Individuals wishing to share well-developed thoughts on wildness-related subjects typical of those across this website may indicate the specific plant, animal, or insect with which they most often identify and email potential commentaries to rrossgipple@gmail.com. Selected posts will include the writer’s name and our illustration (avatar) of the writer’s preferred life form.
You may also add a brief, immediate thought here about the website or something wildness-related without submitting an emailed essay and avatar.
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A Sense of Direction
by Dennis Liu
Iowa is home to over 100 species of dragonflies. They are beautiful aerial predators that help keep the mosquito population in check. Some species migrate long distances. Colorful adults are most familiar, but ALL dragonfly species depend on freshwater when larval. Many species spend most of their lives underwater where they are voracious predators, including …
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Big River Connectivity is Unique
by Roger Ross Gipple
We are grounded in Deep Ecology and the belief that all life has intrinsic value separate from its usefulness to humans. Our primary focus for Reconnecting, Restoring, and Rewilding large landscapes is on river corridors: Rivers Connect and Rivers Must Live. We take a total watershed approach to Rewilding beginning at Ground Zero in Central …
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The Importance of Freedom
by by John Ame
Freedom is challenging to define but we know when we lose it or when it has been taken from us. Broadly understood, we are free when not imprisoned or enslaved, not coerced, manipulated, or constrained by others in our choices and actions. We value the freedom to choose our friends and family, to have and …
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Coexisting with America’s Native “Song Dog”
by Camilla H. Fox/ Project Coyote
Resilience is perhaps the defining feature of the coyote—the trait that has enabled this highly adaptable and sometimes elusive canid to survive and thrive in diverse ecosystems across North America, from forests and grasslands to suburban enclaves and city parks. Resilience is also the coyote’s most generous gift—the species’ presence supports ecosystem balance and well-being, …
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Trailhead
by John Ame
I know what I have to do But am afraid to do it. Dominion separates me from the wild and Relinquishing dominion reconnects. But who wants to talk about relinquishing dominion? Letting go is so difficult, as difficult as opening my hand. Since I cannot open my hand I will get what I want: Big …
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Roadkill Nation
by John Davis, The Rewilding Institute (rewilding.org)
The killing corridors of our country’s roads After a few thousand miles of riding, you begin to feel the animals’ pain. They are visible nearly every mile of road, dismembered, crushed, fur and bones strewn about, carcasses in the margins – broken bodies who once had families and felt joy and pain, like we do. …
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Every Woods Is the Same
by Leland Searles
In many of central Iowa’s woodlands, I have come to expect a greater diversity of animal and plant life than actually presents itself. This wishful thinking underscores an underlying disappointment from otherwise uplifting time among the trees, time that begins with the hopes on entering a tract for the first time or returning to some …
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The Wildest Place in the World
by Mark Edwards
Featured Image: Iowa – The Land Between Two Rivers (c) Mark Edwards We are living in the wake of wildness. We live in the highest extinction rate in 65 million years and don’t know what that means. We hear paradoxical predictions as we struggle to connect worldwide weather with where we live. Never in …
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IOWA: YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
by Roger Ross Gipple
What many call Iowa was once one of Earth’s most biodiverse places. More recently it has lost much of that wildness along with considerable precious top soil. Air and water quality are degraded. The future of life here is compromised. But a vision now exists which provides reason for optimism. Iowa consists of approximately 36 …
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Short Film “Over And Under” Creates Awareness Of Animal Collision Issues
by Fourth Wall Films
Roadkill is a fact of life in Iowa. Almost every driver in the state has hit some kind of wildlife. Usually, the animal comes out on the losing end of that interaction, but collisions with wildlife can also be dangerous for both animal and driver. The award-winning short film, “Over and Under: Wildlife Crossings” made …
Short Film “Over And Under” Creates Awareness Of Animal Collision Issues Read More »
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Rocks Talk Part 2
by Mark Edwards
Here is another facet to my rock story. I originally wrote a post on a Facebook site called Prehistoric and Historic Iowa. The site had numerous posting showing large collections of mostly arrowheads and predominately human manipulated rock tools. The exceptions were posts by new hunters asking if the piece they found was a real …
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Rocks Begin To Talk
by Mark Edwards
Please bear with me as I explore the relationships between rocks, artifacts and us. I hesitate to post this as I know even more rocks will be removed and our chances of finding them will be even less. I have hunted for 50 years, seen hundreds, and taken home way too many. With 70 years …
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Choosing & Allowing
by Roger Ross Gipple
Being wild (self-reliant, spontaneous, self-willed, self-regulating, local, authentic, and free) is possible, even today. One may choose to be wild, but one can not choose for another to be wild. One can only allow for another to be wild. So, what does it mean to Rewild?
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Notes from 43.061779N 96.458895W, 1,336 ft. ASL
by Leland Searles
South and north Coyote groups singing alternately. The north group sounds like laughing foxes. A Barred Owl some nights. Soybean field over the fence, planted on the contour with contour embankments Beans harvested one afternoon through evening darkness Finally, a non-wildfire sunset as the western fires die down The chill of night, asleep in a …
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Trust and Science
by Roger Ross Gipple
During 2016 and 2017, our beloved 25 year old TRUSTING WILDNESS chart and its accompanying “rewilding through trust” philosophy tried to find a permanent home at “science-based” Wildlands Network. We hoped this merger would bring their continental-scale conservation into a tragically over domesticated Corn Belt where the mantra of Reconnect-Restore-Rewild could help us create a …
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BeWildReWild is…
by Roger Ross Gipple, produced by Dick DeAngelis
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Wildlife Crossings, Core and Corridor Mapping, and Big River Connectivity
by Leland Searles
After months of work, all of us at BeWildReWild have experienced a strong sense of satisfaction with the progress we’ve made on several efforts. The progress allows us to communicate our message – the need for we humans to trust natural processes and to recognize that the foundation of our own successes is the success …
Wildlife Crossings, Core and Corridor Mapping, and Big River Connectivity Read More »
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What does it mean to be wild while raising a family?
by Emily Lupita
1) What do you/we mean by wild? The word ‘wild’ evokes a deep sense of beauty and freedom of expression. I grew up in rural Southern Iowa on a sustainable homestead off the grid. We lived without running water or modern conveniences, such as indoor plumbing and central heat. We had an outhouse and sometimes …
What does it mean to be wild while raising a family? Read More »
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Reconnect-Restore-Rewild
by Roger Ross Gipple
Reconnect-Restore-Rewild has long been the rallying cry for many who are passionate about repopulating apex predators and keystone species while adding back a meaningful amount of woodland, wetland, and prairie previously destroyed by humans. What is required during each of these stages and what is unique about the BeWildReWild Vision of BIG RIVER CONNECTIVITY? First, …
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A Day in the Life on the River
by Pat Schlarbaum
Wherever we find Bald Eagles, there are wild areas worth protecting. Recently four eagles were soaring with billowing cumulus clouds in the blue sky heights over southeastern Minnesota. With each revolution of concentric loops, the adult eagles’ white heads sparkled with spectacular brilliance in the distance. Life was moving along with the majestic birds riding …
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Wildness & Trust
by Autumn Rozario Hall
Trust is a tricky thing- My humble thoughts on wildness. I’m going to take a moment to share some thoughts that been rattling around in my mind. I hear the phrase ‘trust wildness’ often. It’s the single most difficult aspect of rewilding, of living, for me. I tend to worry, I tend to plan. I …
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Wilderness, Wildness, and Trust
by Roger Ross Gipple
Wilderness is a place and Wildness is a quality. Wilderness is finite and Wildness is infinite. Many of us who profess to love Wilderness are terrified of Wildness. Wilderness is a manifestation of Wildness. Wildness is inspirational. It is astonishing. It is unfamiliar and unpredictable. Wildness is life giving in the broadest sense, but it can also …
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Iowa-The Most Biologically Altered Landscape in North America
by Mark Edwards
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Whose Woods These Are….
by Leland Searles
Iowa’s remaining woodlands hold much of our remaining biodiversity. This is because woods are associated with floodplains and steep slopes that are not so useful for either cities and towns or for agriculture. But these are rich areas to begin the process of rewilding our minds and regaining our natural biodiversity and, alongside these, rewilding …
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Bringing Cultural Change
by Roger Ross Gipple
What is now called Iowa was previously one of the most biodiverse places in North America. Today it is one of the most biologically altered. From a narrow human perspective much has been gained in that process…but important things have also been lost. Valuable Iowa topsoil and nutrients are flowing toward the Gulf of Mexico. …
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Burning Buddha Alive
by Mark Edwards
Sincerely man, you see no hope? Not in denial of our death. Hope is for the helpless as heaven and hell sit on this hill both betting on tomorrow Coming back to life Today I am the prairie setting myself on fire. original 7/1/02
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Wild Times
by Leland Searles
In the summer of 2012, the Iowa Brood of seventeen-year cicadas emerged. In the mature-oak lawns of Des Moines, Iowa, in the South-of-Grand area, one could find newly surfaced bugs creeping up stems, splitting their old skins, and struggling out with crumpled, moist wings. Soon, the branches above hummed with their din. In hand, their …
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Channelization and Its Discontents
by Leland Searles
Rivers are central to our lives in ways we don’t often realize. Cities and towns across the Midwest were started along rivers, often at the confluence of a main river and a tributary. We are distant from the reasons for those choices. Still, no matter what the landform of our individual places of residence, flowing …
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The Three Questions
by Joseph Plum
1. What do you/we mean by wild? Wild is a lightening strike from within a smile. A question whose answer is balanced all the while on your ability to decide what impulses coincide with elements derived from within the Mother Ocean of our natural mind. 2. What changes are needed for us to live within …
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Beautiful, Stunning, Welcoming
by Jill Shore
Wow. This may be the most well-done website I have ever visited. Immediately when my eyes engaged, my emotional response was the sense of “beautiful,” “stunning,” “welcoming.” As I continued on, I read (saw, identified, felt) a statement (maybe even a fundamental belief) that I absolutely do not bear witness with. Yet I still felt …
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When we think of wild
by Courtney Chandrea
When we think of the wild, in our mind’s eye we see something like this: In a dark jungle, the foliage is choking out the light of the sun. A ferocious beast sneaks its way through the undergrowth. A caucophony of sound bursts out of the bugs and birds hiding in the green. Or maybe …
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We must choose to be lovers of the wild or not. What say you?
by Mark Edwards
Let’s blog a river of words we can explore, develop a wild language we can find freedom in. Wild are the words which wake in us a world where we are but part of a community, composed of cores of consciousness connected by corridors of common dreams, flowing passages in a river wiggling with all …
We must choose to be lovers of the wild or not. What say you? Read More »
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A Sense of Direction
“If you listen carefully enough to anything, it will talk to you.”
George Washington Carver