Wilderness

The Enduring

The great spiritual traditions all come to terms with the transience of all things human. No moment of happiness lasts, and decay and death await every earthly object of our love and concern. In Buddhism this transience is an element of duhkha, or the unsatisfactory nature of human existence to which the Buddha offered a remedy. Islam and Christianity also promise a very different remedy in the form of an eternal, changeless God and eternal afterlife, of reunification with those we have known and loved.

Wilderness, too, offers experience of the enduring, if not the eternal. Though modern science tells us that [Page 484]in time all species will become extinct and mountains will erode to the sea, by comparison with human things, stones and hills are nearly eternal, and the cycle of seasons seemingly endless in their repetition.

In this life we never experience God in his eternity, so ancient landscapes and the starry skies are as close as we may ever come to earthly experience of eternity. In wilderness one may encounter the enduring, coming face to face with ancient things and timeless cycles, and this direct encounter is part of what makes sojourn in wilderness a moving spiritual experience.

The Sublime

In wilderness one often experiences the sublime, that is, things and processes that are immense, powerful, even threatening and intimidating. Towering mountains, vast landscapes, the power of a raging river are all reminders of one's insignificance and vulnerability. This effect is much stronger when, as is typical in wilderness travel, one has been stripped of modern comforts and technology and must confront these features unaided. A mountain is immense even when seen from the comfort of an automobile, but the experience of its immensity is multiplied when one must climb it or go around it on foot.

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