A Spirituality of Wildness

Contemplative Column by Theodore Richards

Among the oldest stories of which there is a written record is the Epic of Gilgamesh. In it, Gilgamesh, the king of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Uruk, encounters the wild man, Enkidu. Gilgamesh—like humanity itself—is a man in between: part human and part god, approaching immortality of never quite attaining it. In Enkidu, he finds his greatest adve…