Gary Snyder - The Practice of the Wild (1990)

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In Paul Friedrich's book Proto-Indo-European Trees he identifies the "semantic primitives" of the Indo-European tribe of languages through a group of words that have not changed much through twelve thousand years - and those are tree names: especially birch, willow, adler, elm, ash, apple and beech (bher, wyt, alysos, ulmo, os, abul, bhago). Seed syllables, bija, of the life of the west.

Gary Snyder
Forests in the tropics are cut to make pasture to raise beef for the American market. Our distance from the source of our food enables us to be superficially more comfortable, and distinctly more ignorant.

Gary Snyder
Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?

Gary Snyder
Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking, brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.

Gary Snyder
Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance beween spirit and humility.

Gary Snyder
But if you do know what is taught by plants and weather, you are in on the gossip and can feel truly at home. The sum of a field's forces [become] what we call very loosely the 'spirit of the place.' To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made or parts, each of which in a whole. You start with the part you are whole in.

Gary Snyder
Place and the scale of space must be measured against our bodies and their capabilities.

Gary Snyder
We... must try to live without causing unnecessary harm, not just to fellow humans but to all beings. We must try not to be stingy, or to exploit others. There will be enough pain in the world as it is.

Gary Snyder
Nature is orderly. That which appears to be chaotic in nature is only a more complex kind of order.

Gary Snyder
All those years and their moments— Crackling bacon, slamming car doors, Poems tried out on friends, Will be one more archive, One more shaky text.

Gary Snyder
With no surroundings there can be no path, and with no path one cannot become free.

Gary Snyder
The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom.

Gary Snyder