Why do I need a Wild Place?
I don't know--maybe you don't. But I found that, with all my ideas of
spending more time with nature, I wouldn't get around to it very often. Too many other things call for
our attention, some necessary, some not, a lot that are simply part of the
well-worn ruts of our lives.
I needed a more deliberate plan, a mission. Hence I would make a date every two or three days with
my Wild Place.
Requirements of a Wild Place:
·
easily accessible from home (if it's hard to
visit, you won't go often enough)
·
not "kept up" (mowed, gardened, etc)
·
has some variety: trees, shrubs, smaller plants,
water (if you're lucky)
·
big enough to have that variety described
above--say, at least a thousand square feet.
·
permission from the owner for you to visit
regularly. (Without permission, your time in your Wild Place might be less than relaxing.)
The ideal wild place--hard to find within ANY city limits--is
big enough that you can sometimes forget how close you are to human habitation!
Here, for example, is my Wild Place: a patch of scrubby woods in the border I share with several neighbors.
To make sure I always have "something to do," I am
borrowing an idea from Picture Post, in which photos are taken repeatedly over
time from a fixed location in fixed directions--a sort of historical record of
change in a place.
