• clouds,  landscape,  snow

    Living Life

    April 19, 2025

    After two days of overcast skies, cold, rain and snow, the skies are clearing. And, the weather app predicts we are going to see warmer weather this coming week. A morning drive out to Reservoir Ridge Natural Area after coffee lifted my spirits. Loved seeing a touch of blue sky peeking out from behind clouds and listening to meadowlarks singing from the meadow. It was a moment to experience real life, cold and all, and grateful to be alive. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

    What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.

     Barbara Brown Taylor
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  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  sunrises

    The miracle is…

    April 14, 2025

    I sit quietly on a rock looking out over the meadow and Dixon Reservoir.
    I feel gratitude for this morning sanctuary, this sacred and holy place.

    With my journal and pen in hand, I try to express what I am seeing and experiencing.
    My sense of hearing is alert to the chatter of the magpies and the songs of robins and meadowlarks.
    I feel the gentle but cool breeze that reminds me it’s still early spring.
    I’m noticing the color green beginning to dominate in the trees and grasses of the meadow.
    I watch the ever changing and beautiful clouds along the eastern horizon
    as they add a feeling of mystery to this moment.

    Within me is a knowing that what I’m experiencing is an expression of the Divine
    and the miracle is that we are here at all.1This was inspired by the quote “The miracle is that we are here at all” by Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations

    mws
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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,  sunsets

    A cause for celebration…

    February 25, 2025

    When your mind is blown and your heart expands, your humility deepens. You become aware that the world is magical, mysterious, and heartbreaking. You know that you know nothing, really, and this is not a problem. It’s a cause for celebration. Ambiguity, paradox, and darkness are the domain of wonder.

    Mirabai Starr

    Landscape photography has taught me patience. The evening I went out to take the above sunset photograph, I went with the intention to make an evening of it. They have a rather uncomfortable rock bench along the edge of the water that I sometimes sit on. And uncomfortable is an understatement. My goal was to experience the twilight colors and take a few images as the clouds looked promising. Twilight is when the sun has dropped below the horizon and the atmosphere is neither completely dark nor fully illuminated. When clouds are present, the colors can be magical and mysterious. I arrived early, took a few photographs prior to sunset, a few photos as the sun set, and journaled. After the sunset I felt restless, wanting to head home, yet aware of how often I do not stay for the twilight show. I stayed and glad I did. I returned home with at least one image I was pleased with and again, humbled by the beauty and gifts of nature. Yes, landscape photography and time within nature is teaching me patience. It’s a cause for celebration. May you have a wonderful day!

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  • landscape,  natural areas,  poetry,  quotes,  sunrises

    I believe…

    February 2, 2025
    Pineridge Natural Area – December 2020

    I have made it through some hard times in my life.
    I imagine you have too.

    Looking back, I can honestly say
    That in more than one of those times
    I was not sure I would make it.

    The presence of a living and conscious love
    Got me through.
    I can only call it Spirit.
    So my faith is not the product of an emotional need
    Or an intellectual imagining.

    I believe because I know. Because I have been there.
    Because of my experience.

    I cannot convince others of this truth.
    I can only share it and wait to see
    The light of memory in their eyes.

    Steven Charleston

    I believe in the presence of a living and conscious love
    because I, too, have been there and experienced it.

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  • fog,  landscape,  nature,  quotes

    A More Spacious World

    December 30, 2024
    A cold and frost covered sunrise – October 2012

    In humility, with wisdom and compassion, we make a more spacious world, where the experience of our communion and connection has fewer barriers and becomes more possible.

    Kathleen Dowling-Singh
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