An ocean belongs to no one, but a lake is an entity. It collects everything in the murky water.
Bistcho Lake surely had some kind of memory. The still surface was like an eye, and when the lake froze over it formed a lens. Then it started to snow. The lake was blind until the spring. We forgot about the lake and acted like it was a field.
But a native collected a huge chunk of ice. It was important that the ice should come from the middle of the lake. He meant to bring it to the medicine man, but instead he got drunk, and lost the ice and most of his belongings along the trail; "[...] in Wildness is the preservation of the World".
Bistcho Lake surely had some kind of memory. The still surface was like an eye, and when the lake froze over it formed a lens. Then it started to snow. The lake was blind until the spring. We forgot about the lake and acted like it was a field.
But a native collected a huge chunk of ice. It was important that the ice should come from the middle of the lake. He meant to bring it to the medicine man, but instead he got drunk, and lost the ice and most of his belongings along the trail; "[...] in Wildness is the preservation of the World".
Henry David Thoreau is often misquoted on this particular saying. He never did write "in wilderness is the preservation of the world", but he used the word "Wildness", with a capital "W", in his famous essay Walking.
I'm not sure if I really understand what he meant. It's not as obvious as it first seemed to be. And I can't help thinking about the drunk man with a chunk of ice.
I'm not sure if I really understand what he meant. It's not as obvious as it first seemed to be. And I can't help thinking about the drunk man with a chunk of ice.
