(I didn’t post my synthesizing essay yet so I will post it now!)
“In wilderness is the preservation of the world.” These were words written by Henry David Thoreau, and are words that immensely reflect the pattern I have seen in myself through what I have written in my posts and the things that I’ve connected with through others’ posts as well. When I am in the wilderness, it seems that I can make it into my entire world, a world where I can shut out the annoyances and rushes of everyday life and am able to finally see what really matters. In wilderness not only the preservation of the world, but it is the preservation of my true world, my own thoughts without any outside influences but those within my own mind.
Being in the presence of nature reminds me of my core and my pure being, my true self and the true world around me. It does this by taking my attention away from all that is unnatural and setting me into the world of the wild where nothing but what is around me matters. In my Doggie Day post, I describe this true world as my “nature mindset”:
“Witnessing the dogs in action on this land brought me back once again to my ‘nature mindset’; where I am wholly content to just simply be outside, with a dog, romping around in the woods. Nothing else is on my mind.”
The simplicity of being in nature has brought me to this world of my own, and the view of this world is unimpaired by anything outside of that in the current moment.
This same feeling of nature’s presence weaving itself into a world of its own can be seen in Erin’s post, Just Climb Away From a Great Time. She speaks about the world that she is absorbed in while sitting in a tree. “Even though I can hear the train go by in the distance, and the cars are driving by, it does not seem to matter because I am surrounded by the wilderness and am cocooned in this magnificent tree.” Although she hears the unnatural world pulling at her attention, she is able to block it out when she is in the wilderness and is able to observe the fact that none of the unnatural world concerns her when she is in the wilderness. All that matters to her is how she is currently sitting in a tree, encircled by nature. My post and Erin’s post each show the world that we find ourselves in once we are encompassed by nature, a world where we are able to entirely block out what is outside of it and solely focus on the present moment.
In many posts I’ve looked over, being in the present moment as a result from being taken into the natural world when one is rid of all outside influence comes with being faced with a form of truth. In my Run Along the River post, I describe being brought to the present moment as my “basic instinct” or what I take to be pure truth: ““It seemed as though being out of the noise of the world behind me and running by the river brought me back to my basic instinct, ridding me of my need for distraction from the present moment.” Instead of taking in the distracting nonsensical thoughts of the unnatural world that pull me further from my core and instinct, nature’s presence allows me to solely focus on what is there in front of me: the true, raw world that is mine to bear.
In Kelin’s post, Get Elevated, I have found a point in which he is faced with pure actuality when he is confronted with the grandeur of nature. He describes turning around on a chairlift in the Rocky Mountains, looking back at the snow over the peaks and valleys. It puts him in awe, and he is left in his own world of snow. He says, “For the first time in my life, I felt small. Not just small in the sense of being a tiny organism in an incomprehensibly HUGE universe, but rather, I can almost say that I was humbled by the majesty of mother nature.” When absorbed in the world of nature, Kelin is unable to detect the influences of the outside world when he was faced with the majesty of the mountains in front of him. In turn, the magnificence of the mountains in relation to him gave him a sense of pure truth when he felt humbled by mother nature. Both mine and Kelin’s posts show that the world that wilderness and nature gives us a sense of truth, that in allowing us to block out the noise of the unnatural world we are then able to realize the reality that lies in front of us and within us.
This truth is what drives people from wilderness and also draws people to it. It can scare people to face themselves without the cushion of outside influence directing their thoughts and actions. But the purity of the truth is what draws me, and what I think draws the members of Earth Lodge, to the wilderness. It is the reality of nature that we seek, the sense of being entirely present in a world where there is nothing to fall back on but what is actually there and what we have within ourselves. As Earth Lodgers we are familiar with the words of the outdoorsman Chris McCandless who once said, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, than fairness…give me truth,” and he went into the wild to find it.