My online journal sharing interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, spirituality and asking deep questions.
Communing with God is communing with our own hearts, our own best selves, not with something foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees have gone into the wilderness to find God; of course they took God with them, and the silence and detachment enabled them to hear the still, small voice of their own souls, as one hears the ticking of his own watch in the stillness of the night.
John Burroughs
“Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.”
Sigurd Olson
“The Utah deserts and plateaus and canyons are not a country of big returns, but a country of spiritual healing, incomparable for contemplation, meditation, solitude, quiet, awe, peace of mind and body. We were born of wilderness, and we respond to it more than we sometimes realize. We depend upon it increasingly for relief from the termite life we have created. Factories, power plants, resorts, we can make anywhere. Wilderness, once we have given it up, is beyond our reconstruction.”
Wallace Stegner
I believe Stegner’s quote is valid for any place. Wilderness is always close by even in our cities but becoming smaller all the time. And we mistakenly call the elimination of these places development. Sigh!
I noticed some Campanula rapunculoides, also known by the common name of creeping bellflower, in a greenbelt and canal area on a walk along Shields Avenue. I felt a closer look was necessary. After a few photos I spotted these mushrooms. Since I was already on my knees I decided they also needed to have their photo taken. I took three photos of the mushrooms and later discovered the fly is only in one image. Guess the fly wanted their photo taken also. 😁
“The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.” – Nancy Newhall
As I mentioned earlier in a post about our trip to the Texas panhandle, my cousin took my sister and I on a “heritage tour” that included places our parents and grandparents grew up. As we drove around I wondered what it was like to live in this area. There was no running water, electricity, paved roads, grocery stores, smart phones or the internet :-). I questioned in my mind how they survived. I think it was because they accepted and lived life as if they were a part of nature and not separate from it.
Some people will be inclined to think this part of the country is desolate, uninhabitable, harsh and lacking any beauty. Yet, to me there is so much beauty. It is wilderness, even though man has tried to change it to meet his ways. Too see the beauty in all things, we must look and see with more than just our eyes. Nature is at work: creating it’s own beauty, surviving in harsh environments, evolving to ensure the existence of another generation. It seems so much of us are distant from nature, separated by our buildings, pavement, malls, televisions. The wilderness is all around us, inviting us to ask questions, if we venture into it, something I feel the need to do more often.