Restoring the Wilderness

Wilderness. The wilderness is a location in its natural state, free from anything other than raw existence. In the wilderness, there is nothing false, nothing to blame, no victims, and no circumstances. Here, everything simply is, and wherever you will look, there you are, looking. To visit the wilderness in our reality is to step away from the society and wander to a space free of human influence. Solely natural processes run these spaces. The trees grow, the animals live, the sun shines, and the rain falls. Without the pressures of clever human minds, there is no time, no agenda, and no expectations. This wilderness has become a precious space that many organizations fight to hold onto and to protect. But there is much debate over what can even be called wilderness. The clever minds of course must find a definitive answer, a logical explanation. A space of wilderness that is to be protected will always feel the effects of human presence. If a space is kept protected yet is impacted by pollution hundreds of miles away, it cannot be free of human influence. This space is disappearing in our natural world.

The wilderness however, is not just a place to be visited for vacation or to watch on the computer. There is another wilderness, which has also been overrun with human influence and pushed to extinction. This wilderness is the space within. The wilderness within is with you at birth but is soon trampled over, filled with hopes, dreams, limits, expectations, fears, anxieties, pressures, rights, wrongs and so on. This sacred space is lost as children grow learning about what they should fear, how they should live, who they should look up to, and what they should aim to achieve. The parents teach the children how to act, how to become successful, and how to fit in. When the child is grown they have no connection to the wilderness that once existed. They are now a part of the society, anxious, fearful, angry, void of any love and always busy going here and there. They are now civilized, successful, educated, important, and completely unhappy. They are unhappy because they are lost. There is no real connection, no true love, and no recognition of the self. The only way to solve this is to return home, to restore the wilderness.

Each human being begins as a source of pure love and still has a home where they can find their true self. All one has to do is stop. Stop running about, stop analyzing the world, stop planning your great escape and stop trying to figure it all out. Stop and just be with yourself. You have learned so well from your society how to be with others and you cannot even be a moment with yourself. As the practice of looking within deepens, the human influence melts away. Society no longer grips the mind and the mind no longer grips the spirit. When you break free of these shackles taught by society, wilderness is restored and here you will find that you are just where you always needed to be, wherever that is for you.