My old blog, Potomac Ecotones, wasn’t working for me. While I thought I loved its name, I hardly used the blog since it was created 5+ years ago. And I think one of the problems, a problem of my own invention no less, was that it’s name felt too limiting! My home “bio-region” encompasses Virginia (especially NoVa), Maryland, DC, occasionally West Virginia, and sometimes beyond. And, it was not just the limited defintion of my bio-region but a feeling that I’d somehow restricted topics of exploration. Did I really want a blog that excluded, collectively anyway, large parts of my life experiences? The frame I’d chosen was reminding me that I was unnecessarily “splitting” and I needed a frame that allowed my mind to do more “lumping.”
Both splitting and lumping are useful. Regarding blogging, for instance, I do have a blog for one specific project (Schoodic Notes: Bird Sounds of the Schoodic Peninsula), but I felt I needed a place to share and express myself without place or topic parameters, (and I certainly did not want yet another blog!). So, I am re-inventing it. Much will continue to be focused in my current home bio-region and of my observations of the natural world, but not all. I want to invite my mind to be free to explore more, and even how I chose to share and express.
And so, I’ve revived the use of “Wild Around Us,” for my new blog, a choice of words that used to be part of the name of my old business, “Wild Around Us: Natural & Cultural History Programs.” It is a reminder that wild and wildness are all around and not bound by a specific place. And, that we are part of it; nested in it even.
The phrase is also a nod to an old mentor/teacher, Paul Rezendes, artist, author, and master tracker of both self and other animals. It is, in a small way, a play on the title of one of his books, The Wild Within. It makes me think of Paul, and the many meanings of a phrase he often recited: “There is no separation.” The revelations of this seemingly simple idea continue to surprise me, and invite a deeper as well as broader look. And so it seems appropriate to use a phrase that reminds me of Paul and his influence.
Wild Around Us 