The Wild

Recently, Scott visited Adak, a small island in the Aleutian chain. These are untamed, barren islands, straddling the north Atlantic and the Bering Sea. He has written about them in detail on naturelogues.substack.com.

Adak Island, Alaska

There are wild places on this Earth. Some are uninhabited by humans, while in others, people co-exist with the wild.

So many places on this Earth that were once wild have been tamed. Florida’s everglades are an example. Once 11,000 sq miles of slow, shallow, grassy water married to sun and storm, this habitat supported tremendous numbers of wading birds. Since the mid 20th century, as the monetary value of the land under all that water came to light, the habitat has now all but vanished, replaced by agriculture and housing developments. What remains untamed is the 2,357 sq miles comprising Everglades National Park, a tiny remnant of a once wild place.

Sunrise Over the River of Grass, Everglades National Park

But even as habitats are tamed, it is the nature of the wild to persist. The birds in our backyard; common birds like chickadees and Blue Jays, woodpeckers and nuthatches, have made their living in the forests of northeastern North America for thousands of years. They come to the feeders in our semi-tamed backyard almost every day, but could easily survive without our handouts. They are wild. Some people living in areas not too far from our home have to take their bird feeders down in the summer due to the presence of bears; a creature of the wild, directly influencing human activity. Wild, untamed beings live their lives, even in the little plots of land we humans think we have tamed.

Even in the carefully-groomed lawns of my neighbors, the wild creeps in, adding stray color among the sea of green.

At our deepest selves, I think that we humans are wild things. It is there, at that inner-most level of being, that I think all creatures are connected in this wild universe. It is there that the Divine inhabits all of us, Wild inhabiting wild. Maybe this is why we are so drawn to the natural world. We feed wild birds to bring them closer. We travel far and wide to witness the beauty of untamed water as it rushes over cliffs to fall in great sheets into foaming pools below. We marvel at our wild celestial companion, Luna, our moon. In our desire to know and commune with all of these, and so many other wild things, I think we may be trying to connect with the wild of the Divine in ourselves and all beings. It is there, in the depths of our holy selves, that we connect with everything, everyone, and the One who binds us all in the wildest kind of love.

Black-capped Chickadee