Wild
- An Elemental Journey by Jay Griffiths describes an extraordinary odyssey, courageous & sometimes dangerous, to wildernesses of earth & ice, water & fire. During seven years of exploration of threatened wildernesses, Griffiths also discovers & relishes in wildness itself. Over five elemental sections
- Earth, Ice, Water, Fire & Air, the author travels the globe in an epic trek in which she invests everything she has. She travels to the Peruvian Amazon, the Canadian Arctic, the Indonesian Ocean, the Australian bush & the mountains of West Papua.A poetic consideration of the tender connection between human society & wild lands, “ Wild” is by turns funny, touching & harrowing. It is also a journey into that greatest of uncharted lands
- wild mind
- as Griffiths explores the words & meanings which shape our ideas & experiences of our own wildness. Passionate, political & provocative, this book is part travelogue & part manifesto for wildness as an essential character of life.“I took seven years over this work, spent all I had, my time, money & energy. Part of the journey was a green riot & part a deathly bleakness. I got ill, I got well. I went to the freedom fighters of West Papua & sang my head off in their highlands. I got to the point of collapse. I got the giggles. I met cannibals infinitely kinder & more trustworthy than the murderous missionaries who evangelise them. I went to places which are about the worst in the world to have your period. I wrote notes by the light of a firefly; anchored a boat to an iceberg where polar bears slept; ate witchetty grubs & visited sea gypsies. I found a paradox of wildness in the glinting softness of its charisma, for what is savage is in the deepest sense gentle & what is wild is kind. In the end
- a strangely sweet result
- I came back to a wild home.” Jay Griffiths.