Chapter 7 - Wildness
At-one-ment
Helder was a man connected at his center like a 14 bn-year-old umbilical cord to the created order and the interconnectedness of all things...
Other Kinds
I have watched you participating with birds and squirrels, and yesterday, I observed you spending 15 minutes helping a small black spider free herself who had become trapped between the screen and the glass...
Bunny
As I was placing a window, I looked into the bottom of the well. A baby bunny was sitting on the dirt, a tiny ball of fluffy gray. Her long ears lay along her back, and as James Taylor wrote, she was “hoping real hard with a losing hand.”...
Robin
This morning, while only a little grey in the East, I stood on the cabin porch in a light drizzle and enjoyed the morning song. The Robins always begin the morning worship...
Groundhog
A few groundhogs lived on our farm, and one lived in a burrow underneath our barn. We enjoyed interacting with them from time to time as we each went about our appointed rounds...
Bears
Helder, grinning, indicates a large Spruce tree to our right. Claire and I met a large black bear right there in early Spring. Helder was walking 50 feet or so behind Claire...
Tuna Sandwich
Over the years, Claire and I have enjoyed occasional face-to-face with bears. Our experience is that they typically are too shy to have much of an encounter. But, on this occasion, I shared a more intimate negotiation with a bear. And it all had to do with a Tuna sandwich...
Mummy Range
In my early 20s, my younger brother and I learned backpacking and wilderness survival. We often went together, and sometimes we went alone...