Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.
Interpretation
Wilderness offers a vital escape from the stresses of modern life.
In this quote, Sigurd F. Olson emphasizes the importance of wilderness to the American spirit, suggesting it serves as a necessary refuge for the soul amidst the chaos and pressures of contemporary society. By engaging with nature, people can find peace, restore their mental balance, and reconnect with their inner selves.
In practice
During a motivational speech on mental health, one might convey the importance of nature by quoting Olson.
While we are born with curiosity and wonder and our early years full of the adventure they bring, I know such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind.
When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known.
Beauty is composed of many things and never stands alone. It is part of horizons, blue in the distance, great primeval silences, knowledge of all things of the earth. It embodies the hopes and dreams of those who have gone before, including the spirit world; it is so fragile it can be destroyed by a sound or thought. It may be infinitesimally small or encompass the universe itself. It comes in a swift conception wherever nature has not been disturbed.
Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons
The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a freedom almost forgotten.
One cannot run from a challenge without losing. To flee is signing a death warrant to dignity and character, and, having run, there is no return; one is a weakling forever. Meeting a challenge, though one may be defeated, gives strength, character, and a certain assurance that regardless of outcome, one will survive or go down fighting.
The future will be green, or not at all
Those trees are your lungs. The earth recycles as your body. The rivers recycle as your circulation. The air is your breath. So what do we call the environment?
A trail through the mountains, if used, becomes a path in a short time, but, if unused, becomes blocked by grass in an equally short time.
Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.
Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.
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