Inspiration - One Who Cannot

"There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.  These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot." - Aldo Leopold

"Fleeing the City"

At the suggestion of one of my book club friends we recently read A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold.  I was not too far in before I realized that I'd actually read it before as part of my environmental studies program in college.  Still, its worth reading again.    It is a quite lyrical and inspiring book of nature writing.  Leopold has some great concerns and ideas about nature and conservation, many of which I share with him.  He writes with such a local eye and eloquent hand that I quite admire the book and its lasting legacy in the conservation movement. 

For you see I, like Aldo Leopold, am also one who cannot.  One who sees that technology is great, but not at the expense of all that is wild and wonderful.  Who can get distracted for hours by birds and flowers.  Who want fewer roads into the forest, even if that makes it harder to get there.  Who want wolves in the web of life that surrounds us and polar bears on the ice even if mine own eye never sees such a bear--just to know that it is there.  That remembers that nature supports industry so industry should be respectful of nature or in the end it seals all our fates.  Who know that joy that is being alone in the forest, yet never really alone.  Yeah, I'd like to think I am one of those. 

"Holy"
(This is my favorite of all the collages I've created)