Fear of the Unknown
“Always in big woods, when you leave familiar ground and step off alone to a new place, there will be, along with feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are understanding the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is the experience of our essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes common ground, and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.”
–Wendell Berry (American Poet, Novelist and Essayist, 1934-)
“The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky’s Red River Gorge” (Wendell Berry)
Nature Has a Vote!
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”
–Wendell Berry (American Poet, Novelist and Essayist, 1934-)
Water
“And having thoughtlessly polluted our streams and rivers, we have seen in recent years a rapidly growing market for bottled drinking water. I am sure that some will say that a rapidly growing market for water is “good for the economy,” and most of us are still affluent enough to pay the cost. Nevertheless, it is a considerable cost that we are now paying for drinkable water, which we once had in plentiful supply at little cost or none at all. And the increasing of the cost suggests that the time may come when the cost will be unaffordable.”
–Wendell Berry (American Poet, Novelist and Essayist, 1934-)
{Commencement Address, Lindsey Wilson College, 14 May 2005}
