Walking home, I ponder about a love of art and I think about my love of the land back home, about the healing grace of wildness, and how difficult it is to articulate why conservation matters, why wilderness matters to the health of our souls and how a language of the heart becomes suspect. I wonder how it is we have come to this place where art and nature are spoken in terms of what is optional?
Wolves have what it takes to live in peace. They communicate lavishly. By gestures -- the smile, for instance -- and by sounds, from the big social howls to the conversational whimpers. They even seek to control by sound first, not biting. A full-grown wolf will plead with you not to take its possessions. And you in turn can plead with a wolf. It glances at your eyes, desists from what has displeased you and walks off as if indifferent.