Vicki Dern

Wild is an untamed thing. It may have wings, or hooves, or 8 legs. It grows without the aid of humans, in its own appropriate habitat and shape. It may flow in tiny hidden rivulets or move as a powerful tidal flux. It may manifest as rocky scree, carved gorge, sandstone hoodoos. It might flutter around the back porch light, or scurry through the ivy. It’s present even in the best tended gardens, under the leaves, in the soil, burrowing, eating, reproducing. It’s birdsong, windsong, the cicada’s shriek.

Wild is all the things we can’t control; our own unruly hearts; the world so much larger than anything our minds can conjure. It’s the web that binds all natural things into one interdependent system.

What interests me most are the moments when I am consciously in the presence of the wild. Whether that occurs in my backyard as I notice all the species of bees that swarm the Russian Sage in July, or in a mountain meadow, or a remote desert canyon, doesn’t matter. It’s a quality of attention, a recognition of belonging.
Vicki Dern