The Most Beautiful Place on Earth

“This is the most beautiful place on earth.
There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.”

-Edward Abbey

This is the most beautiful place on earth. These words by Edward Abbey come to mind this morning, this perfect morning, at home. “There are many such places”.  And there are.  I have been away from home for ten days and have seen many of these most beautiful places – Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Craters of the Moon, The Nez Perce Trail, Capital Reef… Landscapes so varied and divine as to be overwhelming.  Wondrous.

But no less wondrous are the home woods…  deep forests and tall trees, Summer Forest with Soft Light copyraven conversations, Raven Chatdeer family Deer Smacking Her Lipsvisits, chipmunks, Yellow Flowerdandelions, luxuriant green carpets, stone song, bees buzzing, one perfect sky-blue butterfly, tiny wild violets, the sunlight on the new maple leaves…

 

Spring Maples

Yes, there are wonders everywhere.  Beauty.  Connection.  Spirit.

Home holds me.  The most beautiful place on earth.

Three Stones on Stump

New Life

 

Craters, Tree

Craters of the Moon allows a glimpse of the new earth, recently formed.  The black lava slowly accepts life –                                                   tiny flowers dot the landscape everywhere, Craters, Tiny Flowers

lichens help provide soil, little trees gain purchase.

Nature sculptures invite the eye to linger.   It is so quiet – but life is stirring.

Craters, Mom on Path

Craters, Tree Fall

A Sanctuary of Peace and Refuge

Zion.  The word evokes a place of sanctuary – of peace and refuge.  The majestic red rocks of Zion National Park are in a state of continual change.  The feeling of ancient wisdom, calm, peace,  and movement – of evolving – are so palpable here.   A deep knowing energy pervades the air, the earth, the rocks.

Zion, Big Rocks

 

“Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution?

I suspect that it does…”

-Edward Abbey

Zion Rocks3Zion, Red Rock, White Rock

 

 

Large Cathedrals and Small Chapels

Here immersed in these extravagant wonders formed over millennia, are cathedrals of stone so immense they cover an expanse as far as the eye can see.  Within these grand cathedrals, in every nook, are small chapels of amazement.  Every glance a testament, a long look a revelation. An acknowledgement.

Bryce, Big HooDoosBryce, HooDoos7

“A weird, lovely, fantastic object out of nature like Delicate Arch has the curious ability to remind us—like rock and sunlight and wind and wilderness—that out there is a different world, older and greater and deeper by far than ours, a world which surrounds and sustains the little world of men as sea and sky surround and sustain a ship. The shock of the real. For a little while we are again able to see, as the child sees, a world of marvels. For a few moments we discover that nothing can be taken for granted, for if this ring of stone is marvelous then all which shaped it is marvelous, and our journey here on earth, able to see and touch and hear in the midst of tangible and mysterious things-in-themselves, is the most strange and daring of all adventures.”

-Edward Abbey

Bryce, Close Up, HooDoos

 

Stone Poetry

The ranger at the entrance station for Bryce National Park provides a brochure that explains the science behind the majestic spires, cathedrals, layers of colors, sculptures… but the facts can’t prepare you for the wonder of it all. The scale, the quiet, the sacred feeling that pervades – all are immense. Travelers talk in whispers. We glance at each other with a sort of shrug that says, “How can we take in all this?”  It is sacred, it is all encompassing, it is peace.

Bryce, HooDoos4

“If a man knew enough he could write a whole book about the juniper tree. Not juniper trees in general but that one particular juniper tree that grows from a ledge of naked sandstone near the old entrance to Arches National Monument.”
-Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, A Season in the Wilderness

Bryce, HooDoos

 

 

Traveling the Inner & Outer Roads

“I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.”

-Lillian Smith

Bryce, Mom on Bench

“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.”

-Anatole France

Sky View

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.”

-Paul Theroux

 

“Not all who wander are lost.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Idaho Road

 

 

A New Way of Seeing Things

A journey begins… traveling south away from these northwest wonders and into new ones.  Open to each and every experience and opening.

Big Rock, Mountain Range

 

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

-Henry Miller

Big Sky Montana

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights;  it is a change that goes on deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

-Miriam Beard

 

Bridal Vail with Prisms

A Handful of Sand

“We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.”

-Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

There is SO much more to be aware of!  Take a minute.  Allow several long sweet breaths.  Notice the depth that is possible in this moment.  Be aware of the wonders – the possibilities – the connections – the expansion and the deepening….

Explore the endless landscape of awareness.

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The Treasure is Inside You

“The treasure that you are seeking, is inside you.
The beauty of the sound is that it opens doorways for you to go inside…
to make contact with that which you already have”.
~Tom Kenyon

Light Writing - Heart (2)

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

-Carl Jung

…”Your still, quiet waters run deep. Go to the water.  Ask. Listen. The advice you seek is in YOU.”

-Kris Carr

 

The inner world is a big, ever and all knowing universe.   As huge as the expanding cosmos, a lifetime of exploration contained there.  The vibration of atoms and quarks and bosons constantly moving and creating.   As the movement of the Milky Way, constellations, star nebulas so the movement and vibrations of particles that make up everything.  We are made of stardust!

Human Body

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The cosmos is within us.                                                                        We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

-Carl SaganPrayer Flags

 

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