• 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.

    Read More
  • clouds,  landscape,  quotes

    Nature’s Wildness

    June 4, 2025

    All Nature’s wildness tells the same story. Storms of every sort, torrents, earthquakes, cataclysms, ‘convulsions of nature,’ etc., however mysterious and lawless at first sight they may seem, are only harmonious notes in the song of creation, varied expressions of God’s love.

    John Muir
    Read More
  • landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes,  silence,  sunrises

    Stillness of Morning Light

    May 16, 2022
    Sunrise at Pineridge Natural Area with a dirty lens

    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
    Read More
  • insects,  quotes

    Discovered the fly

    July 11, 2021

    “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. 😁

    Read More
  • landscape,  quotes,  trees

    A Walk Along the Kiowa Creek

    February 15, 2016
    Trees along the banks of the Kiowa Creek
    Trees along the banks of the Kiowa Creek

    “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.

    Read More