Yesterday I went for a nice long hike in the foothills of the nearby Sandia mountains. An average temperature of 60 degrees brought the locals out in droves, and the hilltops and trails were dotted with the motion of red and white sweat shirts on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

I hiked until sunset. Just before the sun touched the long stretch of horizon in the West, I could feel the air shifting from sun-warmed afternoon to the chill of winter night.
At dusk, I saw a lone figure standing atop a massive hilltop with the sun-streaked sky pink in the background.  At the time, it seemed hard to believe that this little creature could ever subdue the hilltops, rivers, and oceans of this planet. I felt the figure to be merely an extension of the hilltop, and I saw no distinction between the two.

Some have argued that a spiritual connection to the Earth is not necessary to spread the gospel of environmentalism. I would argue that seeing no distinction between the hilltop and the human is the very essence of the environmental movement.

The modern view that human beings are separate and distinct from our landscape, free to modify it, tamper with it, engineer the very blueprint of life, with utter impunity, is destroying our species and our planet.  I don’t know how to reconnect a hopelessly disconnected culture to the things that sustain us. I only know that our survival depends on it.