...and onto the blog main page. Thanks to all for the profound and insightful comments left on my last two postings. Some of the comments were just too good to leave there in the comments box. And so I share them here:
Barry from Ox Herding:
"We're all wandering around, looking for the same place. There must be something wrong with that strategy.... a better strategy might be: stop wandering. Stay right where we are. Look for the wilderness in that very spot. (Easier said than done, much easier...)"
The grizzled but still incorrigible scribe himself:
"Nature is an attitude, a way of viewing and your days through the lens of the elemental; a constant awareness of season and circumstance wherein earth and sky and every living thing thereon become a part of our thoughts and dreams."
Barry from Ox Herding again:
"Since this all began with reference to Gary Snyder, it might be noted that, for all his love of wilderness, his real passion is for wildness.In his book "Practice of the Wild"...he talks about *wildness* as the state of being "off the path." We don't have to go anywhere to be off the path - we just need to let go of our attachments, aversions and other deluded mind-states. When we do that, when we approach each moment with "before-thinking" mind, then it's like rambling along the Chinese Wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness - WOW!"
Sylvia from Sister Earth:
"...we are always in nature. There is nothing but. It is only in our minds that we start making distinctions between "real" nature and the inferior stuff that most clearly shows our footprints. A knowledgeable naturalist sees both our footprints in the supposedly untrammelled wilderness and the wilderness in our most trampled places."
And last but not least, the Dharma Bum:
"...what this post and discussion gets to is a "big question." That of humankind's role in the world, as a species that is as much at home here as anything else in this global ecosystem, or as an interloper, a creature apart from nature.... I am a guy who works 40 hours a week on behalf of Wilderness with a capital "W" and that all-important "er" between "wild" and "ness." I believe that the nature--or wilderness--you were referring to in your first post, is vitally important to humans, for exactly the reasons you've laid out in this post. It is a place for remembering our place in this world, this ecosystem, and for all the spiritual, emotional and mental benefits that come with it."
Great stuff. I cannot thank you all enough for your engagement with the topic. You have given me much to ponder and I hope my readers will ponder these things as well.
Peace to all.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I see I missed the party, but you and your commenters have given me much to ponder. That Mississippi gorge is beautiful; can you imagine what it was like before the Ford dam was built and the water was impounded?
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate everyone's comments. Thanks for organizing them in this way, Forest Wisdom!
ReplyDeleteI've always admired Douglas Tompkins and his willingness to put serious money behind preservation of serious wilderness. Wilderness, both with and without an initial cap, is critically important to our shared humanity.
For me, the commitment to wilderness arises out of commitment to the wild, in my own heart/mind and also in the world "out" there.
Thanks again to everyone participating in this thread,
Barry
Deb, better late than never. :)
ReplyDeleteI wish I had seen the river before the Ford dam.
Barry, very well said once again, especially, "For me, the commitment to wilderness arises out of commitment to the wild, in my own heart/mind and also in the world "out" there."
I'll agree 100%. In fact, I would make those words to live by.
Thanks, and peace to you both.
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog, forest wisdom.
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome am. I stop by often. :)
ReplyDeleteI like all this. I've never read Snyder but will in future...
ReplyDeleteFor me wilderness and wildness are to be found both literally and in 'inner-ness'.
Sometimes I have had an abundance of access to literal outside wild environments, (oh joy!), and sometimes just a container plant on a windowsill and a shrub outside covered in industrial fall-out.
While I always want as much of the former as I can, the more the inner experience grows, the greater my exultant appreciation of the outer...
Hope my somewhat garbled comment makes sense!
Thank you for your blog.
Ralph,
ReplyDeleteYour comment very much makes sense and I don't find it garbled at all.
You have said it well, and I hope to cultivate the "inner" of which you speak much more, and not just the outer.
Thanks for your visit and comment. :)
By the way, my apologies; I see that it is actually Raph, not Ralph.
ReplyDeletePeace
Deep and interesting thoughts here.
ReplyDeleteFor me, wilderness is within, the untamed territory within myself where I encounter God. But there is wilderness, in the usual sense, in your own backyard, if you look for it.
To paraphrase a monk, if you cannot find the Spirit where you are, you will never find it.
Thanks, Barbara. :)
ReplyDeleteI find the challenge, as the season turns colder and gray, to find Nature and "stay" there, when I may not be able to physically "be" there.
ReplyDeleteAnd, thankfully, I find it is a skill one can hone, as many others.
What a wonderful escape from shopping frenzies, politics, ....the daily grind.
nina, thanks for this; there is wisdom in your words. Thanks also for the visit and the comment.
ReplyDeletePeace
Not to belittle getting out into nature (not at all; it is a wonderful practice), but these comments and posts made me think of this little bit from Dogen's "Fukan-zazengi":
ReplyDelete"Why leave behind the seat that exists in your home and go aimlessly off to the dusty realms of other lands? If you make one misstep, you go astray from the Way directly before you."
Very well put, zensquared. And your comment reminds me of a quotation by Blaise Pascal:
ReplyDeleteAll men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
Just to sit..."shikantaza," eh?
Thank you for your visit and your comment.
Peace