Even death is in harmony in the mountains . . .

"Even death is in harmony here [in the mountains]. Only in shambles and the downy beds of homes is death terrible . . . On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. Instead of sympathy, the friendly union, of life and death so apparent in Nature, we are taught that death is an accident, a deplorable punishment for the oldest sin, the archenemy of life, etc . . . Every uproar in Nature should be interpreted by the calm circle of light which environs it. Every dark and terrible abyss in Nature is lighted with a like circle of Love. God scatters firebrands, arrows, and death among the fairest and dearest mountains, but they are scattered as stars, orderly . . . "

The Contemplative John Muir 

Yes, yes - I know that Muir's writings on death can seem overly romantic. But I see them as a sort of Zen koan, meant to shock the reader into a new state of awareness . . .

Photo: Bleached elk bone and the sun setting behind Notchtop Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015

All things are divinized in morning light!

"All things are divinized in morning light."

The Contemplative John Muir

This morning I got up at 5 A.M., hiked half way up Medicine Bow Peak, and watched the sunrise. I parked myself and my camera next to a ruddy quartzite boulder, which flushed an even deeper red as the sun rose. At the same time, the craggy ridge leading up to the peak turned soft lavender, while the lakes below still basked in shadow. Because of the thick layer of forest fire haze lying to the east, it took a while for the sun to break through above the new horizon, but this resulted in a sunrise that was especially soft and subtle.

Photo: Sunrise on Medicine Bow Peak, Snowy Range, WY, August 23, 2015

Going out for breakfast with the Pacific Ocean!

"I have come to so glorious an ocean, where the densest human dullness dissolves in such waters."

John Muir

How amazing it is to go out for breakfast and coffee with the Pacific Ocean as she crashes on rocks and shoreline on a wild stretch of the Northern California Coast!

Photo: Stephen eating oatmeal on a cliff overlooking the ocean, right next to our campsite at Patrick's Point State Park, CA, July 26, 2015

Earth and heaven are one . . .

"Earth and heaven are one, and earth is heaven incarnate, filled with spiritual symbols so available while we are yet in the flesh."

John Muir at Yosemite

Photos: (Top) Evening Alpenglow on Half Dome; (Middle) Tiger Lilies; (Bottom) Lupine and the Tuolumne River; All three photos were taken in Yosemite National Park, CA on July 21-23, 2015

"I am dead and gone to heaven!" (John Muir at Yosemite)

"I am dead and gone to heaven!"

John Muir at Yosemite 

Photos: (Top) Half Dome at sunset; (Middle) Elephanthead, Upper Cathedral Lake and Cathedral Peak; (Bottom) California Black Oak leaves and Vernal Falls. All three photos were taken at Yosemite National Park, CA, on July 22-23, 2015

Yosemite might well be called a church . . .

"I have not been at church a single time since leaving home [nine years earlier]. Yet this glorious Yosemite Valley might well be called a church . . . No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life."

John Muir

Photos: (Top) Iron-stained glacier-polished granite at Lower Cathedral Lake, with Cathedral Peak in the background; (Middle) Cathedral Peak and Upper Cathedral Lake; (Bottom) Ferns and Vernal Falls. All three photos were taken in Yosemite National Park, CA on July 22 and 23, 2015

Yosemite's Cathedral Lake is a perfect embodiment of meditation practice!

While at Yosemite, my wife and I had an absolutely magical afternoon retreat on upper Cathedral Lake. Here is a passage from my journal:

"It's one of those timeless Sierra afternoons - neither long nor short - that Muir talks about so passionately in his journals . . . "This, I may say, is the first time I have been at church in California" . . . Meditating here, on this gleaming peninsula of granite jutting out into the lake, I now have a new standard for my Wilderness Insight Meditation practice. The open lake and the deep silence are embodiments of the spaciousness of my awareness. The gentle breeze that comes and goes but always remains in the distant trees is the mutual love and bliss of God and Goddess which permeates my meditation. The chuckling of the lake water against the shoreline is the movement of my thoughts, today taking on a soothing quality, as though their rise and fall are the fingers of Mother Earth, caressing my heart from inside. The sound of passing airplanes, their bass drone descending gradually like notes on a musical scale, are the voice of silence, dissolving gradually and serenely into the horizon beyond. Raucous Clark's Nutcracker calls embody the craziness of many of my thoughts and emotions. Chickadee songs appear as those thoughts which are light and joyful. Sunshine disappearing into cloud cover and then reappearing once again: this is a manifestation of my own clear insight into the echo-quality of thoughts and emotions, an awareness which then turns cloudy as I momentarily latch onto them, and then remember to release them all back into the sunlight once again. This is also true - par excellence - of the constant play of light on massive Cathedral Peak just across the lake, which embodies the open screen of my mind upon which the cloud-like sequences of thoughts continually play: appearing, increasing, and then dissipating back once again into open awareness . . . Ah, how wonderful is this afternoon!"

Photos: (Top) Lemmon's Paintbrush, Upper Cathedral Lake, and Cathedral Peak; (Middle) View to the east side of the lake; (Bottom) Female Mallard Duck resting in the grass. All three photos were taken in Yosemite National Park on July 23, 2015

Stephen Hatch Hiking in the John Muir Wilderness

Stephen at John Muir Wilderness; Brainard Lake Trail, Eastern Sierra Nevada, CA, July 20, 2015

This I may say is the first time I have been to church in California.

"This I may say is the first time I have been at church in California, led here at last, every door graciously opened for the poor lonely worshiper. In our best times, everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church, and the mountains altars."

John Muir

Photos: (Top) Stephen at Upper Cathedral Lake, with Cathedral Peak in the background; (Middle) The sign at the Cathedral Lakes Trailhead; (Bottom) Portrait of Muir.  The first two photos were taken at Yosemite National Park, CA on July 23, 2015

John Muir Country!

I'm always happy to hike in the wilderness country named after my boyhood hero and adult mentor - John Muir! His passion, exuberance, balance of masculine and feminine qualities, intelligence and spirituality have influenced me mightily all throughout my life! A few days after this shot was taken, filmmaker Michael Conti took a bit of footage of me walking by the Merced River at Yosemite. Early in the afternoon, he did a very inspiring interview of Park Ranger Shelton Johnson, whom Michael called "a national treasure." Look for Michael's movie on Muir to come out sometime next year :)

Photo: Stephen hiking in the John Muir Wilderness, near Big Pine Lakes, CA, July 19, 2015

These sacred mountain temples are the holiest ground that the heart of man has ever consecrated . . .

"These sacred mountain temples are the holiest ground that the heart of man has ever consecrated, and it behooves us all faithfully to do our part in seeing that our wild mountain parks are passed on unspoiled to those who come after us, for they are national properties in which every person has a right and interest."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photos: (Top) Marsh-Marigolds and The Grand Teton; (Middle); Rosy Paintbrush and Lake Solitude; (Bottom) Mist in the Tetons; All three photos were taken in Grand Teton National Park, WY, July 4-6, 2015

In the mountains, all the world's prizes seem like nothing!

"Who wouldn't be a mountaineer? Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: Sunset alpenglow on Teewinot and Grand Teton at my campsite on the North Fork of Cascade Creek in Grand Teton National Park, WY. The slanted tree trunks are Subalpine Firs hit by an avalanche two winters ago. July 3, 2015

Life in the woods is a seamless flow . . .

"Life in the woods is not a string of incidents feebly joined, full of gaps and inequalities, but a flow - all things memorable . . . Everything called Nature, all the world and worlds, are foundationally spiritual and are pulsing warmly and smoothly like blood globules in the heart of God."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: Globeflowers and stream, Lion Lakes Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 29, 2015

The wildest scenery gives us the peace that passes all understanding.

"Here gain the peace that passes all understanding in the midst of the wildest scenery - the wilder, the deeper the peace . . . Get ahold of the inward truth that requires thought in calm solitude."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: Marsh-marigolds with Static Peak in the background, Never Summer Range, CO, June 27, 2015

Clouds are mountains of the sky . . .

"Cumuli rising to the eastward . . . Mountains of the sky, solid-looking, finely sculptured, their richly varied topography wonderfully defined . . . One may fancy the clouds themselves are plants, springing up in the skyfields at the call of the sun, growing in beauty until they reach their prime, scattering rain and hail like berries and seeds, then wilting and dying."

The Contemplative John Muir 

Photo: Cumulus rising above Mount Cumulus and reflected in a pond, Never Summer Range, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 26, 2015

I find God most clearly in the phenomenon of alpenglow!

"All things are divinized in morning light! . . . Alpenglow is the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God and suggests the spiritual Love-light in which the flesh-walls of earthy tabernacles are dissolved and everything puts on immortality!"

The Contemplative John Muir

Yesterday morning, on the Summer Solstice, I arose at 5:30 A.M. to catch the glorious ruddy alpenglow light radiating on the peaks spread out across the lake from my backcountry campsite. Perhaps more than any other phenomenon, alpenglow embodies for me the presence of the humble, self-emptying God. From the perspective of we as the observer, morning alpenglow always hits the high peaks before it reaches us. Obviously, if we traveled further east, we could reach the rising sun. However, with the blissful, self-emptying God, we could travel endlessly across the horizon of Being, yet never encounter the Cosmic Sun - the Source! And yet - and here is the mystery - all of reality nevertheless LIGHTS UP in the Beloved's Love! We too are meant to embody this Love, shining the light of admiration, adoration and compliments on those around us, yet disappearing from the need for any recognition or compliment in return! Like God, we enjoy simply being "the Trickster," emptying ourselves out in bliss at the beauty of life spread out all around us, yet enabling everything to radiate its innate loveliness!

Photo: Alpenglow as seen from my backpacker's campsite on Rainbow Lake, with a Limber Pine growing in a crack in the rock in the foreground; Mount Zirkel Wilderness, CO, June 21, 2015

We are hurried OUT of the world before having got INTO it, got one good look at it."

"Many are in some strange way business-bitten with low cares. 'No time,' 'too many duties,' 'not strong enough, rich enough,' etc., are excuses urged [for not getting out into Nature]. In money-getting and mere good-doing, etc., we die and are coffined and hearsed and hidden away in a graveyard, hurried OUT of the world before having got INTO it, got one good look at it."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photos: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 8 and May 29, 2015

Zapata Falls Campground is awesome!

"Camping - the delight of picking a place - fresh, beautiful. Here are no wearisome sermons - comfortable, commonplace and humdrum. Instead, there is an escape from every phase of civilized formality, from all the fixed societal laws of action. Here we find ever-changing scenes: new furniture in the dining room every day and every meal. Suddenly, the great heaven is lighted with ten thousand gleaming worlds. Peaks loom like white spirits at rest. Like some spectral vision, a great shoulder reveals itself here, and a tall peak there, looming fitfully through the mist like phantoms from the spirit world."

The Contemplative John Muir 

Here I'd like to put in a plug for Zapata Falls Campground, built in 2009 using stimulus funds from President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The campground is located 1000 feet above southern Colorado's San Luis Valley and offers sweeping views in every direction. In terms of car camping, it is one of the top three most spectacular campgrounds I've ever camped in!

Photos: Views from Zapata Falls Campground of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Great Sand Dunes, and the San Luis Valley, CO, June 6-7, 2015

To get these glorious works of God into yourself - that's the great thing!

"To get these glorious works of God into yourself - that's the great thing!"

The Contemplative John Muir

Photos: Wild Purple Flag Iris, Golden Banner, and the peaks above Trail Ridge, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 8, 2015

An abundance of joy is flowing in the springtime Rockies!

"I think that one of the properties of that compound which we call man is that when exposed to the rays of mountain beauty, it glows with joy."

The Contemplative John Muir

Yesterday's excursion up into my own backyard - Rocky Mountain National Park - was absolutely magical! The Big Thompson River was overflowing its banks as it meandered through Moraine Park, watering lush meadows filled with Wild Purple Flag Iris and Golden Banner. Bees, butterflies, birds and elk were present in abundance, all reveling in the exuberant atmosphere. Up higher on Trail Ridge - at 12,000 feet - the melting was accelerating at an incredible pace, especially with the 70 degree weather we've been having. Everything in the mountains feels so alive right now, so vibrant, so joy-filled! What a blessing it is to have the chance to explore this amazing planet :)

Photos: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 8, 2015