I walk in the mountains or in the llano, and soon I walk in Eden.  Judgements of good and evil fall away.  I see a playground of fir saplings laughing, shouting, celebrating each moment with peers, and it’s okay that only one or two will survive to adulthood; the worth of each life is not measured in time.  I come across a fawn, a recent kill; coyotes have left little but bone and hide; there is no evil in the coyotes, as there is no failure in the fawn.  Such concepts have no place where each life is sacred, each integral to earth’s story.

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Judgements of good and evil are the foundation of human achievement and of human destruction.  In the wilderness, however, there is no judgement, no regret. Here there is no need for more, not even for more time.  Life is blessing, and blessing is life.  

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Walking mountains, hills, and mesas takes my 80-year-old self back to Eden.  For the younger, biking, gliding, skiing, kayaking and sailing along shoreline, rain forest, deciduous forest, prairie, arctic tundra, desert, karst, steppe, or tropical island work just as well.  Other practices like meditation or chanting the psalms work too.

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In the ancient story, man and woman were banished from the garden after eating of the tree that allowed them to discern good from evil.  Who imagined that we would use this consciousness to separate ourselves from others, from our authentic selves, from the planet, and from God?  While we can never live in the garden again, we can visit, get our bearings, and return.  It helps to have a dog at your side.

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