The animals that we are
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
From "A Prayer for a Wild Millennium" by Terry Tempest Williams (an essay published in Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert):
"I believe we need wilderness in order to be more complete human beings, to not be fearful of the animals that we are, an animal who bows to the incomparable power of natural forces when standing on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, an animal who understands a sense of humility when watching a grizzly overturn a stump with its front paw to forage for grubs in the lodgepole pines of the northern Rockies, an animal who weeps over the sheer beauty of migrating cranes above the Bosque del Apache in November, an animal who is not afraid to cry with delight in the middle of a midnight swim in a phospherescent tide, an animal who has not forgotten what it means to pray before the unfurled blossom of the sacred datura, remembering the source of all true visions.
"As we step over the threshold of the twenty-first century, let us acknowledge that the preservation of wilderness is not so much a political process as a spiritual one, that the language of law and science used so successfully to define and defend what wilderness has been in the past century must now be fully joined with the language of the heart to illuminate what these lands mean to the future."
Mythic fiction and mythic art speak "the language of the heart," and can, I believe, play an important role in the fight to preserve wilderness and the wild for our children's children's children.
The wonderful paintings and drawing above are by the Italian street artist Ericailcane, based in Bologna. Please visit his website to see more of his work.