• Arapaho Bend Natural Area,  landscape,  quotes,  sunrises,  sunsets

    Sacred Places

    November 5, 2025

    To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. At Devil’s Tower or Canyon de Chelly or the Cahokia Mounds, you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space.

    N. Scott Momaday

    These are two images taken at Arapaho Bend Natural Area, just one of the natural areas that I consider a sacred place. The natural areas are where I enjoy attending sunrise and sunset services or an afternoon’s walk. These sacred places I enjoy do not have stained glass windows, pews, organs, a pulpit, or membership requirements. I stand or sit on the ground or a rock and experience the presence of the Spirit through the wind, a red winged blackbirds song or the warmth of the setting sun. But more often than not, just the silence. If I am fully present, I am never the same after spending sacred time in nature. Sacred places like this are where I go and sit to be one with the Spirit and feel alive. Both images were taken in 2013. May you have a wonderful day!

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  • Arapaho Bend Natural Area,  clouds,  landscape,  quotes

    … once wasn’t enough

    October 18, 2025

    I’ve come to realize the only true walk is the re-walk.
    You cannot know a place without returning.
    And even then, once isn’t enough.

    Craig Mod

    It’s a beautiful morning with blue skies and clouds. I took this at Arapaho Bend Natural Area on my way to meet Eric for coffee and conversation around 8:30 am. The yellows and golds are looking good against the blue sky and water. They’ve predicted the wind to blow and it has already begun so we are being showered with dancing leaves, twirling and swirling for the joy of it. I so enjoyed my time this morning that I needed to stop and take a few more images on the way home. Once wasn’t enough. I hope you enjoy your Saturday!

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  • Arapaho Bend Natural Area,  clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  sunrises

    Silence makes us whole…

    October 4, 2025

    Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective of our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it.

    Thomas Merton

    Saturday mornings are my coffee and conversation time with my friend, Eric, which means a short drive to Windsor. Since we are expecting rain later today I thought the sunrise may offer colorful clouds so I drove by Arapaho Bend Natural Area. I set up my camera and tripod on the west side of Beaver Pond and then shot towards the east. It was the warmest morning of this past week but a nice cool breeze made it very comfortable. The breeze created small waves across the water. I received the gift of pink clouds reflected in the water and the silence it offered. May you enjoy your weekend!

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  • clouds,  horizons,  landscape,  nature,  quotes

    The places…

    September 30, 2025

    The places in which we are seen and heard are holy places. They remind us of our value as human beings. They give us the strength to go on. Eventually they may even help us to transform our pain into wisdom.

    Rachel Naomi Remen

    After a conversation with my friend, Jeff, about the above quote I did some google search on the word “holy.” I found the Hebrew word for “holy” is kodesh, which comes from the root word “Kadash” and in simple terms means to be set apart for a specific purpose. I personally like that meaning! But for some of us the word “holy” or even “sacred” refers to a connection with religion and we can recoil. I have been wounded by religion in my past. But I am realizing there has been enough healing that holy for me does not leave a negative reaction. I also believe Remen’s quote is focusing on the “places” and that we are seen and heard whether we call it holy, sacred, or whatever. I can easily refer to several places I connect with as beautiful places, enchanting places, magical places, inviting places, places for community, places of solitude and quiet, places of healing or forgiveness, places to be seen and heard. These places can be in nature, a coffee shop, my condo, my body, an open prairie, a mountain meadow and the places the story in a book can take us. I find myself grateful in embracing all these places, whatever adjective we place in front of it. Thanks, my friend, for the stirring conversation that led me to journal but mostly blog about this. It has been magical day today, perfect day for bicycling.

    Here is where I found that Hebrew definition.

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  • clouds,  leaves,  natural areas,  nature,  quotes

    The Strength of a Touch

    September 23, 2025
    Cottonwood leaves
    Cattails and reflections
    Clouds over Big Bass Pond

    The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we all have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch, a blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness.

    Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom

    I sit on a rock bench looking out across Big Bass Pond at Arapaho Bend Natural Area. It’s about 1:57 pm. I feel the warmth of the 77 degree temperature but accepting the grace of relief provided by the cloudy skies. I notice the small world of life all around me that I so often overlook. Bees, butterflies, and beetles feasting on the nectar of the rabbitbrush. Ants, spiders, grasshoppers and unnamable bugs scurry or jump around me. Cottonwood leaves become intricate works of art as the autumn equinox arrives. And the cattails showing the golden tips of their swords. I am grateful to slow down and experience the healing given by being present to this world. It is a gift that has much to teach me. Now a rumble of thunder gives notice for me to move on. By the time I reach the car, raindrops have begun to fall. (Entry from my journal.) So here are three images from the afternoon.

    This morning a steady, gentle rain falls. It began just after I got up, around 4:30 am. My weather app predicts it will continue until mid afternoon. I have my front door open so I can hear and take in the fragrance of this refreshing rain. It’s a good day to journal, read and work on this blogs transformation. Thanks for being here and have a great day!

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  • clouds,  horizons,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  reflections,  sunrises

    Working to Improve Ourselves

    August 21, 2025
    Sunrise at Arapaho Bend Natural Area – 2012

    In order for the world to become peaceful, people must become more peaceful. Among mature people war would not be a problem – it would be impossible. In their immaturity people want, at the same time, peace and the things which make war. However, people can mature just as children grow up. Yes, our institutions and our leaders reflect our immaturity, but as we mature we will elect better leaders and set up better institutions. It always comes back to the thing so many of us wish to avoid: working to improve ourselves.

    Peace Pilgrim

    It’s going to be in the high 90’s today. May you have a wonderful day!

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  • natural areas,  nature,  Poudre River,  quotes

    Along the Poudre River

    July 11, 2025

    “It is not the man who has too little that is poor,
    but the one who hankers after more.”

    Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    It is a quiet mid-morning here, although we are expecting rain this afternoon. The wind and trees have been playing a song that soothes my soul and I’m loving it. I had an enjoyable ride to and from coffee this morning. It was rather quiet at the coffee shop so I was able to journal. This image is from a couple days ago when I spent time at Arapaho Bend Natural area walking along the Poudre River.

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  • natural areas,  reflections

    Connecting through communicating

    March 21, 2025

    I have come to realize how poor a communicator I have been in the past. How well I may think I have expressed a thought is always limited and I need to accept that fact. How well I think I have listened and understood is always going to be limited and I need to accept that fact. In my experience learning to communicate in these later years of my life has been a wonderful adventure. I find it enjoyable to converse with someone who is also willing and open to learning the craft of communications. It is at these times we connect, come to understand each other and find our differences may be gifts rather than obstacles.

    Cattails along the edge of Big Bass pond at Arapaho Bend Natural Area

    “Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.”

    Hermann Hesse
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  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  reflections

    The scent of the rain

    March 14, 2025

    As I stepped out the door this morning I was greeted with a chorus of robins announcing the new day. Now a gentle rain falls, spreading it’s refreshing scent into the lives of all of creation. In these moments I feel alive, renewed, as I enter into the mystery of this new day. This day began with quiet prayer and meditation time, an Old Town Mocha made by Adriana, then coffee and conversation with Jeff. My intent for the day is to live with some peace and calm, separate from the chaos and drama that society seems addicted to. I know of no better teacher and friend to experience this serenity with than staying close to nature. Did I mention I love the scent of the rain?

    Reflections in Big Bass Pond

    I took a stroll around Big Bass Pond at Arapaho Bend Natural Area yesterday afternoon to enjoy the silence and solitude of that sacred place. Behind me were a couple of nesting eagles. I want to believe their shrill calls are shouts of happiness for the egg or two sitting in their nest. May you have a wonderful Friday!

    How we think ripples out to how we behave.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer
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