5.12.12 No. 01

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I walked into the wilderness with a man’s mind, thoughts of security and ownership as if I had a right to be there and if anything from the wild interrupted my journey through the forest I would find it rude and remove it. The ground was wet and moist, my shoes sank into the manmade clearing throughout the forest, and this annoyed me almost as if I expected the forest to be clean and well paved. Branches leaned over the clearing creating obstacles I had to move around, I instantly found this irritating and wondered why someone hadn’t cut the branches from the trees. I walked with my friendly canine, I tugged on his lead once he wondered to far from me. His kind once ran free in a similiar enviroment to the one we now walk in. But now they walk with colar and lead because similiar to the forest they

are no longer free. Tamed by humans and restricted from running free because that would become a inconvenience to my kind, that is why we place a colar and lead onto the wilderness. Stopping the obsticals and interruptions of which the wild holds,creatinging a enterly new wilderness and one that we have total control of. Virtually creating a voyuer experience of what once was. Although the controlled enviroment wasn’t the full experience, humans were content with the small glimpse into some-thing that once covered half the world, before man forced his way through everything that was once free. Taming the animals that owned these lands and lived off them for stone houses, factories and shops. For con-venience really, creating a enviroment full of comfort, instead of the wet, cold forest.

“I walked into the wilderness with a man’s mind, thoughts of security and ownership as if I had a right to be there and if anything from the wild interrupted my journey through the forest I would find it rude and remove it.”

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“That is natures way of creating a new natural selection, one that the superior race control the survival of other animals. To their dietary needs. But yet humans tend to cling onto animals that there are very few of, clinging onto them and supporting them.”

Are the human race still animals or have we evolved to a arrogant state of being, where we think we are above all other creatures on the planet? The original definition of a animal is; “A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure.” In this definition humans are accounted as animals. But the definition has changed over-time, describing something as; “who behaves in a bestial or brutish manner.” Most of man kind don’t like to be described as a animal and find it insulting. Maybe that definition is more suiting to the human race, the brutish manner they devour everything in their path, for comfort and security.

As the human race grow and grow, there be-comes no room for inconvenient wildlife. Or maybe this is the future of Darwin’s theory, as we’ve evolved as the supirior race and we no longer need to hunt like we needed to or live outside. That is natures way of creating a new natural selection, one that the superior race control the survival of other animals. To their dietary needs. But yet humans tend to cling onto animals that there are very few of, clinging onto them and supporting them. We end up preserving the animal in a human created enviroment, where we can control their diet and enviroment to suit the needs of the animal and also stopping preditors from hunting them in their natural habitat. Even if the original predator that made them almost extinct was actually ourselves.

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“you must lose your inclination

for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of

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“you must lose your inclination

for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of

life”

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- - Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Through my Journey into the wilderness of the forest, I began to admire the natural magic of the entire place. The way everything is influanced by one another and there is a clear chain of command. There is almost something uniquely satisfying about living off the natural land put before you. Something so clear and pure, removing trivial complications and creating a pure focus of survial.

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Native Americans (North Ameircan Indians) respected the wild and treated animals as equal to humans. Of course they hunted them but they often asked the animals spirit and prayed on the animals corpse to show respect. The natives bond between animals and the wildlife is famous, the way they had no concept of ownership of a animal or land and their appreciation to everything the earth gave them. I began to respect that and felt a very quick attachment with the way the forest worked. I began to see a clear chain of respect between everything in the forest. Although a fox doesn’t show appreciation to his prey, there does seem like a almost unwritten respect between the animals, almost like that is the way it is supposed to be. The hunter and his prey.

I began to think the way the humans hunt, we no longer hunt like animals. We farm our diet, breeding them just for slaughtering and then sent to the shops in the masses. Creating a unanimalistic way of hunting and eating. Some religions still respect animals, for ex-ample, Hindu’s respect the cow and the cow is greatly revered by Hindus and is regarded as sacred. Killing cows is banned in India and no Hindu would eat any beef product. Muslims also only eat halal meat, meat that has been prayed on and killed humanely and they do not eat pork. They also can not hunt for sport. Most religions do show respect for animals. Alot of Ancient religions often pictagramed there gods with animal heads, showing an-other form of reverence to nature or man that controls a form of the enviroment

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holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget

this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flow-ers are our sisters; the deer, the horse,

the great eagle, these are

our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man --- all belong to the same family.So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children.So, we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?Every part of this earth is sacred

to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is + 10

“For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.”

and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father’s grave behind, and he does

not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father’s grave, and his children’s birthright are for-gotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.

I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place

to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect’s wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red

man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind

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“The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father. The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children.”

-Chief Seattle speech

Made by Selby Wainman