I’m not sure what the most affirming and compelling thing would be that a friend or a reader might say to me. But my friend David got close when we sent me this on Monday: “I’ve been encouraged to see the wilderness more through your writings.”
And then he told me about one of his other wilderness guides, his two-year-old, Lina:
One of the games she plays is called ‘bird’. We essentially just pretend there are birds on a walk, or in our basement, or wherever we are, and just say, 'Oh, look a bird!’ (There are no birds and we just point wherever.)
He continued:
I sometimes feel like there is no wilderness in the suburban jungle that is southeast Michigan but sometimes just pretending (and being excited about it) gives me a hint of the joy and playfulness that comes from running through the woods and being in wide open spaces.
John Muir begins chapter one of Our National Parks with this:
The tendency nowadays to wander in wildernesses is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.
That was 122 years ago.
Muir describes the forays of those who delve deep into the wilderness “jumping from rock to rock, feeling the life of them, learning the songs of them, panting in whole-souled exercise, and rejoicing in deep, long-drawn breaths of pure wildness.”
About those rock-jumping, soul-panting, long-drawn wilderness rejoicers, Muir says, “This is fine and natural and full of promise.” Then he says, “So also is the growing interest… in the half wild parks and gardens of towns.”
The half wild parks and gardens of town. I love that phrase. I love that sentiment. I love the way it makes room for wildness to crawl into even our most cultivated green spaces.
It gives me permission to do what Lina knows through pure instinct how to do. To make believe. More than permission. Inspiration. I’m inspired by Lina’s spirit of imagination, by her and Muir’s audacity of proclamation.
“Oh, look a bird!”
“Oh, look a park!”
“Oh, look…!”
More than permission—the weave of the wisdom from this two-year old in Detroit and this 122 year old turn of phrase—it’s a commission, to go out, seeking and naming every instance of half wild wonder that manages to stumble past whatever doldrums insulate us from being always completely taken with this wonderfully wild world.
I write that mouthful of a sentence, and then I check myself. “But Aram, everything in this world isn’t gorgeous and playful and light. What about the the gnarly, the severe, the shadows? Don’t bypass those.”
I listen to myself when I check myself. Good note. Good caution. Of course. But that’s not what we’re doing here, is it?
It’s wildness that we’re talking about embracing, not a vapid outlook on life. The commission is not to bypass any of the world that we encounter, but to imagine it infused everywhere with the magic that we have already tasted elsewhere.
The commission is to make believe, in a way that makes it so.
PS - Want to join me next spring in the practice of wildness and make believe?!
For eight weeks in April and May, I’m teaching an online course with the School of Global Citizenry. You’re invited. Read about it here: Spiritual Formation in the Wild.
