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.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

In the fire of suffering, the opposites present within us are melted into something new.


"You yourself are a conflict that rages in itself and against itself, in order to melt its incompatible substances, the male and the female, in the fire of suffering, and thus create that fixed and unalterable form which is the goal of like.  Everyone goes through this mill, consciously or unconsciously, voluntarily or forcibly.  We are crucified between the opposites and delivered up to the torture until the 'reconciling third' takes shape.  Do not doubt the rightness of the two sides within you, and let whatever may happen, happen . . . The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life.  A life without inner contradiction is either only half a life or else a life in the Beyond, which is destined only for angels.  But God loves human beings more than the angels."

Carl Jung, 1945

Photo: Sunset, made orange by smoke from the Waldo Canyon Fire the same day it began; Aspen Campground, South Park, CO; June 23, 2012

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