AT ONE WITH THE NATURAL WORLD - Barry Lopez's adventure with the word & the wild

Commonweal, March 24, 2000 by Nicholas O'Connell

Lopez's tendency to equate nature with the divine can be seen as an overcompensation for what the writer perceives to be missing in the larger culture. In his book-length essay The Rediscovery of North America (1990), Lopez asserts that we must go beyond an obsession with the material wealth of the continent that began with Columbus and begin to appreciate North America for its spiritual wealth if we are ever to feel at home here. Lopez argues that the continent's most valuable resources are not its timber, fur, fish, and mineral wealth, but a sense of belonging on the North American continent.

"What does it mean to be rich?" he asks. "Is it to possess the material, tangible wealth of North America-the gold and the silver, the timber, the fish, and the furs? Or is real wealth, lasting wealth, something else? Most of us, I think, believe that it is something else. We have taken the most obvious kind of wealth from this continent and overlooked the more lasting, the more valuable and sustaining experience of intimacy with it, the spiritual dimension of a responsible involvement with this place."

Though sometimes overly explicit-some might say preachy-about such themes, Lopez's stories resonate with the mystery of wild landscapes and people's remarkable experiences of them. His recent fiction and nonfiction increasingly concern the responsibilities of community, both in regard to human society and the nonhuman world that encompasses it. "The physical setting for human life has to be seen as a component of community," he said. "Once you tear human life out of a physical context, people become the playthings of tyrants. But we must have a moral relationship with the land, rather than an exploitive one."

Though Lopez often describes himself as "a writer who travels," making trips to the Arctic, Antarctica, Africa, and Australia, he continues to cultivate an appreciation for the McKenzie River Valley where he makes his home. He believes that we can get in touch with the larger spiritual dimensions in our lives by coming to know a local landscape and including it in our sense of community. Specific knowledge of a place makes a crucial difference in our own lives, he argues, as well as those of future generations.

Several years ago, Lopez got a chance to do something for his own landscape. A thirty-two-acre parcel of old-growth forest adjacent to his home went up for sale. Local timber companies were on the verge of buying it when he began bidding for the land. After some negotiation, he purchased the entire parcel, putting the land in trust so that it could never be logged or developed. In doing so, he ensured that this small piece of North America, at least, would be preserved not for its material values but for what it offered the spirit, a sense of belonging within the larger fabric of life. Having done his part to protect his corner of the American landscape, Lopez is now free to cultivate an intimate knowledge of it. He does this in part by taking daily walks through the forest surrounding his house. On these walks he often stops and bows deeply, aware of the privileges and responsibilities of his stewardship.