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Wildness is not just the preservation of the world, it is the world

Gary Snyder

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Gary Snyder
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 8
Environmentalist
Poet
Trade Unionist
Translator
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Gary Snyder
Wildness
Preservation
Wilderness
World

More quotes by Gary Snyder

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I don't know of any other city where you can walk through so many culturally diverse neighborhoods, and you're never out of sight of the wild hills. Nature is very close here.
Gary Snyder
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I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life, And dammit, that’s just what I’ve gone and done.
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I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.
Gary Snyder
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You should really know what the complete natural world of your region is and know what all its interactions are and how you are interacting with it yourself. This is just part of the work of becoming who you are, where you are.
Gary Snyder
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You run into people who want to write poetry who don't want to read anything in the tradition. That's like wanting to be a builder but not finding out what different kinds of wood you use.
Gary Snyder
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To work on behalf of the wild is to restore culture
Gary Snyder
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In Western Civilization, our elders are books.
Gary Snyder
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All this new stuff goes on top turn it over, turn it over wait and water down from the dark bottom turn it inside out let it spread through Sift down even. Watch it sprout. A mind like compost.
Gary Snyder
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Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
Gary Snyder
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I never find words right away. Poems for me always begin with images and rhythms, shapes, feelings, forms, dances in the back of my mind.
Gary Snyder
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For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community.
Gary Snyder
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Having a place means that you know what a place means...what it means in a storied sense of myth, character and presence but also in an ecological sense...Integrating native consciousness with mythic consciousness
Gary Snyder
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In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.
Gary Snyder
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What is any religion? A little ritual, a little superstition, and some magic. It's not a strictly spiritual affair it has psychological roles to fulfill. You might not want it to be a religion based on your own experience but that's like wanting to clean up your dreams
Gary Snyder
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When making an axe handle the pattern is not far off.
Gary Snyder
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Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited masses: animals, trees, water, air, grasses
Gary Snyder
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Burning the small dead branches broke from beneath thick spreading whitebark pine. A hundred summers snowmelt rock and air hiss in a twisted bough.
Gary Snyder
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Forests in the tropics are cut to make pasture to raise beef for the American market. Our distance from the source of our food enables us to be superficially more comfortable, and distinctly more ignorant.
Gary Snyder
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Clambering up the Cold Mountain path, The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on: The long gorge choked with scree and boulders, The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass. The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain The pine sings, but there's no wind. Who can leap the world's ties And sit with me among the white clouds?
Gary Snyder
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Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
Gary Snyder