In a wilderness life you have to meet the Earth's necessities, and then she will meet yours. You have to toe her bottom line, and then she will sustain you, as people in all parts of the planet, including corporations, are beginning to learn. But most of all, in solitude, without names, you find yourself attuning to the consciousness of a chickadee or a blue- jay, a rabbit, a mouse, a housefly. Every being on the planet, and the planet herself, is built like a human being. Seen from the outside, there is hair and skin, wrinkles and warts, but within all this, inside of all this, an interior life of thought, feeling, emotion, is taking place.
Trees are like that.
On the outside is bark and knots, in the inside is not just sap flowing and cells growing, but an interior life, the consciousness of the tree. As with plants, so with animals. Science begins in the spectator standpoint and never overcomes it - it sees only the thin skin over a spiritual inner. So you realize, one day, that you are picking up the thoughts of the chickens as they discover the compost pile - no one knows the magic of a compost pile better than chickens. Or you discover, as you tuck them in for the night and sing them a song or two, that they are beaming interest and gratitude at you.