SLH's Page

My life is pretty simple and I like it that way. Life is too short to let it get too complicated unnecessarily.

I pretty much love just about everything about nature and the natural world. I spent my early years camping in the mountains and that started a love affair with the mountains and the outdoors which continues to this day. It's a spiritual thing for me. I also grew up with family pets so I've always loved animals and the joy they bring to my life as well. Animals give something to us that is hard to explain sometimes, it's beyond the joy and amazement we feel in their presence. They have an honesty and genuineness to their spirit that I admire. They are here, just like us trying to survive. As such, they have no less of a right to be here and be treated with dignity than we do. George Adamson considered the lions in his life an equal. I like that and feel that about animals in general. How would we feel without their presence in our life. I feel that way about the natural world also.

Anatoli Boukreev said it best for me and my love affair with the mountains, but I feel it can be applied to the natural world as well.

"Mountains are cathedrals: grand and pure, the houses of my religion. I go to them as humans go to worship... from their lofty summits, I view my past, dream of the future, and with unusual acuity I am able to experience the present moment. My vision cleared, my spirit renewed, in the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn."

I go to the mountains regularly and can get that spiritual renewal easily (lucky me). However, one of the beauties of WIldEarth is that we can go to a natural world, (albeit virtual) that many of us otherwise couldn't get to. And at WE it is the epiteme of a natural world; wild, wooly and free. As I grow older I seek the solice of the natual world more and more,whether it be in my beloved mountains or the bush in Africa. There are really only two or three places in the world I really want to go to: the Alps and perhaps the Andes for the mountains and the wilds of Africa for the wildlife. Who knows, maybe someday.

Steve