My blog posting today, which I have titled, "Ah, Wilderness!" has nothing to do with the 1935 American comedy-drama film that has that name. Click the link if you'd like to find out about the film. I haven't seen it, and it sounds pretty silly. The picture above, and my blog posting today, also has nothing to do with the Eugene O'Neill play from which the film was adapted.
To be clear about the picture, the image I have placed above is a view of the Yosemite Wilderness in California. If you are following the news, you'll likely remember that our current president is reportedly working to give part of Yosemite to a developer who is aiming to build a private road across our national parklands. Though I do follow "politics," rather closely, and all the latest news about what our current president is proposing to do, today's blog posting was not even intended to reference that possible land transfer in Yosemite.
The "Ah, Wilderness!" that I'd like you to think about - the "Ah, Wilderness!" that has resulted in today's blog posting - is an "Ah, Wilderness!" that is nothing other than a simple and spontaneous articulation of awe and inspiration, prompted by the very idea of "Wilderness" itself, of lands like those shown in the picture, preserved and protected from all future "development," and all those possible "improvements," which might otherwise be visited upon them.
Here is a link to our Wilderness Act, signed into law in 1964. Read the law if you'd like to see what our Congress has done, in response to that feeling of awe, an awe inspired not only by an experience of wilderness, but of the very idea of it, of the possibility that we could leave the Earth alone, at least where human activities have not already compromised and undermined its grandeur and its greatness, to behold its wonders in their natural state.
My spontaneous, "Ah, Wilderness" feeling - the feeling that has led me to write out this blog posting - came to me as I read the latest edition of "Wilderness Watcher," the quarterly newsletter of Wilderness Watch, a nonprofit based in Missoula, Montana, dedicated to preserving and protecting our nation's wilderness areas. When I read that recent newsletter from Wilderness Watch, a feeling of awe and love for our wilderness lands did come over me (click that "Wilderness Watcher" link and you can read that newsletter, too).
I sent Wilderness Watch some money, and I thought, as I did that, "Ah, Wilderness!" How happy I am that there is an organization that is working - and successfully working - to protect our wilderness lands for my children, and their children, and for all of us. Forever.
Read the latest edition of "Wilderness Watcher." Perhaps you'll be as moved as I was, and will send Wilderness Watch some money, too!
Image Credit:
https://wildernesswatch.org/wild-news/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment!