Tag Archives: Nature

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

 

 

Earth Mother

“The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.”

-Chief JosephGlacier Greens

 

Storm Brewing

“Happy day to all those who mother- whether or not you have ever given birth. Some of the best mothering I have received has been from friends, some of whom do not have children. They have fed me, held me, listened to me (endlessly! ) & given me strength. I bow to all those who tend & befriend. And I bow to our shared Mother, the Earth- who supports & sustains us.”

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Clean Mess

 

Nature’s Art – A Gallery of Photos

“What is art but a way of seeing?”

-Saul Bellow

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.  This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

-Albert Einstein

 

 

Seeing the Spring Come In

“One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the Spring come in.”

-Henry David Thoreau

Sidewalk Patterns

“Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”

-Zen Saying

 

“The force of Spring – mysterious, fecund, powerful beyond measure.”

-Michael Garofalo