October 1, 2010

Dear Members and Friends,

Thoreau over 100 years ago wrote “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” How much wildness is left in any of our lives? I was thrilled to see a deer romping through my paschasandra last week, leaping like a gazelle and ignoring my wonder. Sometimes we are visited by a superior grace, a marvel which stops us in our busy tracks and says, “pay attention, this blessing is for you!”

What of the wildness in our imaginations? Do we ever let them run freely? The wildness in our own spirit needs free play if we are to be true to ourselves. What about the way we dress to show ourselves to the world? I spend a lot of time people-watching in railroad stations. Each person tells a story without saying a word. So we show ourselves in sober and safe ways always controlling our wildness. What happens to us if our wildness is always controlled?

I am not recommending any artificial release through drugs or alcohol. That release would be phony and not truly revelatory of whom we really are. What then do we do with our wildness? It seeps out in manifold ways such as in a poem, a song we sing, a dance we do, a sudden inspiration or in an eternal moment when time stops and we find the C-major of our lives, as if in the power of a force, outside our ordinary knowing.

How does all this wildness preserve the world? It does it by revealing new possibilities for growth and expanded life. Anything we can do to enlarge our understanding of where we fit in the great web of existence moves us closer to nature, to each other, and to the heart of the Eternal.

May the colors, the perfumes of October release the wildness in all of us, as we struggle to build a sane and just world.

Love,