| Copyright 2003
Wilderness Drum, Inc.
All rights reserved Frequently Asked Questions
Steve Beyer
What is the wilderness?
I spent a little time once wandering around the Red River Gorge area in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. It is a beautiful place – deep gorges and caves in the rocks, dark hollows with cold streams at the bottom, hilltop views of rolling forest. There was only one problem. Everywhere you went, you could hear, even if only as the faintest hum, the sound of traffic on the superhighways. Was I in the wilderness? It sure looked like the wilderness. But there was still that nagging sense that I was somehow hooked into the modern, the urban, the technological. As I have thought about it, it seems to me that we can characterize the wilderness by three features – solitude, silence, and the stars. - Solitude The wilderness is someplace where you can be alone. This does not mean that there must be no other human within a hundred miles. You can be alone and still see car headlights on a hilltop across the valley. What it means is that other people do not intrude, that you can spend time with your thoughts, that you can begin to identify with a place, that you can feel the glorious contentment of being, for a while, by yourself.
- Silence The wilderness, of course, is never quiet. Birds, animals, the wind, the leaves, the grass all speak. But you must be able to hear these sounds. The distant hum of traffic, the roar of ATVs, chatter from a group of campers can intrude. Noise has a special way of keeping you away from yourself; silence lets you settle, center, be aware.
- Stars It is not just that the stars are beautiful, that the constellations are warm friends who can comfort you through a chilly night, that in the desert the Milky Way truly looks like the path of souls. Being able to see the stars against black night means that there is no light on the horizon from distant cities. Seeing the stars means you are home.
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