Okefenokee. Land of the Trembling Earth.
My family and I visited during the winter, when the park has very few visitors (of the human variety anyway). Because of course there were gators. Many many gators. The thing is, there are always more gators than you can see. For every alligator just lolling around like a tourist in a beach chair, there were several lurking beneath the dark tannic surface, visible only to the discerning eye.
OBVIOUS GATORS!
SNEAKY HIDDEN GATORS!
But the most profound experience in the Okefenokee is a spiritual one, an ancient and instinctive understanding of where humans — soft-skinned and delicate as butterflies — fit into the ecosystem.
This is the sign that greets you at the end of the board walkway:
“We were once alive like you are now, but we complained and hollered anyhow. So love each day, don’t pass it by. Sooner or later, you too will die.”
One of the highlights of a visit to the Okefenokee Swamp is a trip up the three-story viewing tower. While walking the paths and trails of the park, it’s easy to become so fascinated with the up-close beauty — the lush foliage, the water like a dark mirror — that one forgets the breathtaking expanse of the waterway. Above the canopy, however, the vastness and wildness of this landscape reveals itself.
I hope that we continue to protect this wildness, the free and beautiful land. It is where water and land meet in a mating dance as ancient as the tide, as compelling as the moon. I am grateful for its inspiration.