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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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      BeWildReWild

    • 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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    • 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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    • 7 months ago

      FourVab

    • 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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      BeWildReWild

    • 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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    • 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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    • 10 months, 2 weeks ago

      pzqtayyl

    • 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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    • 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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      BeWildReWild

    • 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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    • 2 years, 2 months ago

      Terry Bradbury

    • 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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  •  

BeWildReWild is a loosely-knit group of volunteers with a passion for wild things. It is also a special fund for the purpose of exploring three questions:

  1. What do you/we mean by wild?
  2. What changes are needed for us to live within the bounds of sustainability?
  3. How can we create a wilder, more beautiful, more biologically diverse, and a more enduring Mississippi River Watershed?

And here at the BeWildReWild Forum, it is a place for visioning, debating, storytelling, teaching, and learning.

Commentary is the lifeblood of this forum. Reply keeps the blood flowing. Individuals wishing to submit a commentary on wildness related subjects typical of those across this website should also indicate the specific plant, animal, or insect with which they most often identify. Potential commentaries should be emailed to rrossgipple@gmail.com. Posted commentaries will include the writer’s name and our illustration (avatar) of the writer’s preferred life form. Avatars will not be assigned to those who reply.

“If you listen carefully enough to anything, it will talk to you.”

George Washington Carver