Herriot - Jacobs wound: a search for the spirit of wildness

River in a Dry Land 2000

Copyright 2004 by Trevor Herriot

Hardcover edition published 2004
Trade paperback edition published 2006

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Herriot, Trevor
Jacobs wound : a search for the spirit of wildness / Trevor Herriot.

eISBN: 978-1-55199-437-6

I. Jacob (Biblical patriarch) I. Title.

BS 580. J 3 H 47 2004 222.11092 C 2004-903036-1

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

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v3.1

Excerpts from East Coker in Four Quartets, copyright 1940 by T.S. Eliot and renewed 1968 by Esme Valerie Eliot, in Collected Poems 19091962 by T.S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Limited and Harcourt, Inc.

Excerpts from Dry Salvages in Four Quartets, copyright 1941 by T.S. Eliot and renewed 1969 by Esme Valerie Eliot, in Collected Poems 19091962 by T.S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Limited and Harcourt, Inc.

Excerpts from Little Gidding in Four Quartets, copyright 1942 by T.S. Eliot and renewed 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot, in Collected Poems 19091962 by T.S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Limited and Harcourt, Inc.

Excerpt from Marys Vineyard: Daily Meditations, Readings, and Revelations by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut, copyright 1996. Reprinted by permission of Quest Books/The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois, www.questbooks.net.

Hymn of the Universe by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Copyright 1961 by Editions du Seuil. English translation copyright 1965 by William Collins Sons & Co., Ltd., London, and Harper & Row, Inc., New York. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for Editions du Seuil.

Excerpt from Building the Earth by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, copyright by Dimension Books. Reprinted by permission.

Excerpt from Chapter 15 from The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry. Copyright 1989 by Wendell Berry. Reprinted by permission of North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Scripture citations are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, copyright by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Excerpts from The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture by Wendell Berry. Copyright 1997 by Wendell Berry. Reprinted by permission of Sierra Club Books.

Excerpt from The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality by Ron Rolheiser. Reproduced by permission of Random House and Hodder and Stoughton Limited.

Excerpt from Don McKays Vis Vis: Field Notes on Poetry & Wilderness (Gaspereau Press, 2001) by permission of Gaspereau Press, Printers & Publishers, WolfVille, Nova Scotia.

English translations of Urdu versions of The Kulliyat of Shams-i Tabriz and the Diwan of Muin-ud-Din Chishti provided by Zahid Aziz. By permission.

Excerpts from Witness to a Last Will of Man, Sir Laurens van der Post, 1984. Published in Testament to the Bushman by Sir Laurens van der Post and Jane Taylor. By written permission of Lucia Crichton-Miller.

Translation of excerpt from Maharatnakuta Sutra, as it appears in Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft, eds., Shambhala, Boston, 2000, by permission of Kenneth Kraft.

In memory of wild places lost to ignorance, greed, and fear

And Jacob said, Please accept the gift I offer, for in fact I have come into your presence as into the presence of God, since you have received me kindly. So accept the gift I have brought for you, since God has been generous to me and I have all I need. And he urged him, and Esau accepted.

Genesis 33:1011

CONTENTS

Help came in ways surprising and varied as I worked on this book. Many of those I would like to acknowledge also make appearances in the narrative: Paul Goossen of the Canadian Wildlife Service; Mike and Lorran Wild; Grace Stevenson; Don McKay; Ron Rolheiser; Rob Wright; Father James Gray; my children, Kate, Jon, Sage, and Maia; Noreen Strueby; Duane Guina; Brewster Kneen; Nolan Bodnarchuk; Peter Farden; Noel Star Blanket; Robert Stacey; Archbishop Peter Mallon; and Harold and Audrey Zettl.

There are those who helped shape my thinking in the conversations we have had together: Noel Star Blanket, Heather Hodgson, Rob Wright, Laura and Gene Forrester, and John Dipple. Of particular significance were my conversations and correspondence with Father James Gray. I thought of him often as I reworked drafts or struggled for ways to listen to my material.

I am particularly grateful to those who read some or all of the manuscript, offering suggestions. These include Ross Laird, Myrna Kostash, Sean Virgo, David Perrin, Michelle Sanche, and Heather Hodgson. I would like to single out Gary Ross, who was enthusiastic about the project early on, and Ron Rolheiser, who not only allowed me to borrow so many of his thoughts and phrasings but commented on the manuscript in detail during its latter stages.

Jackie Kaiser, my agent, has faithfully guided me through several transitions during the conception, writing, and editing. Dinah Forbes, my editor at McClelland & Stewart, was gentle with a manuscript that must have seemed rather unruly at first glance. I appreciated her cheerful questions and suggestions, helping me to create a more navigable and appealing book. Thanks also to the copy editor, Heather Sangster, for finding my mistakes and polishing sentences, and to Jean Okemasis and Arok Wolvengrey for assistance with spelling Cree words.

With apologies to anyone who I may have forgotten to name, these are the people who have provided important corrections, comments, and advice, improving the book immeasurably. None is responsible for the errors and weaknesses that remain.