follow an overgrown trail that leads into a deep green forest and hear and feel the sounds of the earth. I’m looking for wildness, for untouched beauty, for scenes of nature’s glory abandoned and left alone in the quiet. I seek the mountain, the river stream, the majestic trees, fields of flowers and the undulating energy of a cold clear creek.

I want to sit on the edge of a glistening rock and slide into the mud. I want the soupy universe to saturate me. I want to be low and grounded in its forces.

There is wildness in that. There is oneness with the land in that. There is humility, and beauty, as well.

I want to be where there is the echo of ancient explorers, the primitive land that speaks of roaming bison and healing plants, what the Navajos called “the earth spirit, covered with growing things.”

There is a time to mingle with the crowd. To tell our stories to one another. To embrace our humanity together. We need that. And I want that as well.

But the crowd can get tiresome. The talking can become only empty noise, or worse, hard arguments. In that arena we lose connection with the land, with the earth, with nature, where there resides so much wisdom we need; and, we lose awareness of ourselves and become someone we aren’t.

The wilderness calls us. Not flagrant living. Not indecent actions. Not rudeness. Not bitter words. Not mean attacks. Not ugly prejudice and the separation of differences. That’s not wildness, that’s recklessness.

The wild wilderness invites us to explore ourselves, one another, and our world. It is full of life. It urges us into risk and danger and the possibility of something never before experienced. Something free. Something natural. Something human.

“The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty ” writes novelist Richard Jefferies, “are the only hours when we really live.”

That’s the wilderness I’m seeking.

Naturalist Edward Abbey wrote, “Earth is the only home we will ever know, the only paradise we ever need.”

There is wisdom there and I long to journey deep into that wilderness.

© 2019 Timothy Moody

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