Extra-Ordinary Wilderness (Excerpt)

Yesterday, I went for a walk about a half-mile outside of town. I came across a woman and her massive male husky. He was vi brant, jumping in and out of bushes and tall grasses, running through the open fields, sniffing here and there, and chasing deer across a hillside. This gorgeous animal was completely in his element. It brought me great joy to observe him. It opened my heart. My thinking came to a halt.

In the fading light of day, I sat down in the hummocks of grass and began to really take in the beauty around me. The pine trees glowed. The foothills, dying shrubbery, and all the undergrowth were radiant and crisp.  A deep peace, stillness, and bliss overcame me. And curiously, and amazingly, there was no "I" to experience this, only the omnipresence of God.

The selections in this chapter point to the magic found in wilderness, from vast experiences of the mystical and transpersonal found in remote and wild places, to the simplicity, richness, and mystery discovered in our backyards, gardens, and city parks. It is my experience that there is no place nature and magic cannot be found. Wherever we go we find wilderness — even within the walls of our homes, where we are confronted with the unexplainable mystery and beauty of our own living. Wilderness has j no walls; I have deliberately combined radically different ends of the spectrum of experienced wilderness to emphasize this point.

Seeing the smallness of our human lives against the unrestrained expanse of nature into which we have been born, we are deeply and gratefully humbled. Through this seeing, our attention may be turned away from the confines of our humanness and toward the depths of our nature, and in this act we grow immeasurably. We no longer perceive nature as something out there that we periodically visit, but as something that we carry inside of us wherever we are.