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October 11, 2007
From The Expert's Mouth
I have been doing some reading and writing about Edward Abbey for one of my grad school classes. While I do find his extremist, outlying, ecotagist, anarchist perspectives fascinating and enlightening, I am most attracted to the writing that is exempted from his political and moral slants and just plain about nature. Today I was reminded of my favorite pieces of his writing:
"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you --- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."
Edward Abbey
Posted by Meghan at October 11, 2007 1:33 AM
Comments
Wow, that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck and gave me goosebumps. That is SOOOOO what it's like to be out there.
Thanks for that.
Posted by: JeffO at October 11, 2007 8:47 AM
That is beautiful.
Eric and I read the Monkeywrench Gang back in 1978 - at that time in our lives, the prospects were tempting...but of course we didn't act on them.
Posted by: backofpack at October 11, 2007 9:50 AM
This book sits on my night stand right now:)
Posted by: olga at October 11, 2007 10:54 AM
How wonderful. Thanks for bringing that treasure to light, Meghan.
Posted by: Kendra Borgippy at October 11, 2007 8:41 PM