Shanna 4/30/08 The Voice of the Wild

Redick says in his essay Wilderness as Axis Mundi, "The land is acknowledged as having intrinsic value and freed from a system that does not permit it voice" (Redick, 11). Though the Appalachian Trail is the topic of discussion in this essay, wilderness has been granted voice throughout history, and on a worldwide scale. Gary Snyder refers to the voice of the wild in his chapter Good, Wild, Sacred. Snyder talks about visiting the back country of Australia. In Australian lore, dreaming places are those which are ideal for the creatures that inhabit them, and are sometimes thought to be the places of origination for those creatures. He mentions the dreaming place of the green parrot. Wilderness is not only permitted a voice, it tells a story. "The stories will tell of the tracks of the ancestors going across the landscape and stopping at that dreaming place" (Snyder, 85). These stories define the course of Australian lore, and protect the land which provided the inspiration for those stories. These sites are considered sacred, not just to the the natives who value them, but to the creatures who call them home. The sacredness of land from a parrot's point of view holds value. The creature need not be endangered for its home to be protected, a notion unheard of to European inhabitants of America.