Forever

I had the great pleasure recently of attending a real estate closing for the land trust and as an officer signing all the paperwork making possible the transaction. Easements use words like "perpetuity" and "forever" to describe the rights that land trusts give back to the earth, and it was a proud and humbling experience to see my name and signature on documents of such importance. It wasn't me, of course, that was important; it was the fact that an organization of humans had banded together to think about timelessness.

Another, more religious era would be talking about Heaven here. We of the preservation persuasion have the same impulse, but have placed it firmly on earth, which is our heaven. Because committed people, from land owners to lawyers to conservationists to donors, believe in the beauty of the land, a lovely section of woods and fields on the slope of Ragged Mountain is now preserved forever for our children, which are the only other way I know of to achieve immortality.