Rewilding Urban Rivers

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  • Sacred Geography Redux: Secular Humanism and National Parks

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    Greg Gordon
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     I have long been a student of national parks in both the ideal and practice (See Mountains without Handrails by Joseph Sax). While national parks are certainly expressions of national identity imposed upon the landscape, they are also manifestations of the sacred in a secular age. We approach these special areas with a degree of…

  • Meteora: medieval mecca

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    Greg Gordon
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    My initial thought in exploring the sacred geography of Greece is that I would find the ancient world in a more harmonious relationship with nature and find the schism between humans and nature in the shift from pantheism to Christianity. But a visit to Meteora has upended that assumption. The rock formations alone are enough…

  • Mount Olympus National Park

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    Greg Gordon
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    I didn’t really plan on spending the full moon solstice on Mount Olympus, but that’s how it worked out. Mount Olympus is probably the closest parallel to the North American national park model in Greece. There’s a large visitor center at the base of the mountain with very thoughtful and informative displays, much better than…

  • Prespa Lakes National Park

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    Greg Gordon
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    Prespa Lakes National Park, established in 2000, challenges the North American conception of a national park, and depending on your perspective, either dilutes and diminishes the very idea of a national park or presents a holistic and innovate way of approaching how humans interact with their landscape. This transboundary park consists of 2 lakes in…

  • Zagoria

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    Greg Gordon
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    Zagoria Well this place is certainly different.  Zagoria is a vast mountainous region with extensive forests, scattered villages, bisected by deep canyons, and clear blue streams, one of which becomes the Aoos River, the longest undammed river in Europe. Zagoria derives from the Slavic meaning land between the mountains. Aoos Vikos National Park encompasses nearly…

  • The National Parks of Greece

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    Greg Gordon
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    My initial impression of Greece is that it resembles the American West in so many ways. Driving north of Athens, the granite mountains covered in oak and juniper remind me of central Arizona, even more so with the recent fires that have denuded the landscape so that only gnarled white skeletons of trees remain. Like…

  • Delphi, navel of the world

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    Greg Gordon
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    Delphi, navel of the world Once upon a time (notice how the phrase immediately denotes a mythological past), before the gods (do we even have a rough date of when Zeus overthrew Kronos?) when paganism ran amok—I’m guessing early Bronze Age or before—early Greeks (or could have been Phoenicians) gazed up at a deep cleft…

  • Sundays in Greece

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    Greg Gordon
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    Morning coffee in a balcony in an Athens suburb with bird song, date palms, and orange sky. Mid morning coffee in an outdoor cafe in the quaint ski town (of course) of Arachova. Mid afternoon coffee in Delphi. On my first day I’m noticing some common themes in Greece: everyone has a balcony, people spend…

  • The Route

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    Greg Gordon
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    National Parks and cultural heritage sites I’m visiting:

  • Deep time

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    Greg Gordon
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    Deep time: In doing some background reading on Greek history, I’m embarrassed to admit how little I know–how is it with all my education, I never learned anything about the ancient Mediterranean World? Maybe I’m a product of a Western (US, not civilization) education. I know much more about Native American tribes, beliefs, mythology than…