|
“I remember one time in college, one of those classic moments we all went through, sitting around with a group of friends, everyone in quiet desperation trying to figure out and suggest what they were going to become in life,” said Wade Davis as he reminisced about his years at Harvard University. “It was simply inconceivable to me that you could find a single slot into which to plug an entire existence.” His thinking, so counter to that of his peers who followed far more traditional and predictable career paths, is exactly what has allowed Davis to live an enviably rich and rewarding life. Davis is driven by the philosophy that the canvas of one's life is created by serendipity, and if you let it, destiny will find you. He capitalizes on this theory by saying, “yes” to every new experience and opportunity. The result: a prolific and productive life worthy of a novel. This former logger and white water river guide, anthropologist and botanist, filmmaker and photographer, is also an author with many books to his credit, including One River, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Grand Canyon Adventure, and The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in a Modern World.
Davis shared with us his thoughts on several subjects, excerpts from which follow. ON MENTORS AND INFLUENCE The full measure of their generosity was their willingness to accept that they would not necessarily be the ones to guide my life. My father was especially understanding and kind. I think at some level he understood that he was unable to provide all that I needed, and he was never anything but delighted to know that I had found guidance in other mentors. It was as if he understood from the start that there was only so much he could teach me. Another almost paternal figure in his life was Professor Richard Schultes, the renowned ethnobotanist from Harvard University. Davis remembers Shultes with great admiration and affection, for this was the individual who played the central role in what would become a several year research project and the subject of the best-selling book, One River. Clearly, their feelings for one another were reciprocal. For Schultes, the book itself, took on a sort of magical reality. In his last years, according to his wife Dorothy, he kept the book on his bedside table, and when he could not sleep at night, he would open it randomly and read of his life. Not long before he died, he took me aside and, pointing to some dialogue in the text, said, “Did I ever tell you what Mrs. Bedard said to me when I first met her in 1943? Look, it's right here!” I found this both amusing and very touching. Here, after all, was the man who had made my life possible. Now the book had become his life. His life had become my imagination, and my imagination had breathed meaning and content back into the life of an old man who was slowly fading away, as all old men must inevitably do.
ON CANADA AND THREATS TO ITS SACRED GEOGRAPHY Against the wishes of all First Nations, the government of British Columbia has opened the Sacred Headwaters, a rugged knot of mountains in the Cassiar where by a miracle of geography are born within very close proximity three of Canada's most important salmon rivers, the Stikine, Skeena and Nass, to industrial exploitation. Unless these initiatives are curtailed the very meadows and mountains that give birth to the Stikine, Skeena, Iskut and Nass rivers, as well as the Finlay, headwaters of the MacKenzie, will be destroyed, marred forever by an open pit copper and gold mine, an anthracite coal mine and an extensive network of wells and roads installed for the extraction of coal bed methane gas. Consider for a moment what this implies and what it tells us about our culture. We accept it as normal that people who have never been on the land, who have no stories, who have experienced neither pain nor joy in these valleys, who have never felt the winds of winter or the promise of spring, may legally secure the right to come in and by the very nature of their enterprises leave in their wake a cultural and physical landscape utterly transformed and desecrated. The cost of destroying a natural asset, or its inherent worth if left intact, has no place in the economic calculations that support the industrialization of the wild. ON THE PLANET'S LOSS OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY By nature of their remoteness, because they are foreign to us, and due to their diminished numbers, these dying populations have been dismissed and forgotten, and their amazing accomplishments all but ignored. Davis has become, among others, their spokesperson, celebrating all that comprises these cultures in hopes that we too will come to understand the value of their contributions, and incorporate them into our thinking about our place on this earth. “Distinct worldviews yield profoundly different environmental outcomes,” says Davis. “Without doubt the depth and character of our creativity as a culture will be measured by our ability to transform our way of thinking, the values by which we interact with the natural world.” The Joan & Dick Stroud Memorial Lecture Series When: April 15, 2010 6:00 PM Cocktails
Links: For more information about the Stroud Memorial Lectures go to: |
An advocate for the environment, Davis' profound respect for nature is largely grounded in a worldview shaped by extensive experience living with indigenous cultures all over the world whose reverence for the sacred in their own geographies dictates a more harmonious relationship with nature. The stunning achievements of these ancient cultures demonstrate that there are other ways of orienting to place, landscape and home — and that reciprocity with the land is indeed, a rich and more sustainable approach. This theme is central to his book,
The Wayfinders, and will be the subject of the upcoming Stroud Memorial Lecture on April 15th.
© 2010 Stroud Water Research Center. Stroud and the Stroud Water Research Center logo are trademarks and the Leaf Pack Network is a registered trademark of the Stroud Water Research Center. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.