Wilderness Series Quotes

Making the best of things is a damn poor way of dealing with them. My life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand.

Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing. I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old.

We need a new ethic of place, one that has room for salmon and skyscrapers, suburbs and wilderness, Mount Rainier and the Space Needle, one grounded in history.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

Must be frustrating being a scientist. There you are, incrementally discovering how the universe works via a series of complex tests and experiments, for the benefit of all mankind - and what thanks do you get? People call you "egghead" or "boffin" or "heretic", and they cave your face in with a rock and bury you out in the wilderness. Not literally - not in this day and age - but you get the idea. Scientists are mistrusted by huge swathes of the general public, who see them as emotionless lab-coated meddlers-with-nature rather than, say, fellow human beings who've actually bothered getting off their arses to work this shit out.

Perhaps meditation is simply anything we do with our full attention, full awareness, full heart. Anywhere we find truth, or love. Something we do, not to be the fastest, or the best, or to win a prize, or to make a lot of money, but simply because we love it. Whatever it may be.

Every prophet has to come from civilization,” Churchill would explain, “but every prophet has to go into the wilderness. He must have a strong impression of a complex society . . . and he must serve periods of isolation and meditation. This is the process by which psychic dynamite is made.

From everything that I'd read, End Timers were waiting for the collapse of civilization the way fans of the Twilight series awaited the trailer for Breaking Dawn.

Wild beach is my primordial address.

What she read was a series of short connected lyrics, “Isis in Darkness.” The Egyptian Queen of Heaven and Earth was wandering in the Underworld, gathering up pieces of the murdered and dismembered body of her lover Osiris. At the same time, it was her own body she was putting back together; and it was also the physical universe. She was creating the universe by an act of love.

[Grant] himself had discovered the Army of the Potomac’s one weakness, the lack of springy formation, and audacious, self-reliant initiative.

Joe Johnston would have retreated after two days of such punishment,” Ulysses S. Grant noted,

Don’t be one way, Wishing for another, Only to arrive at the new way, Wishing for the first.

It is no use speaking in soft, gentle tones if everyone else is shouting.

Wilderness is our only hope. The one place we can always come back to.

I prefer to be wrong to save the wildness of the right.

Walking. Rhythmic walking. When I’m backpacking I’m backpacking. There is nothing else. No phone to answer, no email to check, no bills to pay, no errands to run. Nothing but backpacking.

Beauty is indeed a choice. Day by day, moment by moment, we choose love or hate, life or death, light or darkness. The seeds for both are contained within all things, both living and nonliving. It all depends on what we focus on. We create our own world. Focus on beauty and beauty you find. Focus on darkness and darkness will prevail. Beauty guides through the heart. Darkness through the mind.

I know of no better way to live my life than from the perspective of that old man. The ninety-year-old me. Because I always know what he would say. And it’s never, “I should have worked more, saved more, bought a nicer car, a bigger house, been more responsible.

If we slowed our lives down enough to allow for naps, wouldn’t we all have more enjoyable days, more productive days? Why do our work ethics tells us to work more? Work harder? Work longer? Anything less than eight hours—unacceptable. Towards the end of our workday, how productive are we, really? Are we actually working at that point, or just staring at a computer screen, staring at the clock? Passing the time?

It’s all too easy to assume that the darkness in this world lies outside of ourselves. That others are to blame. Yet only when we learn to see the darkness inside of ourselves, can we hope to develop compassion for the darkness in others. For even the darkest of places contain the seed of light.

When you hike through the forest you have no choice but to experience every step. The slow speed at which you move through the wilderness allows you to experience the landscape in such an intimate way. You have the opportunity to slow down and look across every stunning mountain vista, touch the blossoming azaleas, feel the cool mist of the waterfalls, and smell the rich scents of the forest as you pass through it. You have the opportunity to experience this paradise that is our planet.

I’ve got vodka in the fridge.” Maggie snorted. “It’s nine A.M.” “We’ll put orange juice in it.

The man, who goes afoot, prepared to camp anywhere and in any weather, is the most independent fellow on earth.” —HORACE KEPHART, 1904

Life is a series of disappointments, Mr. Tolland. Life is a series of promises that come to nothing.

Bushcraft” is a term for wilderness skills and is the practice of surviving

Making the best of things is a damn poor way of dealing with them. My life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand.

Lincoln believed he had finally found a general who understood the grim math of war and who possessed the resolve to do what needed to be done, as unpleasant as it would be.

Before you have your dreams, your dreams have you, and every day pushes a night before it while the wilderness follows.

series of infatuations for admired writers.

Wilderness. My problems are over the moment I step out onto the trail, pack loaded, schedule free.

I know that the best adventures are often off-trail, and blissful solitude will be guaranteed.

We come from the Earth. We return to the Earth. It happens over and over and over. You might say, we are the Earth. We’ve only to step away from our world of plastic and concrete to understand.

Plant a stick in the ground and lie down on your back. Looking at the top of the stick like a gun sight, line this up with a star. After several minutes, the star will appear to have moved as the earth has rotated. If the star moves left, you are facing north. If the star moves up, you are facing east. If the star moves right, you are facing south. If it moves down, you are facing west. The

What if there were a secret back-door portal to enlightenment? A shortcut, so to speak. I believe that the answer lies here, in wilderness. The shortcut is the long walk. However, you must go it alone. Once you get past the jitteriness of day one, the cravings of day two, and the loneliness of day three, meditation comes easily and naturally. Months of tension can be released in just a few days.

I liked being with Wilder. The world was a series of fleeting gratifications. He took what he could, then immediately forgot it in the rush of a subsequent pleasure. It was this forgetfulness I envied and admired.

Incapable of conquering true wilderness,” he writes, “Europeans were highly competent in the skill of conquering other people. . . . They did not settle a virgin land. They invaded and displaced a resident population.”51

Writing is an exhausting and demoralizing task that destroys human conceits. Writing an elongated series of personal essay opens a person’s mind to explore paradoxes and discover previously unrealized personal truths. Writing is as arduous as any trek into the wilderness. Every sentence takes a writer deeper into the jungle of the mind, a world of frightening inconsistencies created by our waking life’s desire that the world of chaos conform to our convenience.

Border crossing' is a recurrent theme in all aspects of my work -- editing, writing, and painting. I'm interested in the various ways artists not only cross borders but also subvert them. In mythology, the old Trickster figure Coyote is a champion border crosser, mischievously dashing from the land of the living to the land of the dead, from the wilderness world of magic to the human world. He tears things down so they can be made anew. He's a rascal, but also a culture hero, dancing on borders, ignoring the rules, as many of our most innovative artists do. I'm particularly drawn to art that crosses the borders critics have erected between 'high art' and 'popular culture,' between 'mainstream' and 'genre,' or between one genre and another -- I love that moment of passage between the two; that place on the border where two worlds meet and energize each other, where Coyote enters and shakes things up. But I still have a great love for traditional fantasy, for Imaginary World, center-of-the-genre stories. I'm still excited by series books and trilogies if they're well written and use mythic tropes in interesting ways.

No matter how bad your life can ever get, how low you can feel, how much society lets you down, you can always come back here. You can always go home. You can lose everything, but no one can take away your Wilderness. She’s always here. Waiting. Ready to welcome you back with open arms. Ready to welcome you home.

Though Wilder blamed her family’s departure from Kansas on “blasted politicians” ordering white squatters to vacate Osage lands, no such edict was issued over Rutland Township during the Ingallses’ tenure there. Quite the reverse is true: only white intruders in what was known as the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma were removed to make way for the displaced Osages arriving from Kansas. (Wilder mistakenly believed that her family’s cabin was located forty—rather than the actual fourteen—miles from Independence, an error that placed the fictional Ingalls family in the area affected by the removal order.) Rather, Charles Ingalls’s decision to abandon his claim was almost certainly financial, for Gustaf Gustafson did indeed default on his mortgage. The exception: Unlike their fictional counterparts, the historical Ingalls family’s decision to leave Wisconsin and settle in Kansas was not a straightforward one. Instead it was the eventual result of a series of land transactions that began in the spring of 1868, when Charles Ingalls sold his Wisconsin property to Gustaf Gustafson and shortly thereafter purchased 80 acres in Chariton County, Missouri, sight unseen. No one has been able to pinpoint with any certainty when (or even whether) the Ingalls family actually resided on that land; a scanty paper trail makes it appear that they actually zigzagged from Kansas to Missouri and back again between May of 1868 and February of 1870. What is certain is that by late February of 1870 Charles Ingalls had returned the title to his Chariton County acreage to the Missouri land dealer, and so for simplicity’s sake I have chosen to follow Laura Ingalls Wilder’s lead, contradicting history by streamlining events to more closely mirror the opening chapter of Little House on the Prairie, and setting this novel in 1870, a year in which the Ingalls family’s presence in Kansas is firmly documented.

In our cities of concrete and steel, we’ve removed ourselves from these cycles. We’ve forgotten the circle of life and the interconnectedness of all things. A shift in consciousness is all that is required. Life is abundant, with plenty to go around, until things fall out of balance. We will either evolve, or we will die.

Dream on, Bullwinkle.” “Oooh, a classic cartoon reference. Now you’re talking my language.” I couldn’t help a grin. “You like cartoons?” “Hell yeah! The classics, though. Looney Tunes, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Mickey Mouse, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Transformers. I’ll even include the 1990s Batman animated series, but I usually stick to pre-1990.” I

The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be wasted by men because it offered them nothing. There was nothing to attract them. There was nothing to exploit. The desert was the region in which the Chosen People had wandered for forty years, cared for by God alone. They could have reached the Promised Land in a few months if they had traveled directly to it. God's plan was that they should learn to love Him in the wilderness and that they should always look back on the time in the desert as the idyllic time of their life with Him alone. The desert was created simply to be itself, not to be transformed by men into something else.

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is now I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at all. [6/5/2019 -correct authors: Michael Landon and Blanche Hanalis, written for "Little House TV series, "Remember Me, part 1" episode.] this is verified from curators of the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum - Laura Ingalls Wilder did not write this quote.

He peeled the towel that imprisoned us away and let it fall. I felt it slide softly off my backside, and I felt, too, his rising excite¬ment, hard, erect, pressing against me. My nipples were erect, straining, aching, pressed against his strong warm damp chest, the tangle and pattern of his hair. He was a beast, an animal. My excitement was rising again, to match his. It was as if my heart were about to burst or to flip flop, breathless, into a dark abyss. “Of course, you are crazy, my darling, but, then, so am I.” He kissed me and his oh-so-clever hands seized my waist, tighten¬ing, and then sneaking up my backside, pulling me, pressing me closer, into him. He kissed me again, and his lips moved down my neck to my shoulder and then to my breasts. “Oh,” I said, “Oh.” He bent over me, kissing my collarbone and then my breasts, carefully, slowly, his hands traveling down my back, and over my backside; suddenly, he was on his knees, kissing the whorl of 101 my belly button; then he was forcing me open, gently, gently, his tongue exploring caressing, devouring … “Oh …” I exhaled a deep, shuddering breath. I tipped on the very edge. He bit me, gently. Oooooh! He pulled in the reins, the bit and bridle, of the frisky frothing filly that I had become; this sudden halt made me wilder, crazier; then, once again, he brought me, trembling, up to the very, very edge of the cliff – of orgasm, of loss of self. Then he pulled me back. I blinked and trembled. Around the two of us, there was a whole world, a whole universe. It seemed too vivid to be real, like the backdrop in an opera. Venus was brighter and lower now. The sky had turned deep indigo. One by one, stars appeared.

Back home, Huxley drew from this experience to compose a series of audacious attacks against the Romantic love of wilderness. The worship of nature, he wrote, is "a modern, artificial, and somewhat precarious invention of refined minds." Byron and Wordsworth could only rhapsodize about their love of nature because the English countryside had already been "enslaved to man." In the tropics, he observed, where forests dripped with venom and vines, Romantic poets were notably absent. Tropical peoples knew something Englishmen didn't. "Nature," Huxley wrote, "is always alien and inhuman, and occasionally diabolic." And he meant always: Even in the gentle woods of Westermain, the Romantics were naive in assuming that the environment was humane, that it would not callously snuff out their lives with a bolt of lightning or a sudden cold snap. After three days amid the Tuckamore, I was inclined to agree.

I like to walk home by the Cliff Walk, and as I never can break off when once I’ve begun it, I generally end up by doing all four miles. I bring a book along and read a hundred pages in every one of my favorite retreats, while the sun goes down and the almost-Italian sea goes through a series of enchanting metamorphoses between its headlands and rocks. The homes of the rich are all but on the Walk and almost all open now, but never once have I encountered a Real One out walking. . . .

TIMELINE OF LAURA INGALLS WILDER’S LIFE 1865-Laura’s sister Mary is born in Pepin, Wisconsin 1867-Laura Ingalls is born in Pepin, Wisconsin 1869-The Ingallses move to Indian Territory, Kansas 1870-Caroline Ingalls, “Carrie,” is born in Kansas 1871-The Ingallses return to the Big Woods of Wisconsin 1874-Lives in a dugout near Walnut Grove, Minnesota 1875-Charles Frederick Ingalls, “Freddy,” is born 1876-Laura’s brother, Freddy, dies at nine months old Laura moves with her family to Burr Oak, Iowa 1877-Grace Ingalls is born in Burr Oak 1879-Mary becomes blind after a fever 1880-The Ingallses begin homesteading in De Smet, Dakota Territory 1885-Almanzo Wilder and Laura Ingalls marry 1886-Rose Wilder born in De Smet 1894-The Wilders move to Mansfield, Missouri 1932-Little House in the Big Woods is published when Laura is sixty-five 1954-Laura awarded the first Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, for her eight-book Little House series 1957-Laura (age ninety) dies at her Rocky Ridge home in Mansfield

National Park. This I must keep reminding myself. Our parks serve a great purpose, not just for preservation, but also as a funnel. The Designated Route. Mobs of tourists, RVs, buses, and family station wagons out on summer vacation need a place to go. Our national parks serve this purpose, complete with entrance fees, advance reservation campgrounds, snack bars, game rooms, bowling alleys, roped-off viewpoints, paved trails, lodges, and reserved backcountry campsites. Permit required. For a fee.

We all have things we love to do. And it’s the people around us who love us that help us unlock these dreams. It’s ONLY when you find the people you love that you can create and flourish. Henry Ford was 45 when he started his third car company and created the assembly line. He did this once he eliminated all the people who tried to control him at prior companies. Colonel Sanders was 65 when he started KFC. Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 when she wrote her first book. The book launched the Little House on the Prairie series. This was after she had been totally wiped out in the Great Depression and left with nothing but she started to surround herself with people who encouraged her and pushed her to pursue writing to make ends meet. 4.“What humanity has collectively learned so far would make up a tiny mark within the circle. Everything we all have to learn in the future would take up the rest of the space. It is a big universe, and we are all learning more about it every day. If you aren’t listening, you are missing out.” The other day someone asked me if I believe in God. There’s no answer. Always have reverence for the infinite things we will never know.

Remember: Between mountains lies the valley. You may have tumbled down from your former heights. You may have been thrown down. Or simply lost your way. But now you find yourself here. It is a low point. So? A long desert. A desolate valley. Either way, you’ll need to cross it. You’ll need patience and endurance and most of all love. You can’t let this period make you bitter. You have to make sure it makes you better. Because people are counting on you. Don’t give up hope. Don’t give up on them. They know not what they do. You, on the other hand, do know. This desert, this wilderness was given to you to cross. It’s part of your journey. To struggle makes the destination glorious. And heroic.

They say that wisdom comes with age. So who could be wiser than the sky, with its eternal sunsets, thunderstorms, stars, galaxies? Who could be wiser than the rocks, these monoliths of stone, witness to all, over the eons of time? There’s an all-knowingness out here. It lies within all this silence and stillness. A wisdom so profound that it transcends words. An understanding so pure it cannot be explained, cannot be taught, nor grasped by the human mind. Only felt. Experienced firsthand. When I tap into this wisdom, a switch is flipped, a reversal happens. My mind, always up front, driving and controlling everything, takes a back seat. And my soul, hiding quietly in the back seat, jumps up to take shotgun.

I am consoled only to see that I was not mistaken: Chicago is just as I remembered it. I was here twenty five years ago. My father brought me and Scott up to see the Century of Progress and once later to the World Series. Not a single thing do I remember from the first trip but this: the sense of the place, the savor of the genie-soul of the place which every place has or else is not a place. I could have been wrong: it could have been nothing of the sort, not the memory of a place but the memory of being a child. But one step out into the brilliant March day and there it is as big as life, the genie-soul of the place Which, wherever you go, you must meet and master first thing or be met and mastered. Until now, one genie-soul and only one ever proved too strong for me: San Francisco—up and down the hills I pursued him, missed him and was pursued, by a presence, a powdering of fall gold in the air, a trembling brightness that pierced to the heart, and the sadness of coming at last to the sea, the coming to the end of America. Nobody but a Southerner knows the wrenching rinsing sadness of the cities of the North. Knowing all about genie-souls and living in haunted places like Shiloh and the Wilderness and Vicksburg and Atlanta where the ghosts of heroes walk abroad by day and are more real than people, he knows a ghost when he sees one, and no sooner does he step off the train in New York or Chicago or San Francisco than he feels the genie-soul perched on his shoulder.

Jane doesn't watch very much television. She used to watch it more. She used to watch comedy series, in the evenings, and when she was a student at university she would watch afternoon soaps about hospitals and rich people, as a way of procrastinating. For a while, not so long ago, she would watch the evening news, taking in the disasters with her feet tucked up on the Chesterfield, a throw rug over her legs, drinking a hot milk and rum to relax before bed. It was all a form of escape. But what you can see on the television, at whatever time of day, is edging too close to her own life; though in her life, nothing stays put in those tidy compartments, comedy here, seedy romance and sentimental tears there, accidents and violent deaths in thirty-second clips they call bites, as if they were chocolate bars. In her life, everything is mixed together.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the classic series Little House, lived that idea, facing some of the toughest and unwelcoming elements on the planet: harsh and unyielding soil, Indian territory, Kansas prairies, and the humid backwoods of Florida. Not afraid, not jaded—because she saw it all as an adventure. Everywhere was a chance to do something new, to persevere with cheery pioneer spirit whatever fate befell her and her husband. That isn’t to say she saw the world through delusional rose-colored glasses. Instead, she simply chose to see each situation for what it could be—accompanied by hard work and a little upbeat spirit. Others make the opposite choice. As for us, we face things that are not nearly as intimidating, and then we promptly decide we’re screwed. This is how obstacles become obstacles. In other words, through our perception of events, we are complicit in the creation—as well as the destruction—of every one of our obstacles. There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. That’s a thought that changes everything, doesn’t it?

His Sons, the fairest of her Daughters Eve. Under a tuft of shade that on a green Stood whispering soft, by a fresh Fountain side They sat them down, and after no more toil Of thir sweet Gardning labour then suffic’d To recommend coole Zephyr, and made ease More easie, wholsom thirst and appetite More grateful, to thir Supper Fruits they fell, Nectarine Fruits which the compliant boughes Yeilded them, side-long as they sat recline On the soft downie Bank damaskt with flours: The savourie pulp they chew, and in the rinde Still as they thirsted scoop the brimming stream; Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles Wanted, nor youthful dalliance as beseems Fair couple, linkt in happie nuptial League, Alone as they. About them frisking playd All Beasts of th’ Earth, since wilde, and of all chase In Wood or Wilderness, Forrest or Den; Sporting the Lion rampd, and in his paw Dandl’d the Kid; Bears, Tygers, Ounces, Pards Gambold before them, th’ unwieldy Elephant To make them mirth us’d all his might, & wreathd His Lithe Proboscis; close the Serpent sly Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine His breaded train, and of his fatal guile Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass Coucht, and now fild with pasture gazing sat, Or Bedward ruminating: for the Sun Declin’d was hasting now with prone carreer To th’ Ocean Iles, and in th’ ascending Scale Of Heav’n the Starrs that usher Evening rose: When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood, Scarce thus at length faild speech recoverd sad. O Hell! what doe mine eyes with grief behold, Into our room of bliss thus high advanc’t Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps, Not

... man is generous with the word "fool" and is ready to serve it up to his neighbor twenty times a day. It is enough to have one stupid side out of ten to be accounted a fool, aside from the nine good ones ... in the world chronicle of mankind there are many whole centuries which, it would seem, should be crossed out and abolished as unnecessary. There have been many errors in the world which, it would seem, even a child would not make now. What crooked, blind, narrow, impassable, far-straying paths mankind has chosen, striving to attain eternal truth, while a whole straight road lay open before it, like the road leading to a magnificent dwelling meant for a king's mansions! Broader and more splendid than all other roads it is, lit by the sun and illumined all night by lamps, yet people have flowed past it in the blind darkness. So many times already, though guided by a sense come down from heaven, they have managed to waver and go astray, have managed in broad daylight to get again into an impassable wilderness, have managed again to blow a blinding fog into each other's eyes, and, dragging themselves after marsh-lights, have managed finally to reach the abyss, only to ask one another in horror: where is the way out, where is the path? The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards.

Lucy,” came the call again, neither her father’s voice nor Peter’s. She sat up, trembling with excitement but not with fear. The moon was so bright that the whole forest landscape around her was almost as clear as day, though it looked wilder. Behind her was the fir wood; away to her right the jagged cliff-tops on the far side of the gorge; straight ahead, open grass to where a glade of trees began about a bow-shot away. Lucy looked very hard at the trees of that glade. “Why, I do believe they’re moving,” she said to herself. “They’re walking about.” She got up, her heart beating wildly, and walked toward them. There was certainly a noise in the glade, a noise such as trees make in a high wind, though there was no wind tonight. Yet it was not exactly an ordinary tree-noise either. Lucy felt there was a tune in it, but she could not catch the tune any more than she had been able to catch the words when the trees had so nearly talked to her the night before. But there was, at least, a lilt; she felt her own feet wanting to dance as she got nearer. And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving—moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. (“And I suppose,” thought Lucy, “when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.”) She was almost among them now. The first tree she looked at seemed at first glance to be not a tree at all but a huge man with a shaggy beard and great bushes of hair. She was not frightened: she had seen such things before. But when she looked again he was only a tree, though he was still moving. You couldn’t see whether he had feet or roots, of course, because when trees move they don’t walk on the surface of the earth; they wade in it as we do in water. The same thing happened with every tree she looked at. At one moment they seemed to be the friendly, lovely giant and giantess forms which the tree-people put on when some good magic has called them into full life: next moment they all looked like trees again. But when they looked like trees, it was like strangely human trees, and when they looked like people, it was like strangely branchy and leafy people—and all the time that strange lilting, rustling, cool, merry noise. “They are almost awake, not quite,” said Lucy. She knew she herself was wide awake, wider than anyone usually is.

Let’s start the show.” Tameka pressed play before hurrying back to her seat. In less than ten minutes, Tameka and Royce were made happy. They cheered at a series of explosions as the bad guy escaped with the swirly blue cube.

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. —THORNTON WILDER

You’re hot and cold. It’s confusing. So I want to know why you think you like me.

Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord!” Isaiah 40:3

But he was so erratic and unreliable, and this was reconfirmed—though not on purpose—by

Thanks for the great time. –D

I’m still aching from last night. You still know how to hit that spot so good. ;) Call me later, stud.

Palmer has learned over the course of many years of “consolations and desolations” to accept either experience as part of the journey, while allowing neither to determine her level of commitment to God. If anything, the more desolate she feels emotionally, the more firmly she clings to the Word of God. Palmer’s journey included many seasons in the dark, many bouts of emotional desolation and absence of spiritual assurance. For Palmer these seasons were experienced as a kind of testing in the wilderness, not unlike the testing of Jesus in the wilderness, whose sustenance was the naked word of God.39 This kind of spiritual combat, as already described elsewhere, marked Palmer’s spiritual journey throughout her lifetime.

There is this other thought that he has overcome the world by the gift of the Holy Spirit. That gift was practically the world’s conquest. Jesus has set up a rival kingdom now: a kingdom of love and righteousness; already the world feels its power by the Spirit. I do not believe that there is a dark place in the centre of Africa which is not to some extent improved by the influence of Christianity; even the wilderness rejoices and is glad for him. No barbarous power dares to do what it once did, or if it does there is such a clamour raised against its cruelty that very soon it has to say peccavi, [I have sinned] and confess its faults.

PERSONAL CARRY KIT FOR THE TRAVELER AFOOT

OH, NIETZSCHE The last Christmas Eve of the nineteenth century was very cold Piercing winds and snow stuffed themselves into the cracks of every door and window As professors of philosophy gathered in the Golden Hall Their nonsense and hollow academic jargon were winning applause Feeling a chill, professors furrowed their brows And refined ladies unconsciously pulled their collars closed No one paid attention to the chill, no one even responded But the howling wind outside the window Swept across Europe’s wide sky Outside, Nietzsche was wandering around in the wilderness His thoughts were accompanied by the snowy winds and howls of wolves In this frozen world his thoughts shed their skin again and again Like a bloody struggle to be free of incorporeal chains He relentlessly pursued the truth No one could understand his eccentric and arrogant disposition No one could answer his disdain for this world For only a blizzard of manuscripts accompanied him Weathered by a tormenting disease Nietzsche bitterly suffered from his solitary meditation His discontent with thoughts surged like gales blowing the heavy snow Sweeping the sky and earth with a wild fervor What a pure yet brutal world At that moment the bells of a new century were ringing The generation of heroes Nietzsche called “supermen” From “Martin Eden” penned by Jack London To the old man who went fishing with Hemingway Have already shocked the whole world Through so many sleepless nights he endured the torture of disease Yet nurtured the poetic longing of solitude and indifference An infant thought undergoes the trauma of birth To finally cry out in an earth-shattering voice Nietzsche, before the sunrise changed the world The entire sky shimmered with your incandescent thoughts The nearly extinguished candle was burning your final passion Nietzsche, oh Nietzsche, let us walk on together

In our culture of constant access and nonstop media nothing feels more like a curse from God than time in the wilderness,” wrote pastor Jonathan Martin in his book Prototype. “Our society tells us that if and when we get ‘there’—the job or position or degree we’ve always wanted—that’s when all the important stuff will start happening. Not so. All the good stuff happens in obscurity.

Wadsworth was riding at the front of the 20th Massachusetts along the Plank Road when the 8th Alabama fired its first volley (No. 1). The flash and surprise stunned his mount, and with Wadsworth pulling on the reins his horse headed straight for the Confederate lines. The division commander gained control of the horse before it entered the enemy’s ranks and was spurring his mount back toward the Bay Staters when a round of small arms fire exploded around him. One of the bullets slammed into his head and sprayed brain matter onto an aide riding next to him, who maintained enough presence of mind to dismount and catch the general as he fell from his horse. After carefully lowering Wadsworth to the ground, the aide concluded the general had been killed instantly, hopped onto the general’s horse, and galloped to safety.

Understanding the base numbers and the spectrum that each number works on makes personal growth and the interaction with others more natural as you are able to look beneath the surface and see what is really going on, what energies are in play, and what vibrations shape the outlook someone has on life.

The number forty carries special significance in Scripture, particularly in its deliverance stories. Rather than an exact enumeration of time, forty symbolizes a prolonged period of hardship, waiting, and wandering—a liminal space between the start of something and its fruition that often brings God’s people into the wilderness, into the wild unknown.

I’ve lived a life beyond any expectation I ever had as a child. But perhaps this is because I never had any expectations. Except to have fun. Fun is awesome, and my biggest motivator. Whenever I have a decision to make, I base my choice on what would yield the most fun. Because he who has the most fun wins. Why should we ever stop having fun? I plan to have fun until it’s no longer possible. Then I’ll surely be ready to move on, recycle this old body back to the Earth. See what’s next. How can it not be great? Perhaps even greater than this life. Until then I plan to have as much fun as humanly possible. See ya on down the trail…

The real world is outside. Away from our man-made cells of concrete and steel. It’s out there. Don’t be fooled. You always have a choice. Remain part of the machine or walk away, out into the great mystery of life. Go now. Find your treasure.

GOLDIE Book 4 in the Night Rebels MC Series Coming in August, 2017 Goldie,

PACO Book 5 in the Night Rebels MC Series Coming in December, 2017

A note on the file folder said More series material in box 3312. “That one, Molly.” Reed pointed to the box on the top shelf in the corner. “Get that one. Look for two stories from the series. The folders might have something written on them.” Still on the higher shelf, Wilson heaved the box nearer, opening to the case of Cyras Makepeace. “Remember that case, Tom? Wilderness guide whose customers died hiking?” “Yeah, it’s all coming back. Cyras arranged to make himself a beneficiary on their insurance policies before his clients had wilderness accidents. They never charged him even after a couple of exhumations.” “Here’s the last one on the series,” Wilson said, just as the lights flickered, the floor shook from the presses, and the board she was standing on cracked. “Look out!” Wilson caught herself but the box crashed, files spilled on the floor at Reed’s feet He bent down to collect them. He reached for a black-and-white mug shot and he froze. “Jesus Christ!” Realization rushed at him with all the fury and the earth-shaking thunder of the presses, driving him to his knees as he studied the face that met his in the flickering light.

Doctor Wasmus had already noted that among the so-called Americans, there was a strong sense of unity. Whether white or black, native born or immigrant, they got along well.

The life of Moses presents a series of striking antitheses. He was the child of a slave, and the son of a queen. He was born in a hut, and lived in a palace. He inherited poverty, and enjoyed unlimited wealth. He was the leader of armies, and the keeper of flocks. He was the mightiest of warriors, and the meekest of men. He was educated in the court, and dwelt in the desert. He had the wisdom of Egypt, and the faith of a child. He was fitted for the city, and wandered in the wilderness. He was tempted with the pleasures of sin, and endured the hardships of virtue. He was backward in speech, and talked with God. He had the rod of a shepherd, and the power of the Infinite. He was a fugitive from Pharaoh, and an ambassador from heaven. He was the giver of the Law, and the forerunner of grace. He died alone on Mount Moab, and appeared with Christ in Judea. No man assisted at his funeral, yet God buried him" (Dr.

drift back to camp, tiptoeing through manicured gardens of rosy pink, crimson, lavender. Flowers mastering the art of being flowers.

Purple rain sways like curtains in the distance. I’ve transcended! Completely alone, yet held tightly in the arms of Wilderness. Mother Nature herself. God.

Bushcraft” is a term for wilderness skills and is the practice of surviving and thriving in the natural world.

you must master a unique skill set that includes firecraft, navigation, trapping, creating shelter, tracking, and the use of tools, both modern and primitive.

Kopiaō (labor) means to work to the point of exhaustion. People sometimes tell me that I work too hard. But compared to Paul, I am not working hard enough. It saddens me to hear of pastors or seminary students who are looking for an easy pastorate. When I was a young pastor, a lady (who did not know I was a pastor) advised me to go into the ministry. When I asked her why, she replied that ministers did not have to do anything and could make lots of money. No one would get that idea by observing Paul. Concerning those who denigrated his ministry, he wrote: Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as if insane) I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches. (2 Cor. 11:23-28) No one can successfully serve Jesus Christ without working hard. Lazy pastors, Christian leaders, or laymen will never fulfill the ministry the Lord has called them to. Striving is from agōnizomai, which refers to competing in an athletic event. Our English word agonize is derived from it. Success in serving the Lord, like success in sports, demands maximum effort. Lest anyone misunderstand him, Paul says that he strives according to His power, which mightily works within me. All his toil and hard labor would have been useless apart from God’s power in his life.

Thornton Wilder: The problem of telling you about my past life as a writer is like that of imaginative narration itself; it lies in the effort to employ the past tense in such a way that it does not rob those events of their character of having occurred in freedom. A great deal of writing and talking about the past is unacceptable. It freezes the historical in a determinism. Today’s writer smugly passes his last judgment and confers on existing attitudes the lifeless aspect of plaster-cast statues in a museum. He recounts the past as though the characters knew what was going to happen next.

INTERVIEWER: So that you have not eliminated all didactic intentions from your work after all? Thornton Wilder: I suspect that all writers have some didactic intention. That starts the motor. Or let us say: many of the things we eat are cooked over a gas stove, but there is no taste of gas in the food.

plants, and the Earth: a tiny speck of dust hurling through space, in a universe full of infinite galaxies. And all of this within an even larger void of all-consuming nothingness. This is reality. Not some idealistic fairytale version of the world, but the real actual truth. And it’s spellbinding. In wilderness, we see that our lives are utterly and completely meaningless. And in this we find meaning. The lesson is always the same.

plants, and the Earth: a tiny speck of dust hurling through space, in a universe full of infinite galaxies. And all of this within an even larger void of all-consuming nothingness. This is reality. Not some idealistic fairytale version of the world, but the real actual truth. And it’s spellbinding. In wilderness, we see that our lives are utterly and completely meaningless. And in this we find meaning. The lesson is always the same. We

It exists for our amusement—and there is nothing wrong with it—so long as we realize that the real world is outside, with the rest of nature, and should be treated as such. When we preserve wilderness we preserve what is real, natural, and essential to our health and well

Nature is feeling. Art invokes feeling, so the more we bring art into our lives, our cities, the more we welcome nature back into our beings. Art mimics nature. So with art we bring the natural world back into our stale, mind-dominated society. If we can’t bring the masses into the wilderness—would we want to?—why not bring nature to the masses? The effect on the heart and mind is substantial, and helps tune us

Many Native American traditions use the word "medicine" to refer to anything that has spiritual power and that keeps us walking in beauty. Each poem, short story and prose in this book is a remedy to the things that cause us to forget what walking in beauty feels like and empowers us to re-story our limiting and repetitive narrative into multi-dimensional abstracts of art from which we can heal ourselves and our collective through. These stories have been wildcrafted from the wilderness: the one within and without - the one above and below – the one we live in now and the one our ancestors call us back to through the eaves. They seam the two worlds together to make medicine for deep and restorative healing.

The secret to life is now. In every living moment. Whatever that moment may look like. When I finally stop, look around, and see, Actually see for the first time, All the grace and beauty in this world, I realize something profound. The beauty has been here all along, Waiting for me to get out of my head, And into life. Patiently the world awaits. Waiting to celebrate our enlightenment. When we awake, the world wakes up with us, And the entire world is changed in an instant.

We come from the Earth. We return to the Earth. It happens over and over and over.

When we learn to seek light in the darkest of places, and brighten it with our own, only then can we hope to evolve.

How many needless steps have I taken with no result? This is exactly what happened to Israel. They were sent back again to wander in the wilderness by way of the Red Sea because of their sin. In the same way, I’m forced to walk this way again in misery that might have been walked in joy had it not been for this sinful sleep. I know I would have been so much farther on my journey by this time! Instead, I must walk these steps three times instead of once. And now it’s starting to get dark, and the day is almost over. I wish I had never slept!

Some think that monsters live under beds. They’re wrong. Monsters live all around us, defaulting the rest of us into potential victims, making us vulnerable at all times. Under the bed isn’t the danger zone; it’s where one finds safety.

Genesis, the Gospels, Romans and Revelation all insist that the problem goes like this: human sin has blocked God’s purposes for the whole creation; but God hasn’t gone back on his creational purpose, which was and is to work in his creation through human beings, his image-bearers. In his true image-bearer, Jesus the Messiah, he has rescued humans from their sin and death in order to reinscribe his original purposes, which include the extension of sacred space into all creation, until the earth is indeed full of God’s knowledge and glory as the waters cover the sea. God will be present in and with his whole creation; the whole creation will be like a glorious extension of the tabernacle in the wilderness or the temple in Jerusalem. (This, by the way, is the foundation for what I see as a proper theology of the sacraments, though this is a topic for another occasion.)

If the Cubs win the World Series, the playing of the sport must be discontinued. The leagues disbanded, the players sent home, the stadiums destroyed. Professional baseball really began with the team that became the Cubs. Early in the twentieth century, that team won and won and won and then, for whatever reason, stopped winning. They set of on a 108-year trek through the wilderness, plumbed the depths of defeat, then somehow found their way back. 2016 was 1908 all over again. The historic arc of the game could finally be recognized. It's a story that begins and ends in Chicago. If they won Game 7, that story would reach its obvious conclusion. Disband and go home. Anything beyond this point is postscript.