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“To those who do survive Find beauty in your lives Don’t be afraid of love Stand up and rise above.” — Tommy Shaw and Styx Could we please talk about the future? Nobody really wants to talk about it, but…

“As the crickets’ soft autumn hum is to us, so are we to the trees, as they are to the rocks and the hills.” — Gary Snyder Saturday dawned clear and bright: the most beautiful morning of the trip so…

“Wonder is a bulky emotion.  When you let it fill your heart and mind, there isn’t room for anxiety, distress, or anything else.” — Diane Ackerman I woke up to clear skies and alpenglow.  The tents were still wet, but…

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt Here we go again… My intent was always to have two…

“This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence… a single visible living entity containing all other living entities; which by their nature are all related.” — Plato, Timeus (4th Century B.C.) Since the last time…

“Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.”— John Steinbeck Well, it didn’t rain anymore last night, but I still woke to drips inside the tent.  I had stretched the rain fly over the tent…

“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.” — Robert Louis Stevenson At dawn, ragged clouds left over from last night lingered in…

“In each of you there is a hidden being, still in the deep sleep of childhood. Bring it to life!  In each of you there is a call, a will, an impulse of nature, an impulse toward the future, the new,…

“Wildness is an energy which blows through one’s being,causing the self to shift in new patterns,opening up alternative perceptions of life.” — Samuel Coleridge While most of the country was celebrating its birthday by charring animal flesh and blowing things…

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson…

“True action, good and radiant action, does not spring from activity, from busy bustling, it does not spring from industrious hammering.  It grows in the solitude of the mountains, it grows on the summits where silence and danger dwell.  It…

“Don’t be afraid. There is nowhere you can fall, but the power of the earth will hold you.” — Sally Oldfield This year marked the fiftieth anniversary of my first trip to Big Bear Lake.  In that time span, I…

“The world outside the self is indifferent to the fate of the self.”— Barry Lopez The horrible fire season of 2021 passed, followed by record-setting storms called “atmospheric rivers” that dumped a whole season’s worth of rain and snow on…

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”   — Tennessee…

“Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them to what is deepest in themselves.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin I woke early…

“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.  You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it.  It is enough.” — Toni Morrison I woke before I could see anything except the stars decorating the spaces between…