A rainbow tonight...while Kylie and Joni watch the sunset in the rain....
A walk with Angel on this cold, rainy day. I ran across these words of Ed Abbey's while doing some morning surfing. I think it perfectly states why we get out and take these walks.
It comes from a speech to environmentalists in Missoula, Montana, and in Colorado, which was published in High Country News, (24 September 1976), under the title "Joy, Shipmates, Joy!"
"Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards." - Edward Abbey
And so I spent the day looking for friends to take a couple backpacking trips with me. Ed was a wise man...
5 comments:
Thanks for the Ed Abbey quote. That sounds like the creed I live by.
One of my all time favorite quotes as well. Thanks for reminding me!
Allan,
Yes, one of Ed's greatest quotes...unfortunately Ed didn't outlive more of the bastards. We couldn't use his voice today!
Larry
Woods,
I'm sure that is the creed you live by. And it comes out (ever so softly) in your marvelous blog.
Kathy,
Am I the only Abbey Admierer who hasn't read that quote? Makes me want to head on out with a loaf of bread (like Muir) and a bottle of wine (unlike Muir) and tramp the hours, weeks, months and years away.
I hope you make that visit this summer. We can hike to the bottom of the canyon and maybe zip up to Feather Falls...
Larry,
Ed didn't outlive them; but he did OUTLIVE them. As I tell my Adventist friends (who have, with their pietistic lifestyle,---zero, nope, zilch, nada fun) why do I want to lengthen my days and have absolutely and almost never smile? Ed did outlive them. By example and by his words...
Cheers all!
allan
Ah crud Larry...typed too fast to finish the thoughts above, but you get my drift... :)
"and have absolutely no joy and almost never smile". Or something like that...
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