The Practice of the Wild, Snyder (1990)

The ideas contained within Practice of the Wild may be the only ideas powerful enough to stave off the looming ecological and political apocalypses of the twenty-first century. I acknowledge the grandiosity of this statement. My only defense is that the ideas in this book are not the work of one man. They are the Old Ways. They are time-tested norms by which human beings relate to each other and the rest of the world. They are first principles of ethics and behavior that work, that enable culture to survive and even thrive in a universe that does not hand out promises to organisms. And they are even more than this: the Old Ways are nature doing the thinking for us. Snyder quotes the 13th-century monk Dōgen Zenji: “Whoever told people that mind means thoughts, opinions, ideas, and concepts? Mind means trees, fence posts, tiles, and grasses.” Understanding this, to the depth of blood and bone, is the practice of the wild. Strictly speaking, the Old Ways do not need advocates. They were and always will be, no matter how dark the times. But Gary Snyder is among the greatest writers in the English language, living or dead—in my view, only Baldwin is his equal—and Practice of the Wild‘s breathtaking elegance, its sharp and clear wisdom, its overwhelming compassion, is a balm to the troubled soul. Governments and paramilitaries cannot burn this kind of book. All beings sigh in maternal relief. The laggard species is a shade closer to enlightenment. 11