• Arapaho Bend Natural Area,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  sunrises

    Some of us are trying

    June 1, 2026

    I fear that future generations will judge us harshly for our failure to place proper value on wildness, diversity, open space, spirit, solitude, and other treasures of the natural world still available to us today. May they at least know that some of us tried.

    Guy Tal
    Sunrise at Arapaho Bend Natural Area – May 2023

    I am grateful this community I live in has placed value on the wildness of nature and have established several Natural Areas that are set aside as treasures. I am thankful no wealthy developer will be able to destroy the beauty of this morning sunrise scene. My prayer today is that everyone, including rich developers, will come to see the beauty and priceless value of this sunrise as a gift for all of us without a monetary value. And, I need to know I was one of those who tried.

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  • 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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  • fall season,  insects,  leaves,  quotes

    A quiet light…

    November 4, 2025
    The gift of a ladybug and yes, they do have a heart.

    There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearsome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing. We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs of a harvesting of memory, spirit and dream that has long proceeded us and will now unfold nourish and sustain us. The gift of the world is our first blessing.

    John O’Donohue, Benedictus
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  • clouds,  horizons,  landscape,  mountains,  quotes

    Transformed

    June 30, 2025
    Light rain falling in the mountains

    The spirit of the wilderness is solitude. We go alone to meet the divinity within us. The wisdom of the wilderness comes from God interacting through creation to touch our very soul. We emerge from our journey with a new identity grounded in God. Transformed, we discover we have been given back to ourselves.

    Debra Donnelly-Barton

    I have mentioned before on this blog how I go to places where I can touch and be touched by nature; physically, emotionally and spiritually. There is always a shift in my thinking, words and actions when I am able to spend time in the local natural areas, the early mornings of a local park, riding my bicycle on a nature trail, or the solitude of wilderness. When I do, I find a renewed connection to the Creator of this beautiful world we all are a part of and a greater awareness that I’m a part of nature. Her use of the word transformed in the quote is spot on for me. I just ain’t the same when I return home.

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  • Avian,  nature,  quotes

    …calling me by my name

    June 7, 2025

    In indigenous ways of knowing, all beings are recognized as non-human persons, and all have their own names. It is a sign of respect to call a being by its name, and a sign of disrespect to ignore it. Words and names are the ways we humans build relationship, not only with each other, but also with plants.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss

    If words and names are the ways we humans build relationships then calling one another derogatory names on social media, or the playground, does not build relationships. If anything it builds more walls. I will go as far as saying it’s immature, even frustrating. When I listen to a meadowlark sing from its heart my spirit hears it as an invitation. And just maybe it’s calling me by my name. No walls there!

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  • flowers,  Plants,  quotes

    It Just Blooms

    April 13, 2025
    Daffodils

    I spent part of late yesterday afternoon at the CSU Flower Trial Gardens. With my camera and tripod I meandered around for awhile. It is still early in the season so they do not have much planted. And, even though it was a beautiful day there were not many people there. But, I left with the hope of what is to come and the desire to spend more time there this summer. It is not that far of a bicycle ride and there will always be little gems to find. And for me there is also a gift that flowers offer with their beauty, peace and silence. And in today’s competitive world more time among Creation’s gifts is needed for the spirit.

    “A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”

    Koshin Ogui
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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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  • clouds,  landscape,  poems,  silence,  sunsets

    be the love…

    January 27, 2025

    Today I will conjure love from the empty air.
    I will call it out from thin places
    Where people walk without breathing
    From dark places where they stumble without seeing.
    I will find love in those I do not like
    And let love appear in the faces I avoid.
    I will make room for love in my life
    Even if I feel overcrowded with worry.
    I will offer love without restraint
    Even if I have not received love in return.
    I will dance with love in innocent pleasure.
    I will sing love as though love were a new discovery.
    Today I will be the love Spirit made me be
    When Spirit loved me from the empty air.

    Steven Charleston
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  • Arapaho Bend Natural Area,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  sunrises

    I usually learn something

    December 26, 2024
    Sunrise at Arapaho Bend Natural Area – March 2013

    We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that.

    Chief Joseph

    Seems to me a lot of mankind needs to unlearn this idea of quarreling over God. At least it would be one less thing for us to quarrel about. I know in my life when I stopped defending my opinion and listened to the other, I usually learn something I needed to learn.

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