When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
Wilder Ranch State Park’s history, like much of California, is shaped by the Spanish and their missions. When the nearby Mission Santa Cruz was established in 1791, the state park area became part of the mission pasture lands. Then, when the mission lands were divided into “ranchos,” large land grants, after secularization, Wilder Ranch became part of Rancho Refugio. The land was split into smaller ranches over the years, Wilder Ranch operating until 1969.
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