Entries by tag: wilderness
When I first moved to Oregon I didn't make the trip down to the Wild & Scenic Rogue for quite a few years. I was busy with school, and then trying to start a practice. I was also quite pleased with how close Idaho is--for the whitewater paddler, there are few summer destinations more pleasing than Idaho. One time I applied for a Rogue permit in the lottery and got it, then gave it up because other things got in the way. Then, finally, I got on a summer trip down there and enjoyed it. On that trip I was rowing a "Clampitt" raft (stuff hanging off it all over) and following Pat's lines. This time I thought a lot about Nelbert, who died last week.
( Read more...Collapse )~~Aristotle
- John Muir
To be wild is not to be crazy or psychotic.
True wildness is a love of nature,
a delight in silence,
a voice free to say spontaneous things,
and an exuberant curiosity
in the face of the unknown.
~ Robert Bly
Above There Is The Mountain
And at its foot, the summer refuge---
sanctuary in town and yards under spreading
boughs of evergreens
Beneath the mountain’s wild, they find
their forage: shrubs, wild plants and the feast
of dropped fruit spread about the ground
Those with antlers come alone
Those without bring offspring---fawns
following last year’s babes nearly grown
Late summer afternoons, they descend
like evening shadows slipping down the slopes
and fanning out within the town
By night they feed; by moon they play
How swift they are, even the smallest ones
with stripes and spots
Under moonlight, they suckle then break
for cover---like wind itself---practicing escape
Neither are claws imaginary;
real and raw are the marks
which groove some yearlings’ flanks
Quiet coming, quieter still in going,
all gather again at first light, a full herd
of phantoms ready to depart
before the sun soars above the trees
At town’s edge, the solitary bucks
begin to bound---sharp hooves pounding
respect into pliant earth
Near forest, they pause, heads high,
nostrils flaring to test the morning breeze
Hidden high beneath the mountain’s brushy
crown: a flash of eye shine gold green,
the presence sensed but rarely seen
-Peter Hensel
The only real security is ...
the ability to build your own fires
and find your own peace ...
What we most regret
are not the errors we make,
but the things we didn't do.
--Audrey Sutherland
--Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival, page 133.
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/Wolves/index.asp
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/Wolves/wolf_program_updates.asp
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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