• clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  rants,  writing/reading

    Dream World

    On a drive down Rist Canyon I came upon this tree shrouded in clouds and mist.

    “Too often in the past our approach to truth has been to assume that we have it and others do not. Consequently, we have thought that our role is to tell people what to believe. We are being invited instead into a new humility, to serve the holy wisdom that is already stirring in the hearts of people everywhere, the growing awareness of earth’s interrelatedness and sacredness.”

    John Philip Newell

    I went to a local coffee shop to sit outside and journal but that did not happen. There was a group of men gathered around a couple tables talking loudly, wearing shirts that told you their political opinions, one of them packing a gun. We are faced daily with people telling us what to believe, their truth, from all different perspectives. It was not a comfortable place, so I left. I went where I could listen to the birds sing. They make more sense to me and I love their music.

    What would our world be like if people spent time in nature? Would there be an experience of the awareness of our interrelatedness and sacredness that Newell talks about? How would that change us? Maybe we’d realize we need to be students rather than know-it-alls. Or worse yet, think we need to change the world but not ourselves.

  • Plants,  quotes

    Wonder

    A bedraggled dandelion from the archives

    Wonder at reality demands the humility to sit at the foot of a dandelion. The proud are so full of themselves that there is little room to marvel at anything else.

    Thomas Dubay

    Our world is a mix of both, those who look with awe and wonder at the world and those who only look in their mirror. Hopefully, many of those looking in the mirror learn to turn away. I’m one of them. As a young man it was all about fishing, camping, anything outdoorsy. Then somewhere between the ages of 18-40 years the focus was on the American dream: the career, a family, a home, a car, the pursuit of money. Seemed to always be some carrot dangling out there. I spent a share of my life vainly looking at the mirror.

    I won’t list all the changes in my life which have allowed me to see life differently. But I do. I’ve heard it called finding a new pair of glasses. With these glasses I’ve discovered I know I don’t know it all, nor do I need to know it all, yet striving to become all that I can be. I’ve come to know it as humility. I become a teacher only by living as a student of life, knowing I will never know it all. Now I sit at the foot of dandelions and ants and sunrises… in wonder of it all!

  • horizons,  landscape,  Plants,  quotes,  seasons,  trees,  winter scenes

    Where’s the snow?

    December snow 10 years ago

    It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.

    Rachel Carson

    Almost the end of December and we have not yet had measurable snow in Fort Collins. Thankfully the high country have received snow but it has skipped us. Where’s the snow?