“We need the tonic of wildness, … At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things b​e mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.
We can never have enough of Nature.”

-Henry David Thoreau

Canyonlands National Park, August 2014

This blog initially was created to document my travels in the Spring of 2020 after I finished my PhD. It serves to continue to be a place for me to document what I see and experience in all of the beautiful places that I have been lucky enough to be. It serves as a place for me to share my love of wild things, and to capture the beauty of the natural world. I currently reside in Berkeley, California, and work as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Biology. I focus on fundamental questions related to the ecology and evolution of infectious disease with an eye toward the viruses plaguing Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies).

 

This blog aims to document my meanderings, musings, and missives as I (r)amble around islands in the Pacific Ocean before beginning the next chapter in my career (post-predoc/pre-postdoc, get it?). The title of this blog comes from one of the best books written on the human condition: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods by HD Thoreau (1854). It serves as a reminder to myself to shed all of the superfluity of the day-to-day grind and remember my own (human) wildness. Thoreau goes on to say, “We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.” Nature strips us bare, humbles us, and shows us our place in the world. Travel does that too. It provides us with the tonic (from Greek tonikos ‘of or for stretching’) of wildness.

On this journey, I plan to stretch myself. I will occasionally dirty my hands working on organic farms via WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). Other primary journey goals include: “tramping” in NZ, being able to “easily” carry all of my belongings in a >40 lb backpack, drinking sake, crossing paths with other wanderers, and observing wildlife. I will return to Atlanta in May 2020 for Emory University’s graduation ceremony (I’m gettin’ hooded, y’all!).

UPDATE (April 19): Not so fast! Emory Commencement was canceled, the world is on fire, and I have no idea what is going to happen next. The Hawaii and British Columbia parts of the trip (two more WWOOFing destinations) have been postponed as well. Instead, I'll be living in Hiroshima, Japan, for the foreseeable future! Good thing there are a lot of Terrace House episodes on Netflix...

I hope you follow along with me as I fall into my burning Ring of Fire Tour™! As always, feel free to get in touch at sigwhite1@gmail.com or click on a link at the footer (the far right icon links to my iNaturalist page).

-- P. Signe White