• 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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  • landscape,  mountains,  natural areas,  quotes,  silence

    Art of Presence

    January 20, 2025

    Prayer is the art of presence. Where there is no wonder there is little depth of presence.

    John O’Donohue

    I stood in wonder this morning at the scene before me. A silence surrounded me. With almost no wind I became aware of the stillness, the beauty, and the penetrating cold. I felt alive. There was a voice inside reminding me that I was an integral part of this world. And, my presence in this world is to love all of creation, to be anchored in justice and compassion, to accept our interconnectedness with all things, to listen and observe our natural world as a teacher, and that living life, being present with all its ups and downs, is a spiritual experience. So, if prayer is the art of presence, then I wish to practice this art of presence until my heart beats for the final time! I guess you can say even that is a prayer.

    If you enlarge this image of the frigid morning at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area you can faintly see the setting of the waning gibbous moon just to the right of center. Stay warm, be safe and pray.

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  • clouds,  landscape,  quotes,  sunsets

    Beauty

    January 15, 2025
    Colorado sunset at Arapaho Bend Natural Area – January 2025

    The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere – in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion and in ourselves. No-one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are of beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.

    John O’Donohue

    They say the perception of beauty is subjective – people can have differing opinions on what is beautiful. So what one person perceives as beautiful might be ordinary or unappealing to another. I would also add that perception changes as we change. The beauty I see today is different than what I saw 10, 20, 30 years ago. It’s a gift to see beauty in so many things but what sets Beauty apart for me is the experience of being present to it! And, in many ways feeding my soul.

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  • clouds,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes

    A Journey of Discovery

    January 14, 2025
    Predawn sky at Pineridge Natural Area

    When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take the time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days.

    John O’Donohue

    As I parked the car at Pineridge Natural Area this morning, I realized I was moving in autopilot mode. I only took two photos then headed to the coffee shop. Any inspiration to be there was lacking. I know one reason was the cold. Another reason was because my chattering mind kept me from being present to any journey of discovery or reverence. That’s not my norm. The above quote has been sitting in waiting for the right time to be posted and this seems to be the day. This morning there was almost no reverence of my presence to myself or the natural world I am a part of. As I have journeyed through the day, and that is what each day is for, a sense of peace and reverence has settled in and I am grateful for my life! I hope you had a good day and stay warm!

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  • landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes,  sunrises

    Merry Christmas

    December 25, 2024

    Well, the cookies and milk I left out for Santa were gone when I woke up this morning, always a good sign. However, there was no XF8mm lens under the tree so there must have been a screw up somewhere. They must have not gotten my letter. I didn’t think I was that naughty this past year. However, I’ve lived without that lens so far and will continue to live without it.

    Overcast skies spurred me to drive to Pineridge Natural Area for possible Christmas morning predawn colors. A mix of rain and snow began and added to the feel of the morning’s cold. I showed up and was not disappointed in nature’s gift of colors. The reflection off Dixon Reservoir was breathtaking and almost caused me to miss the Great Horned Owl perched on the tree. I asked if they were watching the predawn colors or looking for prey or both, but only silence? And, silly me forgot to bring the tripod so this is a handheld image taken at 23mm, 1/10 sec at f8.0 and ISO 12800. I have cropped this image and used denoise in Lightroom to clean up the noise. It works well enough for this blog. I started a crockpot of chili soup after my quiet time and its aroma is filling the house. It’s making me hungry. I hope everyone has a wonderful day in whatever way you celebrate it. Thank you to all who regularly stop by for a visit. I love this world!!! ❤️

    “The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.”

    Joanna Macy
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  • coffee life,  coffee shops,  quotes

    Presence is wisdom!

    November 8, 2024
    Journaling with a chai latte, while watching it snow outside

    Wisdom is precisely a different way of seeing and knowing the ten thousand things in a new way. I suggest that wisdom is precisely the freedom to be truly present to what is right in front of you. Presence is wisdom! Those who can be present will know what they need to know, and in a wisdom way.

    Richard Rohr

    It began snowing in earnest about 9:30 am, offering us big, beautiful moisture filled snowflakes. I met Jeff earlier for tea and conversation, then stopped by the Arboretum Coffee shop to journal for a while. The small chai latte was a perfect pairing with my journaling. This coffee shop is a nonprofit that is striving to “create a community where refugees and immigrants can rebuild their lives with dignity, gain essential skills, and form meaningful connections.” I come here because I want to support that ideal. So far my interaction with all these baristas has not given me a feeling of working with a criminal, the drug cartel or that I’m  in any danger. The only problem I’ve had is our language differences but that is improving! What’s cool about that is we don’t throw up our hands but keep at it until I get skim milk rather than whole. I’m finding my name is strange to them and love how they sometimes say it. If I remain open and willing to encounter wisdom, then these baristas have much to teach me, to enhance my life, and a chance to be present to each other. Seems there is more danger around the white privileged who think they think they know. I much prefer Rohr’s notion that wisdom is precisely a different way of seeing and knowing the ten thousand things in a new way. I want to be a seeker of wisdom.

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  • Avian,  landscape,  meadowlark,  poems

    For Solitude

    April 10, 2024
    A meadowlark perched on the fence sings from the light of its soul

    May you recognize in your life the presence,
    power and light of your soul.

    May you realize that you are never alone,
    that your soul in its brightness and belonging
    connects you intimately with the rhythm of the
    universe.

    May you have respect for your own individuality and
    difference.

    May you realize that the shape of your soul is
    unique, that you have a special destiny here,
    that behind the facade of your life
    there is something beautiful and eternal happening.

    May you learn to see your self
    with the same delight,
    pride, and expectation
    with which God sees you in every moment.

    John O’Donohue from “To Bless the Space Between Us”
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  • leaves,  quotes

    Godful

    November 26, 2023

    But now I’ll have to go, for there is nothing to spare in the way of provisions. I’ll surely be back, however, surely I’ll be back. No other place has ever so overwhelmingly attracted me as this hospitable, Godful wilderness.

    John Muir

    I discovered a new word in some of John Muir’s writings, called “Godful.” At first I thought it was a play on the word grateful but then realized it’s his way of expressing the presence of God in all of nature. Some people may say these brown, orange and red leaves are dying with the autumn frost but I’m not so sure. Just maybe, as I’ve heard it said, they are just flowing through the current of life and those wonderful colors are a way of expressing their excitement in the new phase of life? Maybe the colors express Joy? Happiness? Could their colors and the frost be the expression of that word “Godful?” Well, I have no factual answer to any of those questions and a thousand other questions like them. However, as I experience and see the divine presence in nature I am drawn more and more to the idea of nature expressing itself to us. “Godful” I like that word.

    We have blue skies, sunshine and it’s cold. 🥶 Stay warm if it’s cold where you are and have a wonderful day! If there is a stupid rule that you can’t have a piece of chocolate cake before noon, I just broke it. 😂

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