Wilderness thus remains a “profoundly human creation” — charged with individualism — in which we perceive not “nature,” but “the reflection of our own unexamined longings and desires.”

So to the question of right relationship, I think my heart's yearning is to bless that is to acknowledge that yearning, that desire for a different relationship that is not supported by our modern suburban arrangements but also to caution that sometimes in our quest to go back, we actually re-entrench, or reinforce and reinscribe the modern. It’s... See more

We call nature ‘the wilderness’ and animals within it ‘wild animals’ while we are ‘civil’ humans. This type of language alone shows our un-symbiotic relationship with nature. We see us, humans, ourselves, as being separate or even superior to nature (the ‘wild’ vs the tame, conscious, civil), a mental model that is at the root of so many powerful... See more