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Savor the Pleasure

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“The mountain has left me feeling renewed, more content and positive than I’ve been for weeks, as if something has been given back after a long absence, as if my eyes have opened once again. For this time at least, I’ve let myself be rooted in the unshakable sanity of the senses, spared my mind the burden of too much thinking, turned myself outward to experience the world and inward to savor the pleasures it has given me.”
― Richard Nelson, The Island Within

Back to Front: Taylor Peak, Sharkstooth, Otis Peak
Rocky Mountain National Park

Adapt & Thrive

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Every creature serves a purpose in our shared eco-system that we can observe and learn from. If there is any animal that has mastered the ability to adapt and thrive when faced with fierce obstacles it is the coyote.

Coyote Pack
Northern Colorado

Getting to the Top

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I’ve been to the mountaintop. I’ve been to THIS mountain’s top, several times. In fact, my wife Toni has been to the summit. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, no. It’s ten miles round trip with over 3200’ in elevation gain. It’s quite strenuous – but there IS a secret. What you are looking at here is NOT the route up! There is a gradual trail leading up from the right (out of view) to the top of Flattop Mountain, across the Tyndall Glacier, then up a sloping final approach on the back side to the summit. I tell you this because I think most of the challenges we face in life at first glance look like the foreboding face of Hallett Peak. We just need to find the trail, then put one foot in front of the other enough times to make it to our destination, which in this case is back at the parking lot! Whatever you are facing in 2021, learn the route, pack light, and expect a grand adventure. I’ll see you at the top!

Hallett Peak
Rocky Mountain National Park

Route to the top

View from the top

Namooste

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the sacred in me recognizes the sacred in you

“Namooste”
Wyoming

gros ventre

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“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
― Pablo Picasso

“gros ventre”
Wyoming

The Gros Ventre Tribe originated in Canada and migrated south into Montana. Some continued on south to Wyoming. Their name is pronounced “grow-vahnt “ which may mean “big belly.” We aren’t sure why the French called them this.

All of this being said, my photo has nothing to do with the Tribe, but shows an area along the Gros Ventre River in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park which bears their name. I’ve always thought, looking out over these hills and trees under fresh snow, that the scene looked like a painting.

Rest Thou

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“River! that in silence windest
Through the meadows, bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!”
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson (from The Brook)

Cache la Poudre River

Colorado

There for the Taking

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“Some days he climbed over the foothills of indifference to see the landscape of his life and future for what it was: mappable, traversable, achievable.”
― Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King

San Juan Mountains of Colorado

Still I Rise

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“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.”
― Maya Angelou (Still I Rise)

Mount Moran
Wyoming

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Ending, a New Beginning

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Our individual stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, with a thousand smaller beginnings, middles, and endings scattered in-between. Some of our endings are actually new beginnings. If I could speak anything of substance over your new year it would be this: don’t get stuck in your last ending. The “muds” that get us stuck in the past are things like anger, regret, retribution, denial, envy, defeatism, self-destruction — let those suns set! A new sunRISE is headed your way, a clean slate, a fresh beginning! I wish you well, my friend, happy new year!

Sunset over Lahontan
Nevada

Home

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Home isn’t always a place, but it can be a feeling
It may be a person
often a memory
It tends to be where you go when you run out of places to go
the whisper that drives you away from homes that aren’t….home
Home is where the soul runs barefoot
where your love unpacks it’s bags
Home has a way of remaining unrecognized until you leave
the trail of breadcrumbs that doesn’t seems to appear until you are ready
Make it, break it, take it…
Home is where we know we belong

Colorado

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