The Wilderness Mysterium, 03/31/2000
If you travel far enough into the wilderness, you eventually reach a region where you feel the bonds of civilization slowly slip away. Here in the primordial vastness of black spruce forests, kettle lakes and endless skies, if you listen not with your ears but with your heart, the wilderness will speak to you. The narrative of the land becomes audible. In powerful, yet elusive whispers it tells a tale of timelessness, mystery and awe, inviting us to reclaim a forgotten heritage -- a link to a greater self. Life here vibrates at a different frequency, time passes on an eternal clock. The longer you remain in the far wilderness the more you begin to sense a presence or spirit within Nature. The Anishnabe refer to this as “Kitchi-Manitou” or “Great Spirit”. Mother Nature, they believed, imparted a sacredness to such distant abodes.
Upon returning to civilization you feel transformed by the experience of such grandeur and remoteness. You become enlarged. These places, beyond the reach of most except in their imagination, I call The Wilderness Mysterium.
