Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Losing the Wilderness

What little wilderness was left in Florida we seem to be losing it. Migrating birds are the ones that are most taken aback by the civilization's attack on their rest stops.

What we are losing to concrete and stone is irreplacable. The wilderness is not just a home for wildlife; it is a place where our sense of dependence on nature and its creator is fostered and reflected upon.

Wilderness can be a metaphor for personal crises, confusion, and bafflement, but without the beauty and inspiration of forests, swamps, and deserts, won't we end up resorting to some kind of a fake and manufactured nature?

We already have those fake gardens in big cities. They are better than nothing, for sure, but sitting in a man-made park or a tea house while the pollution from exhaust pipes and the noise of the traffic interfere with our mind's workings does not quite match up to our spiritual connection, meditation, and reflection in the nature's true garden of a wilderness.

We used to get flocks and flocks of Sandhill Cranes around out community. Nowadays, these birds walk around singly or in pairs. Where there used to be a pathway with the sign "Sandhill Crane Passing" now is a throughfare where cars whiz by. The sign still stands there by the side of the road and sandhill cranes still try to cross the street, addled by all the changes that came about in the last decade or so.

True wilderness heals and humbles the spirit. It is where we find silence, solitude, and awe for nature and the entire creation. Shouldn't we at least try to preserve one tiny part of it?