Yes, I have a special connection with tigers. I grew up at a time and in a place where there were tigers. The first time I saw a tiger in the wild I was eight years old. Yes, quite possible, at that time. In my memory it is always: "I saw the tiger, and the tiger saw me; and the tiger smiled." I walked back to our vacation house in a daze of glory. Tiger is for me what totem animals are for Native Americans.

I write about Nature and "all my relations," as native Americans used to say. All the beings and aspects of my environment that I relate to: the feathered people, the four-footeds, two-legged; trees, plants; weeds; storms, sunshine, wind, rain. I write about people I have learned from, people I admire.  And about animals and plants that I learn from. About the fascinating beauty of the chaos that is Nature, its infinite interactions -- everything related to everything else.

And sometimes I write to remind us that WHAT THERE IS IS ALL THERE IS.

You want facts? Born here, lived there, worked somewhere else, married, children (grandchildren, great grandchildren), degrees, appointments, disappointments. Yes, all of that -- I'm old.  
I think of myself as a human who belongs to Nature more than to Man’s world. I’ve had an exciting life, traveled a lot, lived in many different countries. Speak a few languages -- which is essential, I think, for understanding more than one point of view.
As I age I feel more and more obsessed by "simple." Doing without rather than getting more. One of my favorite authors, Ursula K. LeGuin, writes "Owning is owing, having is hoarding." Very true, very wise.

The world of Man is not simple. This world we made for ourselves is a tangled disaster of rules and regulations forcing us to be what we were not born to be. We may think we do, but we cannot own this planet. We are as much part of the planetary ecology as a flea.
Our so-called civilization is entirely focused on material “progress” as we call it: always more. We have discovered mechanical power. We use enormous force to abuse and destroy this planet, our only home. We are changing the planet, the atmosphere that all humans need to live. Our destructions are eradicating thousands of species; gone forever. That is an impoverishment that we cannot restore. If we left nature alone it (she?) would undoubtedly evolve new species -- but we cannot keep our hands off nature. Now, 2010, I can't see how we can prevent our man-made house of cards to crash.
I know, you don’t want to hear that.
In my thinking facing the truth is the absolute first essential for survival.

Yes, I have hope, but not hope that somehow, miraculously, we can continue to live as we have become used to living. The collapse will be catastrophic and inevitable. But after, ultimately, we may be a new humankind in a new Nature. What's more, I fully expect that we will rediscover talents and abilities we have always had but that have been brainwashed out of us by our civilization that is not very civil any more.

For a few hundred thousand years we, humans, survived on this planet by adapting to the environment as we found it. After, we will adapt to a new Nature-- yes, a new and different nature. We will know again that we can and must adapt to the world as it is, should not even try to change the world to our wants.
And that, my friends, is what I write about.

The Big Island, called Hawai'i, April 2010

    you can reach me at:    rw (at) wildwolff dot com    I try to answer all messages