“I walked on, talking in my head. In all the miles no silence lived. Inside my thoughts, I realized finally that, more than in wind or cold or Breakup, the power and absoluteness of wild earth resided in its huge uncompromising silence.”
-Seth Kantner (from my favorite book of this year, Ordinary Wolves)
Tag Archives: Photography
Peace
“We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”
—Anton Chekhov
“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”
—Baruch Spinoza
“Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner.”
—Carlos Santana
“Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.”
—Jawaharlal Nehru
“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”
—Malcolm X
“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
—Moshe Dayan
“Every day we do things, we are things that have to do with peace. If we are aware of our life…, our way of looking at things, we will know how to make peace right in the moment, we are alive.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh
“First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.”
—Thomas Kempis
With Love and Reverence
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“Love they said burns you and builds you!
But with you, there is no ash,
Just Light.
-Kamand Kojouni
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
-John Milton
The Untrimmable Light of the World
“Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?”-Mary Oliver
This One Moment
“All that is important is this one moment. Make the moment vital and worth living. Don’t let it slip away unnoticed and unused.”
-Martha Graham
Song of the Trees
“Trees are poems that Earth writes upon the sky.”
-Kahlil Gibran
“Go outside and don’t go to a special place. Just go into your neighborhood and repeatedly, over and over again, open your ears and harvest the sounds all around you. Whether those are tree sounds or car sounds or bird sounds. Without judgment, just be present for the physical experience of sounds flowing into our consciousness. Do that over and over again and the trees will befriend you — or come into your consciousness and teach you some of what they’re saying.”
-David George Haskell
“Come to the woods, for here is rest.” -John Muir
Reflections on Autumn – A Gallery of Photos
“Fall, the time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.”
-Lauren DeStefano
You can click onto any of the thumbnail photos for a full sized version, then use the arrows for a full sized slide show.
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
-George Eliot
Crater Lake – A Gallery of Photos
You can click onto any individual photo to view a full size version – then use right and left arrows for a slideshow.
“A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.”
-William Woodsworth
This lake certainly did carry me into impenetrable recesses of feeling! It’s incredible depth carries an equal depth in peacefulness. The blue is otherworldly, the reflected mirror of the sky and clouds serene and beautiful.
At 1,949 feet, it is the deepest lake in the United States, and 7th deepest in the world. The caldera was created when Mount Mazama’s top quarter was blown off in a powerful volcanic eruption and over time it was filled entirely from rain and melted snow. The purity of the water is felt as well as seen.
I loved the feelings accessed here, and just being absorbed by the tranquil quiet of this lake’s shores…
October
“Ah, Lovely October, as you usher in the season that awakens my soul, your awesome beauty compels my spirit to soar like an leaf caught in an autumn breeze and my heart to sing like a heavenly choir.”
-Peggy Toney Horton
Columbia River Gorge – A Gallery of Photos
The Columbia River Gorge, bonds Washington and Oregon, and has draped them both with overwhelming power and beauty. And the Gorge and its waters have touched my soul.
I long to spend more time here. There is a depth to be penetrated over time, in the inner and the outer realms. Rich tapestries of greens, radiance of waterfalls, myriad wildflowers, mysterious forests, sumptuous grand canyons, all endlessly beautiful. They touch the deepest part of me.
Every turn holds a wonder – a sometimes quiet and often times shuddering exuberance of majesty. Hidden wonders everywhere waiting to be explored.
Yes, I need more time here.
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: What is soft is strong.”
-Lao-Tzu
“Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.”
-Jean Giraudoux
A few facts about the Columbia River Gorge (from the website for Foundation for Water & Energy Education; http://fwee.org/environment/what-makes-the-columbia-river-basin-unique-and-how-we-benefit/):
- Within the Basin, there are 2,500 square miles of waterways and lakes.
- The Columbia River and its tributaries account for about 219,000 square miles of drainage in seven western states.
- The Basin consists of the Rocky Mountains to the east and north, the Cascade Range on the west, and the Great Basin to the south.
- The Columbia River is the fourth largest river in North America.
- The Columbia River originates in British Columbia and flows 1,214 miles to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon.
- The Columbia is fed by a number of major tributaries including the three largest, the Kootenai, the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille and the Snake rivers along with the Payette, the Sultan, the Cowlitz, the Santiam and the Willamette.
- The Columbia River is second only to the Missouri-Mississippi River System in terms of annual run-off as the water flows to the Pacific Ocean.