• National Parks,  quotes,  Yellowstone National Park

    You had to be there!!

    “You can only appreciate nature by feeling and seeing it with the heart and the eyes of a child.”

    Michael Bassey Johnson

    I would not be able to look myself in the mirror if I visited Yellowstone National Park without a photograph of the lower and upper falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. I got both! Crowds were small at Artists Point due to the time of year. Without crowds I was able to just stand there watching, listening, experiencing the awe and wonder of it all. I took this photograph about 2:00 pm and that’s why the lighting is flat, but I also know any image would fail to express the experience. You had to be there!!! The waterfall captures most people’s attention but the canyon with those precipitous jagged cliffs and that yellow rock cause me stand speechless while listening to the sound of the waterfalls power echo in the canyon. I already wanna go back.

  • insects,  quotes

    A Sense of Wonder

    Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly

    “We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence whence all things come into being.  Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality.  We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us.”

    Thomas Berry

    Dragonflies hang around my ponds this time of the year. I really don’t know them that well but planning to change that. I do not have many images because they are such an elusive creature who needs patience to photograph. As I watched them over the weekend, I decided to set up my tripod and wait. I quickly began to sweat while standing in the 96 degree sun but I was determined. They skim and dart across the water with vigor at 22–34 mph.

    The twelve-spotted skimmer, which I think this is, has twelve dark brown wing spots, three on each wing. Males have eight additional spots that are white. Dragonflies are predatory insects. The hunting behavior of adult dragonflies is called “hawking.” Their legs are held in a basket shape during flight, which is perfect for grasping mosquitoes and other small flying insects. Many Native American tribes consider dragonflies to be medicine animals that had special powers. For example, the southwestern tribes, including the Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni, associated dragonflies with transformation. So today I watched and learned a lot about dragonflies. From now on I will look at them with different eyes, more respect and appreciation. I fell in love with this sacred creature, who I now know is my mosquito eating neighbor.

  • 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!

  • Black and White,  John O'Donohue,  quotes

    … the lantern

    One of the most exciting and energizing forms of thought is the question. I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. Therefore, the question always assumes that there are many different dimensions to a thought that you are either blind to or that are not available to you. One of the reasons that we wonder is because we are limited, and that limitation is one of the great gateways of wonder.

    John O’Donohue

    If asking a question does offer a new landscape, then altering how I ask that question, even slightly, offers a new landscape in thought. This is a wonderful metaphor for landscape photographers. When I move 10 feet this way, or lower my perspective, I change how the camera sees the landscape. It’s good to always be asking questions.

  • Candid Portraits,  coffee life,  coffee shops,  People/Portraits

    All is a Miracle

    ““People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

    Thich Nhat Hanh

    It is so easy for us in our society to miss the miracles, big and small. For some there is no concept they exist. Wonder how many of us would we see the miracles if we put down our smartphones?

  • 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?

  • Avian,  quotes

    Beginning With Wonder

    Storm clouds and rain

    Awareness of the Divine begins with wonder.

    Rabbi Heschel
    White-faced Ibis

    Unknown to me, White-faced Ibises wander through our area during the warmer months of breeding. I do not know that I’ve ever seen them before simply because I pay more attention to this book of nature now. In fact I enjoy reading it. I just sat and watched them with wonder. I found these birds along Weld County Road 13 in a marshy area with no name on any map I could find. Both images from Saturday afternoon.