The Earth is the only paradise we ever need . . .

"The love of wilderness is a hunger for what is always beyond reach. But it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need - if only we had the eyes to see."

Edward Abbey

I've always been fascinated by those cultures - like the Hopi people of the American Southwest - who view the "afterlife" as simply a return, in spirit form, to THIS world in order to help those who are still living here in embodied form. To me, that seems a lot less narcissistic than going off to a "heaven" far removed from this Earth :)

Photos: (Top) Fireweed, Reflection Lake, and Mt. Rainier; (Second) Partridgefoot flowers, a hiker, and Mt. Rainier; (Third) Lava, the Tatoosh Range, and Mt. Adams as viewed from Mt. Rainier; (Bottom) Birds-beak Lousewort and Mt. Rainier; All four photos were taken in Mount Rainier National Park, WA, on July 28, 2015

We are often like ants who cannot see beyond the denuded perimeter of the anthill . . .

"Most of us have no more awareness of the grandeur, beauty, mystery, complexity, vitality, form and infinite possibilities of the world of earth and space, than the ant has of the landscape beyond the denuded perimeter of the anthill. Why? Because most of us are exclusively preoccupied with the human sphere only - or not even that much - obsessed with the interhuman, the personal, subjective, internal region."

Edward Abbey

Photos: Balanced Rock, Juniper snag, Queen Nefertiti and Desert Paintbrush; Arches National Park, UT, April 18-20, 2015

The tremendous stillness . . .

"It's as marvelous as ever up here. The tremendous stillness. The tremendous infinity of sky. One raven croaking . . ."

Edward Abbey 

Photo: The Windows, Arches National Park, UT, April 20, 2015

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous.

"For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous."

Edward Abbey

Photos: (Top) Spectacle-Pod Mustard and Skyline Arch; (Middle) Desert Paintbrush and The Three Gossips (Three Muses); (Bottom) Dwarf Evening-Primrose and Queen Nefertiti; All three photos were taken at Arches National Park, UT, April 18-20, 2015

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread . . ."

"The civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins."

Edward Abbey 

Photos: (Top) Double Arch and Eaton's Penstemon; (Second) Desert Paintbrush; (Third) Dwarf Evening-Primrose; (Bottom) Juniper stump and Skyline Arch; All four photos were taken at Arches National Park, UT, April 18-20, 2015

A love affair with a pile of rock!

"What's the use?: No matter where I go, what I do, I can't get the canyon country out of my heart. A love affair with a pile of rock . . ."

 ". . . Will I never be content until I make my home on the rim of Utah? Guess not."

Edward Abbey

Photos: Arches National Park, April 18-20, 2015

The life of adventure is the only life that makes sense . . .

"The life of adventure is the only life that makes sense . . .

"Adventure interpreted broadly, of course - to include not only physical action, exploration, but also human love, ideas and ideals, the arts, and the common and daily motion and conflict and trouble of everyday people doing the world's hard work, making everything else possible."

Edward Abbey

Photos: Desert Pool at sunrise, Desert Paintbrush, Prickly-Pear Cactus; Moab area, UT, April 18-19, 2015

Love of heaven slanders earth; be true to the earth . . .

"Love of heaven slanders earth; be true to the earth . . . We in America are being systematically robbed. Robbed of the most elementary decencies of life - clean air, sunlight, pure unmedicated water, silence, solitude and space, even time, even death. Instead?

"Tee Vee. Hi-Fi. Super-Duper. Glittering shit. And, finally, morphine. Not socialism, not capitalism is the enemy, but - industry and technology carried to excess, to and beyond the point of madness."

"I'm back in Abbey's country again. I walk in beauty, I go in beauty. Red naked rock again, the enormous and dazzling sky . . . , magnificence everywhere I look. The brave, sweet, heartbreaking beauty of all wild and lonely things."

Edward Abbey 

Photos: (Top) Desert Paintbrush, pool, and one of the Courthouse Towers; (Middle) Juniper berries and sandstone formations; (Bottom) Cliffrose and slickrock. All three photos were taken in Arches National Park, UT, on April 18-19, 2015

I can see fifty miles or so into the strange, mystic unknown Southwest . . .

"I can see for fifty miles or more into the 'strange mystic unknown' Southwest . . . Blue, purple, dark, far-away, never-to-be-known looking . . . Something never dreamed of, I HAVE found, or it has found me."

Edward Abbey

Photos: Canyonlands National Park, CO, November 28-30, 2014

The life of adventure is the only life that makes sense!

"The life of adventure is the only life that makes sense. Adventure interpreted broadly, of course - to include not only physical action, exploration, but also human love, ideas and ideals, the arts, and the common and daily motion and conflict and trouble of everyday people doing the world's hard work, making everything else possible."

Edward Abbey

Photos: Various scenes from the Needles District, Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 28 and 30, 2014

The desert is a positive nothingness.

"Nada. There's plenty of that out here. But it's a positive nothingness . . . Silence."

Edward Abbey

Photos: Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28 - Dec 1, 2014
 

Canyon country has become an obsession with me, a passion!

"Drugged. I'm drugged, sense and mind, by desert thoughts, canyon thoughts. I've been thinking of the Colorado Plateau, the country around the Green and Colorado and San Juan Rivers . . . Thinking of those great canyons, and of the terrible and grand and unearthly wilderness of rock that surrounds them, my nerves and brain get taut and sharp and hot - I've GOT to go there, be there, live there: it's become an obsession with me, a passion! Those places, those names! . . ."

Edward Abbey 

Photos: (Top) Late-day light in the Needles District; (Middle) A shaft of sunlight penetrates The Joint; (Bottom) An artistic juniper snag, with the Needles in the background. All three photos were taken in Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28, 2014

I can't get the canyon country out of my heart!

 

"The Canyonlands. What's the use: no matter where I go, what I do, I can't get the canyon country out of my heart. A love affair with a pile of rock."

Edward Abbey

Photos: (Top) Juniper snag and The Needles; (Middle) Sunlight penetrates The Joint; (Bottom) South Six-Shooter Butte and a Juniper. All three photos were taken in Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28, 2014

The earth is the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need - if only we had eyes to see.

"The earth is the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need - if only we had eyes to see."

Edward Abbey

Photo: Joanne knitting under a fire-blackened Ponderosa Pine in the Hewlett Burn, Poudre Canyon, CO, December 6, 2014

The land belongs to them that love it.

"The land belongs to them that love it."

Edward Abbey

Photos: Sunset in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28 -29, 2014

I'll disappear, from everyone, myself included, down in the grandest canyons of the soul.

"I'll . . . disappear, from everyone, myself included, down in the grandest canyons of the soul."

Edward Abbey

Photos: (Top) Sunlight floods the slot in The Joint, hitting a Red-osier Dogwood leaf; (Middle) The Henry Mountains, with buttes in the foreground (Needles District); (Bottom) Juniper Snag at Green River Overlook in Island in the Sky. All three photos were taken in Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28 - December 1, 2014

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

 

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.

"The civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins . . ."

Edward Abbey,
"Desert Solitaire"

Photos: (Top) Sunset over the Needles; (Middle) Red-osier Dogwood leaves; (Bottom) A light show in the canyons. All three photos were taken in Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28-December 1, 2014