If you can't go to the wilderness, bring the wilderness to you. On my acre-and-a-half Victorian property in Pennsylvania I lovingly support two giant larches, two 100-year-old Norway spruces, two silver maples with huge trunks that are dying of old age, three massive Osage orange trees that are not, and a locust that is more than 100 feet tall. Plus three black walnut trees, yews, arborvitaes, rhododendrons and other bushes. Living with nature is fun! My wildlife friends think so, too.
"Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us – if only we were worthy of it."
Near the end of Desert Solitaire, Edward Abby acknowledges a middle path, “Balance, that’s the secret. Moderate extremism. The best of both worlds. Unlike Thoreau who insisted on one world at a time I am attempting to make the best of two. After six months in the desert I am volunteering for a winter of front-line combat duty - caseworker, public warfare department - in the howling streets of Megalomania, USA. Mostly for the sake of private and selfish concerns, truly, but also for reasons of a more general nature. After 26 weeks of sunlight and stars, wind and sky and golden sand, I want to hear once more the crackle of clamshells on the floor of the bar in the Clam Broth House in Hoboken. I long for a view of the jolly, rosy faces on 42nd Street and the cheerful throngs on the sidewalks of Atlantic Avenue. Enough of Land’s End, Dead Horse Points, Tukuhnikivats and other high resolves; I want to see somebody jump out of a window or off a roof. I grow weary of nobody’s company but my own…”
Ed Abbey remains up there as one of my most beloved writers. Like Anthony Bourdain, he wrote with a brilliant flare raging against whatever was incongruent to him in the moment; yet, all the while honestly acknowledging his own conflicting and all too human imperfections. He could lyrically connect to the world with beauty and simplicity and yet, at the same, time both appreciate and rage against aspects of its complexity. A paradox of a human being. And perhaps his contradictions are attractive because they allow us a means to ponder the contradictions that reside within our own selves.
Part of that contradiction was the range of his words. From the brilliantly vulgar:
"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherfucker in the valley."
To the achingly poetic:
"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."
You struck with the fondness of a rural childhood long gone. Running through wild fields. Swimming and fishing in a lake a short walk, spending the warm summer months on my bicycle with buddies of the same heart and mind. Wandering forests, soft floor of pine needles. Picking apples from trees of neglected orchards.
Now I love in an urban world with senseless towers of glass and steel. Humans running around lost in their hollow selves. Speed and anger frothing like rabid dogs.
My childhood dream world taken by progress; subdivisions and golf courses. Farm land slipping into the ether of political silence.
To find the world of forests, rock and water, a 3 hour drive north where the night skies sparkle with stars.
I recall an action we went on organized by /Earth Firsters . To Stop the building of a ski resort on Mt. Greylock/Pocumtuck- in the town of North Adams and Williamstown, MA. The highest elevation along the Appalachain Trail in Massachusetts. This was back in the 1980s, probably 1987 or 88..... we camped out over night , went over strategy...... went to bed. We women folk rise early - so we got up and skinny dipped in the waterfall near the campsite. So my friend I brought along was not waking up and it was time to protest. Some of us were handing out fliers alon the way and at the summit. One character was dressed in a bear suit. Hey you- GMan Show time. so I rouse him- turns out he stayed all night with the organizer Wolf- smoking pot and shooting the breeze. It was a Successful Action- Greylock will never have a ski area!!
I've been giving away copies of Cactus Eds, "Desert Solitare" for 25 plus years. And I love to site his
"Good News" to Arizona politicans that insist on supporting destructive real estate development and population increases. I have a copy of his poems, "Earth Apples "
My favorite Abbey book is
"Black Sun." I have tried for years to get someone to write a sequel and rescue Sandy (?).
Erik, thank you again for your scribbling.
Cal Lash somewhere in the great Sonoran Desert. What's left of it!
Nature will always remain the greatest healer. Here, in this ugly city, every tree is cut down to make place for ugly overprized condos . Disheartening!
If you can't go to the wilderness, bring the wilderness to you. On my acre-and-a-half Victorian property in Pennsylvania I lovingly support two giant larches, two 100-year-old Norway spruces, two silver maples with huge trunks that are dying of old age, three massive Osage orange trees that are not, and a locust that is more than 100 feet tall. Plus three black walnut trees, yews, arborvitaes, rhododendrons and other bushes. Living with nature is fun! My wildlife friends think so, too.
"Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us – if only we were worthy of it."
Near the end of Desert Solitaire, Edward Abby acknowledges a middle path, “Balance, that’s the secret. Moderate extremism. The best of both worlds. Unlike Thoreau who insisted on one world at a time I am attempting to make the best of two. After six months in the desert I am volunteering for a winter of front-line combat duty - caseworker, public warfare department - in the howling streets of Megalomania, USA. Mostly for the sake of private and selfish concerns, truly, but also for reasons of a more general nature. After 26 weeks of sunlight and stars, wind and sky and golden sand, I want to hear once more the crackle of clamshells on the floor of the bar in the Clam Broth House in Hoboken. I long for a view of the jolly, rosy faces on 42nd Street and the cheerful throngs on the sidewalks of Atlantic Avenue. Enough of Land’s End, Dead Horse Points, Tukuhnikivats and other high resolves; I want to see somebody jump out of a window or off a roof. I grow weary of nobody’s company but my own…”
A dog?
City by Clifford Simak
Ed Abbey remains up there as one of my most beloved writers. Like Anthony Bourdain, he wrote with a brilliant flare raging against whatever was incongruent to him in the moment; yet, all the while honestly acknowledging his own conflicting and all too human imperfections. He could lyrically connect to the world with beauty and simplicity and yet, at the same, time both appreciate and rage against aspects of its complexity. A paradox of a human being. And perhaps his contradictions are attractive because they allow us a means to ponder the contradictions that reside within our own selves.
Part of that contradiction was the range of his words. From the brilliantly vulgar:
"Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherfucker in the valley."
To the achingly poetic:
"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."
You struck with the fondness of a rural childhood long gone. Running through wild fields. Swimming and fishing in a lake a short walk, spending the warm summer months on my bicycle with buddies of the same heart and mind. Wandering forests, soft floor of pine needles. Picking apples from trees of neglected orchards.
Now I love in an urban world with senseless towers of glass and steel. Humans running around lost in their hollow selves. Speed and anger frothing like rabid dogs.
My childhood dream world taken by progress; subdivisions and golf courses. Farm land slipping into the ether of political silence.
To find the world of forests, rock and water, a 3 hour drive north where the night skies sparkle with stars.
Paul Kingsworth, also on Substack, presented a talk on just this idea - that man’s choice to dismiss nature is his true original sin.
I recall an action we went on organized by /Earth Firsters . To Stop the building of a ski resort on Mt. Greylock/Pocumtuck- in the town of North Adams and Williamstown, MA. The highest elevation along the Appalachain Trail in Massachusetts. This was back in the 1980s, probably 1987 or 88..... we camped out over night , went over strategy...... went to bed. We women folk rise early - so we got up and skinny dipped in the waterfall near the campsite. So my friend I brought along was not waking up and it was time to protest. Some of us were handing out fliers alon the way and at the summit. One character was dressed in a bear suit. Hey you- GMan Show time. so I rouse him- turns out he stayed all night with the organizer Wolf- smoking pot and shooting the breeze. It was a Successful Action- Greylock will never have a ski area!!
ONCE AGAIN - THANK YOU SOOO VERY MUCH, ERIK, FOR YOUR POST TODAY.
I LOVE YOUR EVERY WORD(s), AS USUAL. ☮️❤️
I've been giving away copies of Cactus Eds, "Desert Solitare" for 25 plus years. And I love to site his
"Good News" to Arizona politicans that insist on supporting destructive real estate development and population increases. I have a copy of his poems, "Earth Apples "
My favorite Abbey book is
"Black Sun." I have tried for years to get someone to write a sequel and rescue Sandy (?).
Erik, thank you again for your scribbling.
Cal Lash somewhere in the great Sonoran Desert. What's left of it!
Mother Earth needs every foot soldier to help preserve and protect all of HER (smile) greatest gifts to mankind to explore and florish in. 🌍🌎🌏☮️👌
I’ve tried 3 times to buy you a coffee but my card is refused. It’s a Substack problem. Thanks for a soft landing.
I was recently in Arches NP and essentially everything Abbey feared for the place had come true. Virtually Disney World for sandstone arches
I have never read his works but I am going to get this book to start. Thanks for sharing!
My definition of Wilderness:
Me and my fathifull painted dog wandering the Serengity 16000 years ago.
Nature will always remain the greatest healer. Here, in this ugly city, every tree is cut down to make place for ugly overprized condos . Disheartening!