This Land is Your Land

*Warning* I’m about to geek out on you, again, National Park style.

I tend to have some of my best thinking time while mowing our lawn, and tonight, those thoughts surrounded why I feel so in tune and passionate about land preservation and the parks.

This Land is Your Land – Woody Guthrie

The American Dream has always encompassed freedom and land ownership.  Despite the horrid history of taking this land from the very people who first lived on it, I like to think that some semblance of the Native American spirit was left in the public lands of the National Parks- cherished, preserved, holy even.

When I think ahead about all of the open lands that are being developed, built upon with another strip mall, another business, another material thing, I get discouraged.  I live in Lancaster County-outsiders think of rolling hills, farmland, Amish.

Rock Springs – Courtesy of LancasterConservancy.org

Locally though, I just see more and more farms being turned into strips malls for shopping to feed the needs of Americans around me.

If this Land truly is my land, our land, your land, then what do I want to see on it?  Nothing.  I want to see the trees, I want to the animals roam, I want to see grasses blowing in the breeze in their natural hills, not the hills that were recreated by bulldozers, and ponds created from unnaturally shifted soil.  I want to see purity, to smell the breathe of nature, to taste her natural feast.  I want this to last…

What will you do with your land?

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