Jun 23 2008
Into the Wild
I enjoy immersing myself in the wild. Why? For the untamed beauty, the experiences with other species – more on their terms rather than mine — etc. I used to say that the wilderness was my cathedral. It’s where I go to feel something different: to clear my head of the human and personal concerns that buzz buzz buzz around my brain at 60 miles per hour, 17 hours per day and then some.
I no longer call my excursions into wild nature “spiritual experiences” — for the average person doesn’t have the vaguest idea what “spiritual” is, for good reason. Is “spirituality” a code word for events that make you feel warm & fuzzy and/or in the presence of something bigger/greater?
My longing to experience untamed nature, I believe, is fully in line with my scientific self. I venture out not into the fully unknown, but the unexpected. I leave my more civilized self behind and its sterile habits and do more seeing, hearing, smelling, and touching than I do when pinned to my desk.
Of course, the fact that I could get attacked by an alligator, bitten by a spider or snake, or simply get very lost and never make it home, probably adds a nice squirt of adrenaline to the endeavor.
As far as I can tell, many of the first scientists were what you might call pious naturalists: clergy members who had the time to catalogue and study their god’s creation.
Whose creation is the one I find so breathtaking? It is no-bodies, in terms of ownership and design. Yet it is also everybody’s, when it comes to the potential tremendous joy that comes with wandering and wondering.
