To Claude Debussy, to experience wilderness was to find oneself in prayer:
Before the passing sky, in long hours of contemplation of its magnificent and ever-changing beauty, I am seized by an incomparable emotion. The whole expanse of nature is reflected in my own sincere but feeble soul. Around me the branches of the trees reach out toward the firmament, here are the sweet-scented flowers smiling in the meadow, here the soft earth is carpeted with sweet herbs. . . . Nature invites its ephemeral and trembling travelers to experience these wonderful and disturbing spectacles - that is what I call prayer. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 240.)
Obviously he is speaking of experiencing wilderness in solitude, for to experience it with people around does not serve prayer.
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For a brief biography of Claude Debussy, click here.
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