According to René Decartes (first half 17th century - about 350 years ago), there are thinking things, and extended things, subjects and objects.  Humans are the subjects and everything else are the objects.  The subject sees the world as full of objects to be tinkered with, manipulated, used as he/she sees fit.  Thus the lust for power - the power of status or class - and/or pursuasive-position in the world.

This has long been blamed for the condition of the West.  But any student of history knows that Ghengis Khan and Mao Zedong perceived reality in their day and their Eastern way exactly as every president of the United States has in its entire history.  The subjects often perceive themselves as AGENTS of change.  Subjects cause things to happen in a world of objects.   The result of this perception of ‘reality’ is that the entire world is reeling in pain, confusion, desperate behavior; and in desperate need of a time-out - to heal.

The reality of Nature is that it is sick.  Everywhere on the planet are mountains of refuse from misusing the Earth’s resources.  For example, somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean is a floating island of human poop, plastic bottles, miscellaneous debris, you name it - a floating horrid cesspool.  Scientists are at wits end as to what to do about it.

Of interest and hope for the future, literally millions of human beings are no longer trying to use up the Earth’s resources.  They’re part of a growing movement to - in whatever way possible within their limited scope of effect - help the Earth, or Nature, heal.  Which is of course the entire purpose of Ultralight Wilderness Toilet Co and our Packit Toilet kit.  

When we use wilderness we gain an opportunity to help Nature heal.  Events cross our path that give us opportunity to assist Nature’s process of healing.  For example, we come upon some trash left by someone else.  We can decide to pack it out - or we can decide to simply ignore it.  If your child is with you, the potential for a great lesson in wilderness stewardship appears.  The decision we make can now effect the future - several decades down the road.  

The Wilderness As a Sacred Space

In the Adam and Eve myth, the Garden of Eden was a sacred space.  Suppose you adopt wilderness areas as ‘gardens’ of sacred spaces.  Places where you yourself go to heal - to heal from the stresses and absurdities of modern life.  What then must we do to preserve these sacred spaces?  First we might ask what a sacred space is.   Carl Jung had his views.  Then he met Wolfgang Pauli - who participated in the development of quantum physics around 1927.  Psychologist J. Gary Sparks says “They both realized that certain moments along life’s journey, where events in the outer, physical, world come to meet an individual (and his inner world), defied many of their own discipline’s accomplishments.  It is the physical world that [seems to] respond psychologically.”

Sparks continues, “There is something else besides our actions going on in the world and that this something else has intelligence and intent which heals.”  We go into the woods and come out altered - sometimes significantly altered for the better.  Was it just the trees?  Was it the trees and the river?  Was it the trees and the river and the fresh air?  Or was it more than that?  We don’t know.  We only know that if we can go into another environment and come out feeling significantly better, that environment is a sacred space.

Simply put, the healing process isn’t rational.  Doctors do not know why a person heals.  But throughout the history of medicine, doctors have prescribed a visit to a wild place as a healing therapy.  We need these remaining sacred spaces as much as we need the air we breathe and the water we drink.  So picking up someone else’s trash is an act of helping heal the very place we ourselves go to be healed.

In our next blog - The Story of Water - I will pursue the importance of being more aware of the water we use or camp near in wilderness.  Thinkers of late have said that the wars of the future will be fought over water.