Welcome! I am a contemplative thinker and photographer from Colorado. In this blog, you'll discover photographs that I've taken on my hiking and backpacking trips, mostly in the American West. I've paired these with my favorite inspirational and philosophical quotes - literary passages that emphasize the innate spirituality of the natural world. I hope you enjoy them!

If you'd like to purchase photo-quote greeting cards, please go to www.NaturePhoto-QuoteCards.com .


In the Spirit of Wildness,

Stephen Hatch
Fort Collins, Colorado

P.S. There's a label index at the bottom of the blog.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

The goal of spiritual practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.

"In Japan we have the phrase 'shoshin,' which means 'beginner's mind.'  The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.  If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.  In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.  The most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind.

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

Photo: New Marsh-marigold blooms emerging from the snow; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; June 28, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




Why shouldn't we have a religion of insight given to us, and not merely a history of those in the past?

  
"The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes.  Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?  Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us and not the history of theirs?  Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade with the faded wardrobe of the past?  The sun shines today also."

Ralph Waldo Emerson   

Photo: Alpine Bog Laurel blooming on the shore of Lake Solitude; Grand Teton National Park, WY; July 5, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



The New Year brings a sense of freshness, energy, abundance and innumerable possibilities.


Like a mountain wildflower meadow, the New Year brings a feeling of freshness, energy, abundance, and innumerable possibilities. May each of us begin to bloom into our full potential this coming year!

Photo: Glacier Lilies, Lake Solitude and the backside of the Tetons; Grand Teton National Park, WY; July 6, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



Monday, December 30, 2013

Like a great character, the trail finds only the places that are the best.

"The trail is essentially poetic; it knows the beauty of flowing lines.  It seeks out all the beauty spots and, like a great character, finds only that which is the best."

Enos Mills
founder, Rocky Mountain National Park  


Photo: Arthur's Rock Trail, Lory State Park, CO; December 5, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!


Follow Your Bliss!


"Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls."

Joseph Campbell 

Photo: Avalanche Lilies and a misty Mount Rainier; Spray Park, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA; July 28, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



Sunday, December 29, 2013

Fresh patterns of experience can manifest themselves at any moment within our relatively predictable schedules!


 I really enjoy visiting and revisiting the same mountain lakes over the course of a single winter. Each visit features a brand new patterning of ice and snow, beautiful in its own way and completely unique. Perhaps we can learn to see our own relatively mundane routines in a similar way, remaining on the lookout for the fresh patterns of experience that may manifest themselves at any moment within our relatively predictable schedules.
Photo: Bierstadt Lake with Otis, Hallett and Flattop Peaks in the background; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 28, 2013
 If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




What would YOU like to see birthed in the coming year?


With the New Year fast approaching, I find myself beginning to think of the fresh perspectives I'd like to see birthed in the coming year. For me, one of those is a new awareness among all of us that the Earth is a living, ensouled being. It is Nature who sustains us, not the world of media and entertainment. What perspectives would YOU like to see birthed in the coming year?
Photo: Subalpine Fir and sunrise on Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone National Park, WY; September 1, 2013
If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!

Saturday, December 28, 2013

What if we made a practice of gilding one another with the gold of genuine praise and mindful appreciation?


When alpenglow light gilds the mundane grey of the peaks in red, orange and gold, I'm reminded that we are called to do something similar with each other. It is easy to focus on the faults of another. After all, every one of us has them. But what if we instead made a practice of revealing each person in their best light? What if we lit them up with the gold of genuine praise and mindful appreciation in a way that allowed them to come alive to their own divine gifts and traits? Wouldn't the world be transformed in the process?

Photo: Alpenglow on Nokhu Crags, Never Summer Range, CO; December 27, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



It is very hard to be simple enough to be good.


"It is very hard to be simple enough to be good."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: Nokhu Crags at sunset, with a lone Englemann Spruce in the foreground; Never Summer Range, CO; December 27, 2013.

Emerson here seems to be linking moral goodness with a psychological wholeness; that is, being One within oneself. Wholeness includes freeing ourselves from the duality that comes from self-incriminating thoughts and an obsession with being in a different state than the one we are already in.

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



Friday, December 27, 2013

Only spread a fern frond over a person's head and worldly cares are cast out.


 "Only spread a fern frond over a person's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in."
The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: Licorice Fern and Western Hemlock; Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, WA; July 25, 2013
If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



Joy has epistemological value - it gives us KNOWLEDGE of the ensouled nature of the Earth!


 One of the chief spiritual tasks for our time is the fostering of an awareness that the Earth is an ensouled being. Whether we call her Mother Earth, Gaia, or the World Soul - the "Anima Mundi" - a large number of us are awakening to the realization that the Earth has personality. For many, this may seem at first like a fictitious fantasy. After all, we are all children of philosophical Nominalism - the belief that only individuals are real, and that universal realities are therefore present "in name only." We see this tendency in some of the current pop spiritualities, where meditation becomes merely "me and my breath," yoga is reduced to "me and my body," and spiritual conversion is relegated to "me and my salvation." All the while, we continue to treat the Earth as a merely dead collection of "resources" intended only for OUR use, and sometimes even for an increasingly devastating ABUSE.

In this context, how do we recover a sense of the Earth as ensouled? One way is to go to places we consider especially beautiful and allow them to elicit in us an altered state of consciousness, one in which joy and elation predominate. When this occurs, we will find that our emotional state becomes a kind of "heat" that "melts together" into One the contrasting realms of personal humanity (our own) and the seemingly non-personal world of Nature. Alternately, we might experience the joy as a sort of interior dance that "spins" the two into One, like a Sufi whirling dervish twirling divinity and humanity together, or a yin-yang symbol conceived as a sort of spinning top that forms solid, continuous patterns out of the two contrasting halves when the top is twirled.

When this union occurs, we experience the two contrasting realms of personal humanity and non-personal Nature beginning to interpenetrate and exchange qualities. Accordingly, we begin to feel a release from the claustraphobic individual ego-self, identifying ourselves instead with the spacious 4.6 billion-year history of the Earth - a move that helps us become liberated from our socially-induced angst and problems. Correspondingly, the natural world begins to take on some of our own personal subjectivity, enabling Her to speak wisdom to us on a regular basis during times of spiritual retreat. In any case, we experience a union with Nature that is absolutely transformative. Like John Muir, we can exclaim: "We are now fairly into the mountains, and they are into us. What bright, seething white-fire ENTHUSIASM is bred in us - without our help or knowledge - a perfect influx into every pore and cell of us, FUSING, vaporizing, by its heat until the boundary walls of our heavy flesh tabernacle seem taken down and we flow out and diffuse into the very air. I am no longer a shepherd, but a free bit of everything!" Here, joy is no merely subjective emotion; instead, it has profound epistemological value. That is, it becomes a form of KNOWLEDGE that gives us an awareness of the amazingly ensouled nature of the Earth!

Photo: Pink Heather, Picture Lake and Mount Shuksan; Mt. Baker Wilderness, WA; July 22, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




Some time we shall cease to be an individul, for the eternal tendency of the soul is to become Universal.


"I believe I shall some time cease to be an individual, that the eternal tendency of the soul is to become Universal."

Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Photo: Pink Heather growing next to Blue Lake; North Cascades Range, WA; July 21, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



Thursday, December 26, 2013

God writes straight with crooked lines!


 "God writes straight with crooked lines."

St. Teresa of Avila,
16th century Spanish Carmelite


Photo: Western Larch tree; North Cascades National Park, WA; July 21, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



When we unwittingly cause conflict, we are PUSHED to identify ourselves with the vast Divine Self rather than with the confined ego-self.


The holidays are a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family and friends. However, they can also expose the conflicts that occur as a natural consequence of existing as an incompletely-evolved human being. Over the past several holidays, my oldest daughter has subtly brought up some of the qualities she finds especially challenging about me. It is good, because she is setting boundaries and letting me know the things I need to change. One is my tendency to talk about topics - in a wider group - that she considers private. At first, I tend to get down on myself because I pride myself in mediating something of the love of God to people - especially to my family. But then I'm forced to recall ALL of the times I cause misunderstanding through my frequent inability to be aware of the boundaries that other people so easily recognize. Or the misunderstandings I cause through carelessly-worded email or Facebook messages. These cases - and others like them - all PUSH me to realize that as long as I identify myself with the bounded ego-self, I will run into trouble. Because we all find ourselves situated within an intricate web of social connections, the opportunities for "rubbing someone the wrong way" are almost limitless. Yesterday I realized with renewed awareness that the only way out of this predicament - for me, at least - is to identify myself less with the "small self" that causes the problems and more with the "large self" which embraces all things in divine Love. For me, this means finding my truest identity in the mirror that wilderness landscapes provide. When I allow my awareness to dissolve, for example, into the vast beauty of the mountains, then I'm better able to accept the fact that my small-self - like that of everyone else within humanity's complicated web of social relations - will inevitably cause conflict now and then. The best thing I can do is to apologize when I communicate poorly or hurt someone, and use the opportunity to fuel a continued practice of identifying myself with the vastness of the Divine self which always beckons to me - from the landscapes I so dearly love - to let go and dissolve in the One who contains us all.

Photo: Rock, a snowbank, and Mount Rainier, Spray Park, Mt. Rainier National Park, CO; July 28, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas means the continual birth of Christ's vision in our lives.

Christmas means something different to each of us. For me, the most important aspect of Christ's birth in my life is a continually renewed ability to gaze - not so much at HIM - but to unite with him and to look AT THE WORLD through his eyes. And for me, that means being able to embrace all beings, allowing them to dissolve into Oneness  in that atmosphere of calm, radiant love that I experience as the very core of Christ's divinity.

Photo: Long's Peak and Ponderosa Pines in the snow; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; November 22, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!

Silence really does speak to people.

"People don't want to hear any more words. In our mechanical age, all words have become alike, they've all been reduced to the level of the commercial. To say 'God is love' is like saying 'Eat Wheaties.' Things come through on the same wavelength. Silence, on the other hand, really does speak to people."

Thomas Merton

Photo: Frosted Ponderosa Pine Trees in the fog; Big Thompson Canyon, CO; December 20, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!

The world is pregnant with God!

“And my soul in an excess of wonder cried out: ‘This world is pregnant with God!' ”

Angela of Foligno,
13th century Franciscan mystic


Photo: Sunlight shines through a window of sky on frosted trees; Big Thompson Canyon, CO; December 20, 2013
If you'd like to make a donation to help support Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here. Thanks!





Monday, December 23, 2013

I love portraying a sense of ENERGY in my photos!


For me, one of the most fulfilling aspects of photography is having the opportunity to get blasted by blowing wind and snow as I try to take a shot. As I snowshoe out of the trees and come upon a mountain lake, the sides of the valley fringing the glacial bowl containing the lake funnel the wind, making it even more intense. Generally, I have to kneel or lie on the ice to keep from getting blown over. I think part of what I love is the opportunity to help YOU, the viewer, feel like you are a part of the energy and excitement of the storm, just as I am. I want you, too, to feel like you are being blasted clean of all of your societal stresses, if only for a few minutes!

Photo: Blowing snow on icy Cub Lake at sunset; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 20, 2013

If  you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!






Sunday, December 22, 2013

Working with Afflictive Emotions


Several days ago I hiked up to one of my wintertime meditation spots on a ledge located on the south-facing slope of a large rock formation. While there, I noticed that dozens of red Wild Geranium leaves were still healthy and thriving despite the fact that we recently had a full week of nightly sub-zero temperatures. The presence of these leaves reminded me of the fact that many winter plants contain a natural antifreeze that converts needles of ice - which normally would puncture the cell walls and kill the plant - into round crystals which have little chance of harming the plant. This amazing adaptation led me to reflect in turn on the process of transforming afflictive emotions into virtues, a practice I learned from Buddhist spirituality. For example, unfulfilled longing can be converted into a realization that all desire - however distorted - is actually simply a participation in the Divine longing for us. Here, the longing - like the damaging ice crystal - is not taken away. Rather, it is transformed into something useful and even fulfilling! Such is the power of contemplative practice.

Photo: Wild Geranium leaves on the south-facing side of Arthur's Rock; Lory State Park, CO; December 19, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




Being out in the storm makes me feel washed and clean of all societal stresses!



On my Friday hike, I had a lot of fun lying down on the lake ice, taking pictures of the snow blowing right at my face with tremendous force. The energy of the storm made me feel washed and clean of all societal stresses!

Photo: Blowing snow and grasses on Cub Lake; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 20, 2013
 
If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




Saturday, December 21, 2013

The God of Evolution is much more mysterious than the traditional anthropomorphically-conceived god.


Currently, I'm watching a PBS series on Darwin and Evolution, and am finding it quite fascinating. One of the things that strikes me is the fact that the idea of God which so many people either juxtapose with the science of evolution, or that evolutionary scientists end up critiquing is so INCREDIBLY primitive. It seems to center around an anthropomorphic god who simply "decides" to create each species of microorganism, plant and animal. Having studied and practiced contemplative traditions for over three decades, I've developed a view of God much more related to images gleaned from Nature. For example, I understand God to be a personal presence - rather than an individual person - who empties himself out in ecstatic delight into a vast, sky-like lake or ocean of awareness. Then, out of that vastness, all creatures spring forth through the evolutionary process as though out of nowhere, like sunlight diamonds magically appearing and shimmering on the lake of awareness, and then disappearing back into it once again, only to reappear in yet another form. The practice of meditation allows us to identify ourselves with this vastness, and then to watch spellbound as all things arise and evolve out of it, like echoes of a divine love-word that never had a chance to be spoken on account of God's ecstatic self-emptying. How amazing! Divine Love is at the root of the process, yet doesn't involve any sort of anthropomorphically-conceived "planning." Rather, all things somehow spring out of that love in a spontaneous and completely surprising way, leaving us suspended in awe and wonder!

Photo: Blue Lake, North Cascades Range, WA; July 21, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks! 




The experience of delightful surprise is one of the things that makes life on Earth so absolutely amazing!


I love going out into Nature and putting myself at Her disposal.  She always has something She wants to show me, even though it is often different than what I was expecting.  Yesterday I was driving through the Big Thompson Canyon, intent on going up to Rocky Mountain National Park, about 22 miles above.  However, when I reached the Narrows section of the canyon, I could hardly believe my eyes.  The Ponderosa Pine trees on the upper slopes were all heavily frosted, and there was a line below which the trees appeared unfrosted and green.  The sun began shining through the fog, illuminating the trees and making them seem quite dreamlike.  I began to cry because the beauty was so amazing and so unexpected.  That kind of experience of delightful surprise is one of the things that makes life on Earth so absolutely amazing!

Photo: Big Thompson Canyon, CO; December 20, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!

Our Cosmic Calling


Each of us is called to be a unique, one-of-a-kind perspective through which the beloved Earth knows and celebrates Herself.

Photo: A frosted Ponderosa Pine catches the light; Big Thompson Canyon, CO; December 20, 2013

If you'd like to make donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!

Friday, December 20, 2013

Extreme weather catapults us out of the doldrums of our everyday life in corporate-industrial society!


This shot was taken on the most challenging day - photographically speaking - that I've EVER had. As I hiked up this trail to Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park, it was absolutely POURING rain! Keeping my camera dry was almost impossible, and I had a heck of a time drying it out afterwards. I love the challenges posed by extreme weather, especially when I'm able to give the viewer some sense of the ENERGY contained in that weather. It is precisely that kind of intense energy that helps catapult us out of the doldrums of our everyday life in corporate-industrial society. On this particular hike, I also had to keep a constant lookout for grizzly bears. Park rangers call this section of trail a "grizzly picnic-ground" because it contains so many berries and roots!"

Photo: Spirea blooms and waterfalls; Glacier National Park, MT; August 2, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




The heart is a mirror in which the image of God is reflected.


 "A heart that would contemplate must be bright as a mirror, shimmer like some still stretch of water crystal-clear, so that in it and through it the mind may see itself, as in and through a mirror, a reflection of the image of God."

Isaac of Stella,
12th century Cistercian monk


Photo: Mount Rainier reflected in a pool; Spray Park, Mt. Rainier National Park, WA; July 28, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



Thursday, December 19, 2013

Wholeness is being in tune with all things.


 "To explain wholeness, one must go back to the very depths of being, for it is involved with all that has gone before - man's entire evolution and the imprint of millennia on his consciousness.  It is harmony and oneness, the antithesis of fragmentation, emptiness, and frustration . . . It is being in tune with waters and rocks, with vistas and horizons, with constellations and the infinity of time and space."

Sigurd F. Olson   

Photo: Subalpine Fir trees at sunset; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!


The Tibetan Practice of Sky-Gazing Leads to a Non-dual State of Mind


"When I dissolve into that vast expanse - empty and clear - without end, without limits - there is no diffèrence between mind and sky."

Lama Shabkar

"Sky-Gazing is the core practical application of Buddhist Dzogchen meditation. It is how we learn to relax, let go, and let-be in the natural state of things, just as they are . . .

"Through this practice of natural meditative awareness, our innate wakefulness completely unfurls and reveals itself. We gradually release our small, narrow, egotistical, dualistic minds into the non-dual, sky-like, infinite buddha mind, while meditating on the expansive, inclusive nature of rigpa: our briliiant natural wisdom-mind and innate wakefulness. In this practice, we merge the finite, thinking heart-mind with the absolute, unconditional infinity of essential buddha-like being.

"Sky Gazing meditation leads us into a way of being that is in perfect harmony, attunement, and oneness with nature, including everything and everyone around us - and with our own true nature, too. In Sky Gazing meditation, we dissolve into the infinite by becoming one with the open sky."

Lama Surya Das,
Teacher of Tibetan Buddhism


Photo: A snowy Arthur's Rock gazes up at the western sky; Lory State Park, CO; December 5, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




The Earth Only Reveals Herself to Respectful Suitors


Whenever it is suggested that the Earth and all of her other-than-human creatures may be ensouled, many people reasonably ask why it is, then, that most individuals never experience this ensoulment. Accordingly, Geneen Marie Haugen tells the story of a thought experiment crafted by Richard Tarnas, one that invites us to imagine that we ARE the universe. 

Haugen points out that this is "an extravagant stretch of almost anyone's imagination, especially to imagine oneself as a deep-souled, subtly mysterious cosmos of great spiritual beauty and creative intelligence."  Here, in this act of imagination, "You, as the intelligent ensouled universe are approached by two distinctly different suitors who embody radically divergent ways of knowing, and who presumably want to know you."  Accordingly, "the two suitors have contrasting approaches, and you have choice.  Would you reveal yourself most fully to the suitor who regards you as inferior, controllable, and lacking in purpose, or would you reveal your trembling depths to the suitor "who viewed you as AT LEAST as intelligent  and noble, as worthy a being, as permeated with mind and soul, as imbued with moral aspiration and purpose, as endowed with spiritual depths and mystery as a suitor?"

Haugen goes on to ask: "If the world seems vacant of mystery, without intelligence or feeling, lacking in purpose, absent of psyche, might it be because we step into the world with heavy feet and dulled senses, our imaginations hijacked by corporate advertising, inane 'entertainment,' mindless screen addictions and media-manufactored fear?"

Photo: One of the La Sal peaks looms above the fog; Canyonlands National Park, UT; December 2, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here. Thanks!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Spirituality has its origin in the ancient concept of far horizons, beauty and silence.


"There is a close correlation between the vast realm of religious belief or the concept of a Deity and the spiritual values of wilderness . . . , visions that actually had their origin in the ancient concept of far horizons, beauty, and silence."

Sigurd F. Olson  

Photo: A lone Ponderosa Pine stands beneath Stone's Peak; Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 13, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




Modern Environmental Writing and Activism Has Roots in the Protestant Reformed Tradition


 "Man, as he came from the hand of his maker, was poetic in both mind and body, but the gross heathenism of Civilization has generally destroyed nature and poetry, and all that is spiritual. I am tempted at times to adopt the Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity."

The Contemplative John Muir

I find it fascinating to note that a high percentage of classical American Nature Writers and activists were raised in the Protestant Reformed tradition, the one that originated with the Puritans. This tradition includes denominations such as the Congregational (now United Church of Christ), Presbyterian, Unitarian, American Baptist, Disciples of Christ, and the Church of Christ. Even though many of the environmental writers who were raised in these traditions ended up jettisoning their childhood faith, the flavor of Reformed spirituality stuck with them, motivating much of their work. Examples are John Muir (Presbyterian and Disciples of Christ), Sigurd Olson (Swedish Baptist, an offshoot of the American Baptist Church) - and Annie Dillard, Rachel Carson, Robinson Jeffers, Edward Abbey, David Brower and Dave Foreman, all of whom were raised Presbyterian.

In one way or another, all of these writers and activists continued the Puritan conviction that, while humanity is basically deformed by "sin", the world of Nature remains a relatively unspoiled sacred temple. For these authors and activists, the Calvinistic belief in the "total depravity of man" is converted into a tendency to see human beings - especially en masse, and particularity in society's industrial phase - as basically greedy, short-sighted and destructive of all that is good. These authors also continued the "fire and brimstone" tradition of Reformed Spirituality, transforming the passionate Puritan concern over personal evil into a condemnation of societal evil. Muir, sounding increasingly like his fundamentalist father in later life, referred to developers as "Satan," viewing them as a modern embodiment of the "moneychangers" whom Christ drove out of the Temple in Jerusalem.

In "American Wilderness: A New History," historian Mark Stoll tells us that "Jeffers and Abbey took the solitary Reformed love of wilderness and suspicion of man and his works to the edge of misanthropy. Son of a Presbyterian minister, Jeffers wrote brilliant poetry that celebrated nature and a transcendentalistic God and denigrated man and his works as transient and even contemptible . . . Abbey transmuted the Reformed fire-and-brimstone sermon into fiery, cantankerous, if thoroughly secular defenses of wilderness and condemnations of those who would develop it." David Brower, a major figure in the Sierra Club, reminded some of his associates of Billy Graham. In fact, Brower himself referred to his standard environmental speech as "The Sermon." Dave Foreman, founder of "Earth First," aspired early on to become a preacher in the Church of Christ, but then transferred his energies to wilderness preservation. His secular yet evangelical speaking style has been described as "rabble-rousing, foot-stomping, fundamentalist-preacher speechifying."

With the recent waning of the popularity of Reformed churches and the dramatic increase in age of the average backcountry user, Mark Stoll wonders what kind of future the tradition of wilderness spiritual activism has. As he says, "The growing Protestant denominations, including Pentecostal, Southern Baptist, and Mormon, propagate few doctrines productive of wilderness spirituality. Has the nation seen the last Dillard, the last Brower, the last Foreman?"

Perhaps the torch is passing to writers influenced by Asian spirituality, like Gary Snyder? Will a person like Pope Francis - whose spirituality is rooted in part in a Franciscan love of Nature - or a contemplative environmental scholar like David Backes encourage more Catholics to stand at the forefront of concern for environmental issues? Will the growing number of those who consider themselves "Interspiritual" - blending several different spiritual traditions into one - raise up a community of modern John Muirs or Sigurd Olsons? Or - perhaps most importantly - will the current upswing in "Nones" - those who answer "none" in surveys about religious affiliation, yet who often find their spiritual sustenance in Nature - become the prominent environmental activists of the future?

Photo: Red cliffs with Ponderosa Pine trees killed by the human-caused Galena fire; Lory State Park, CO; December 11, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy.


 "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings . . . The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

The Contemplative John Muir   

Photo: A blustery day on Dream Lake, with Hallett Peak in the background; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Masculine Wisdom is Meant to Serve Feminine Wisdom


 Both masculine and feminine styles of wisdom are important, but feminine wisdom is, I believe, the end toward which masculine wisdom must work. Masculine wisdom specializes in analyzing things and showing how they are distinct. For example, masculine wisdom reveals how Nature and humanity are different, with Nature being more non-personal and transcending of the individual, while humanity is more personal and affirming of the individual. However, after this analysis has occurred, feminine wisdom is needed to show how the two are actually united into a large Whole as aspects of one another. Here, Nature takes on some of the personalism of humanity and begins to speak to us, while humanity takes on some of the non-personalism of Nature and learns to identify itself more with the 4.6 billion year history of the earth rather than with the individual ego. Similarly, masculine wisdom shows how the various world religions are different from one another, while feminine wisdom reveals how they might learn from each other and fit together into a larger Whole like puzzle pieces in a vast, cosmic puzzle.

Masculine wisdom is important, for it is needed to reveal how each element contributes something of its very own to the Whole. New Age Religion is an example of a worldview that is lacking in masculine wisdom, especially when it over-simplifies things by claiming that all religions are really saying the same thing. What this means, of course, is that all of the world religions are erroneously viewed as affirming what "I" believe. Here, the diverse views and gifts of the various religions are simply discounted and forced instead to merge with one's own view. This lack of masculine wisdom means that when two elements are brought together prematurely, one of them ends up merging with the other, like the members of a couple in which one of the partners blends with the other's agenda. For example, without masculine wisdom, Christianity may end up looking like simply a variation of Buddhism, or vice versa.

However, when masculine wisdom fails to give way to the unitive capacity of feminine wisdom, it takes the distinct essences of the things it has analyzed and hardens them instead into a state of SEPARATION. The fundamentalistic tendencies - national, cultural and religiious - that we see all over the world today are examples of this masculine failure to integrate the distinct essences of things with a larger feminine union. I'm convinced that the various conflicts and wars waged across the world all point to the fact that feminine wisdom is desperately needed to show how each culture, religion and philosophy is really a unique aspect of a larger Whole. Without this shift in perspective to a more feminine holism, none of us will survive.

Photo: Beargrass, Lake Eunice and Mount Rainier; Mount Rainier National Park, WA; July 29, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




The Fire of Trials Brings Enlightenment.


 Sometimes I feel frustrated with the fact that my rigid religious upbringing was so painful.  It was heavily dualistic and black-and-white, allowing little room to explore and be theologically adventurous.  However, I understand now that from a big-picture perspective, the experience of seeming separation - that is, from the Divine, from the inherent goodness of my own deepest core, from people of other faiths, and from Nature - is the very thing that enables me now to experience the ecstasy of Union.  The Taoists and Sufis are correct! We can't know yin without yang, or union with the Beloved without first feeling a sense of separation. It is the fire of trials that brings enlightenment!

Photo: Scorched Ponderosa Pine, Galena Burn, Lory State Park, CO; December 16, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!



The Moon is My Heart


 Dark on the cliff, the orphan lamp, the moon . . .
Perfectly round, that bright mirror no one needs to polish,
Hanging there in the clear air: it's my heart.

Han Shan,
"Cold Mountain Poems"

Photo: Moonrise over Fort Collins, CO; December 16, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




Monday, December 16, 2013

Non-Insight is Needed to Enable Us to Experience Insight


Can you imagine how boring life would be if all truth were simply lying out in the open, with no need for us to try to ferret out a snippet here, a snippet there? It is the process of longing for insight - as well as the state of NON-insight - that enables us to fully appreciate a spiritual or scientific truth when it finally arrives. In fact, without the contrast that occurs between non-insight and insight, we would have no way of even recognizing the insight when it graces us with Its presence! And neither would GOD, the Source, the One who loves to experience each AHA!-insight through US!
Photo: A snowy peak reveals itself through the fog on I 70, near Rifle, CO; December 2, 2013
 If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!

The contrast between needing clear-cut distinctions and reveling in mystery is one of the things that makes life so fascinating.



One of the greatest enigmas for me regarding religion and spirituality is the fact that some people love clear-cut doctrines that can be expressed in precise words, while others revel in poetic, mysterious aha!-moments, capable of a multitude of interpretations. I am definitely one of the latter, although I was raised in a milieu that emphasized the former. Psychologically, it seems to be a juxtaposition between two human needs: security and adventure. Of course, each of us embodies a combination of these two contrasting traits, but we tend to emphasize one or the other. And that distinction is what makes life - and human interactions - so incredibly fascinating.

Photo: The La Sal Mountains peek out through a hole in the fog; Canyonlands National Park, UT; December 2, 2013
If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




Sunday, December 15, 2013

Solitude is a more perfect spiritual society.


 "It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers.  The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them.  It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say . . .  Solitude means withdrawal from an artificial and fictional level of being which people have fabricated . . . But by that very fact the solitary finds himself on the level of a more perfect spiritual society."

Thomas Merton   

Photo: Solitary Gambel Oak leaf, Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 30, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!






Outer Environmental Issues are a Mirror of Inner Spiritual Issues

 "Our neglect and dismissal of the sacred within creation are creating an INNER wasteland as real as the Tar Sands in Alberta.  The globalization of our soulless, materialistic culture is having disastrous effects in the inner world, polluting it as much as the outer environment.  And like the danger of climate change and extinction of species, this inner wasteland is growing faster than we realize . . . One could say that this outer physical predicament is a reflection of an inner catastrophe - a catastrophe that is even more disastrous because we remain unaware of it.  We may not be consciously aware of what is happening, yet many people feel it deep within.  There is a primal anxiety beneath the surface of our Western material abundance.  We may project this anxiety onto the outer political or economic situation, but there is a sense that something vital to life is being lost . . . The effect on the inner world remain veiled, hidden by our very forgetfulness of the inner world and its sacred nature.  All that is sure is that an inner tragedy as potent as climate change is taking place - the inner and outer life reflect each other more than we know."

Lllewellyn Vaughan-Lee,
Sufi teacher
"Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth"


Photo: A group of "Needles" and a Pinyon Pine killed by pine bark beetle; Canyonlands National Park, UT; December 1, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!






Alpenglow is the perfect embodiment of the love, humility and tricksterhood of the Ultimate Mystery!

On the way to my retreat in Utah, I had to stop for gas at one of the exits on I 70 just west of Denver. As I drove up the exit ramp to the crest of the hill, this is what I saw! I love alpenglow because it is so beautiful, but also because of its rich spiritual significance. To me, alpenglow embodies the love of the Ultimate Mystery, which shines on us - and on all beings - revealing the sacred beauty and goodness that is present at our core. However, the Origin of that ruddy light - like the sun that is the source of alpenglow - is forever mysteriously hidden beneath the Horizon of Being! With alpenglow, we could simply move a bit closer to the horizon and eventually find the sun. However, with the Great Mystery, we could travel endlessly toward the Horizon of Being, yet never encounter the essence of the One who is the source of that glow! For the Divine Presence is quite a Trickster, and is also incredibly humble - disappearing from the need to be affirmed, recognized and praised, yet constantly illuminating the beauty of all things. How amazing!

Photo: Alpenglow on the Front Range; Genesee exit, I 70, CO; November 29, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!





Saturday, December 14, 2013

It seems you can actually TASTE the sight of a snowy landscape!


 The snowy landscape can be so absolutely enchanting!  Often it gives the appearance of cake frosting, reminding me that all of this loveliness will one day live inside me when I taste and imbibe the water from the streams and lakes it flows into before entering my tap.

Photo: Lory State Park, CO; December 5, 2013

If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!




The overly-dualistic religion of my childhood pushed me into perhaps an overly-extreme unitive spirituality in my adulthood.


Last weekend I attended my dad's funeral back in Pennsylvania. One of the things that struck me most was the fact that religion permeated every aspect of life. The minister's proselytizing message both at the gravesite and at the memorial service reminded me vividly of this fact. It was a dualistic religion, one that emphasized the divisions between things: the "right" way from the "wrong" way, the boundaries separating creation from Creator, an evil humanity from a perfect God, a savior from the saved, the correct religion from the incorrect, a soulless natural world from an ensouled humanity - and so on. As I became an adult, I realized that the dualistic philosophy underlying this religion simply didn't fit with my personality. I was - and am - more of a unitive person; I like to be adventurous and explore the ways in which all things blend together and unite into One: person with person, religion with religion, landscape with humanity, one philosophy with another. I realized this weekend that the excessive dualism I experienced growing up PUSHED me in the opposite direction, toward radical Union. As a result, I am perhaps unbalanced at times - something of a contemplative extremist, unable to tolerate any disharmony. For example, I sometimes fail to see the less-than-perfect intentions of other people. I have a tendency to idealize others and to castigate myself when I do something that disrupts a sense of Unity. As a general rule, I focus on emphasizing the positive aspects of the various world religions - and of the two competing political parties in this country - which makes me sometimes naive to the negative aspects. Isn't it fascinating how our early life experience affects so radically who we become as adults?

Photo: The Needles loom and blend into one another in the fog; Canyonlands National Park, UT; December 1, 2013


If you'd like to make a donation to help fund Nature Photo-Quotes, please go here.  Thanks!