One Wild and Precious Life

Me entering South Australia from Victoria yesterday

One of the books I have been reading quoted this poem by Mary Oliver:

I had heard the last few lines before:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?”

But the words hit differently this time.

This trip is an effort to make the most of my “one wild and precious life”. Definitely WAY out of my comfort zone: 3 months away, on the other side of the world, alone.

But another aspect that keeps popping up as I travel through Victoria and South Australia to Adelaide is just how fleeting my “one wild and precious life” really is.

This hit me first when I was thinking about the limestone formations along the coast. They have been carved over millennia by the wind and sea. They are constantly eroding and changing. Yet they don’t seem that different than when I first saw them in 2002. Reinforced that relative to geologic time, my life span is a millisecond.

Then yesterday, driving through the “limestone coast” of South Australia, we visited a number of inactive volcanoes and sinkholes, aka cenotes. These too are forged over millennia by movements in the earth, as well as the elements, to fill them with strikingly bright blue water

One of the Cenote whose water level receded had been reclaimed by its owner sometime in the last century as a garden, now open to the public in perpetuity. It was spectacular, and a testament to what one person’s vision during their “one wild and precious life” could do for many people, for many years to come.

And this morning, we visited the Naracoorte Caves, which is world heritage listed and one of the world’s most important fossil sites. For half a million years, the caves acted as a natural pitfall trap for the animals living in the region. Animals would fall through holes into the caves, and not be able to escape. As a result, layers and layers of bones collected, year after year, creating a historical trail of how these precursors to today’s kangaroos, wombats, emus, and other uniquely Australian animals evolved. Fascinating. And again, for me, a reminder of the fleeting and constantly changing nature of our lives.

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be on this journey. I’m experiencing things, meeting people, contemplating my past and my future…considering what it is I have done and yet plan to do with my one wild and precious life. It’s truly a blessing.

I’ll leave you with some young kangaroos (joeys) we came across near the caves.

Next stop - Adelaide!