SHANE DAVIS
kenny laubbacher Director at Invisible Children Take Away Film: Uganda My life feels fickle In the ageless vastness of a forest My dreams meager Amidst mountains And the swallow dies to Feed the trees Whose dewdrops catch on Sun-kissed leaves, which Aphids drink ‘til Cursed as swallow feed, Repeat.
Founder of Fractivist Dear Governor Hickenlooper www.fractivist.org
SARA DOSA Director of The Last Season
Wilderness A cosmic body of principles Welcomes me Accepts me in her arms Does not judge me Listens to my concerns Nourishes me Always awaits my arrival Make me strong and gentle Shares her medicine chest Guides me through life Wilderness – My inseparable companion
Wilderness isn’t a discrete territory of forests and mountains, unfettered by human interaction. Instead, wilderness is a place – or a set of ideas – that defies definition; it is something that cannot be contained. To be in the wilderness is to be amid the unknowable or to willfully break the boundaries of that which is known. So, for explorers and storytellers, the wilderness is necessarily ripe with unpredictable discovery.
And I am grateful: I shiver when cold. I dance when happy. I hurt when I feel loss. Colors shift. Days break. I choose life in this Fullness I have found.
“Wilderness isn’t a discrete territory of forests and mountains, unfettered by human interaction. Instead, wilderness is a place – or a set of ideas – that defies definition; it is something that cannot be contained.”
MATT STOECKER
EMILY LONG
Owner at Stoecker Ecological Producer & Underwater Photographer for DamNation
Programming Director at Mountainfilm in Telluride mountainfilm.org
A refuge for wild animals and undeveloped landscapes. Rivers free from dams. Robust runs of wild salmon that feed our forests and oceans. A place to leave civilization behind – to reset the mind, camp and boat with family and friends, and recognize what’s important. A link to the past and a guide to the future. A place to preserve and defend.
Many languages don’t have a word for wilderness. In Thailand, where I lived for a few years, khwam pen pa, or “the state of being forest,” does little to conjure up the subtleties of our American idea of pristine, wild and inspirational – almost mystical – nature. It makes me wonder: Does it do us harm to separate wilderness from humanity? Don’t we have wildness inside of us?
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