Humans are a force in nature. We're all over the place, big-brained, big-footed, arrogant, invasive, menacing, and marauding mammals. No need to look for mythical Bigfoot: we're here! We leave huge footprints all over the place and have been rather unsuccessful at solving urgent problems. Robert Berry fears we're simply "running out of world." We're also runnng out of wildness and wilderness.
I'm always looking for ways to remain positive and hopeful in challenging times. And I know how difficult it can be when it seems that so many things are going wrong. For a book I'm writing called Rewilding Our Hearts I've been thinking of ways to keep that loving feeling in times when many people are suffering and can't seem to see the light. Because of what I do for a living I look to the animals for guidance. And I found just what I was looking for when I began to read about what are called rewilding projects.
The word "rewilding" became an essential part of talk among conservationists in the late 1990s when two well-known conservation biologists, Michael Soulé and Reed Noss, wrote a now classic paper called "Rewilding and biodiversity: Complementary Goals for Continental Conservation." The core words associated with large-scale rewilding projects are connection and connectivity, the establishment of links among geographical areas so that animals can roam as freely as possible with few if any disruptions to their movements. For this to happen ecosystems must be connected so that their integrity and wholeness are maintained or reestablished.
Regardless of scale, ranging from huge areas encompassing a wide variety of habitats that need to be reconnected or that need to be protected to personal interactions with animals and habitats, the need to rewild and reconnect and to build or maintain links centers on the fact that there has been extensive isolation and fragmentation "out there" in nature, between ourselves and (M)other nature, and within ourselves. Many, perhaps most, human animals, are isolated and fragmented internally concerning their relationships with nonhuman animals, so much that we're alienated from them. We don't connect with other animals, including other humans, because we can't or don't empathize with them. The same goes for our lack of connection with various landscapes. We don't understand they're alive, vibrant, dynamic, magical, and magnificent. Alienation often results in different forms of domination and destruction, but domination is not what it means "to be human." Power does not mean license to do whatever we want to do because we can.
Rewilding projects often involve building wildlife bridges and underpasses so that animals can freely move about. These corridors, as they're called, can also be more personalized. I see rewilding our heart as a dynamic process that will not only foster the development of corridors of coexistence and compassion for wild animals but also facilitate the formation of corridors in our bodies that connect our heart and brain. In turn, these connections, or reconnections, will result in feelings that will facilitate heartfelt actions to make the lives of animals better. When I think about what can be done to help others a warm feeling engulfs me and I'm sure it's part of that feeling of being rewilded. To want to help others in need is natural so that glow is to be expected.
Compassion begets compassion and there's actually a synergistic relationship, not a trade-off, when we show compassion for animals and their homes. There's also compelling evidence that we're born to be good and that we're natural-born optimists. Therein lie many reasons for hope that in the future we will harness our basic goodness and optimism and all work together as a united community. We can look to the animals for inspiration. So, let's tap into our empathic, compassionate and moral inclinations to make the world a better place for all beings. We need to build a culture of empathy.
We need a heartfelt revolution in how we think, what we do with what we know, and how we act. Rewilding can be a very good guide. The revolution has to come from deep within us and begin at home, in our hearts and wherever we live. I want to make the process of rewilding a more personal journey and exploration that centers on bringing other animals and their homes, ecosystems of many different types, back into our heart. It's inarguable that if we're going to make the world a better place now and for future generations personal rewilding is central to the process and will entail a major paradigm shift in how we view and live in the world, and how we behave.
The time is right, the time is now, for an inspirational, revolutionary, and personal social movement that can save us from doom and keep us positive while we pursue our hopes and dreams. Negativity is a time and energy bandit and depletes us of the energy we need to move on. We don't get anywhere dwelling in anguish, sorry, and despair. In a taxi cab in Vancouver, British Columbia I saw a sign in front of a church that really resonated with me: "Make the most of the best and the least of the worst." Amen.
Rewild now. Perhaps make it one of your New Year's resolutions. Take the leap. Leap and the net will appear, says a refrigerator magnet in my kitchen. It'll feel good to rewild on a personal level because compassion and empathy are very contagious. Rewilding will reconnect you with a magnificent and rich world, a troubled world, that is in dire need of being healed.