It is a vulnerable enterprise to feel deeply about a landscape.

"I think of my own stream of desires, how cautious I have become with love.  It is a vulnerable enterprise to feel deeply and I may not survive my affections.  Andre Breton says, 'Hardly anyone dares to face with open eyes the great delights of love.'  If I choose not to become attached to nouns - a person, place, or thing - then when I refuse an intimate's love or hoard my spirit, when a known landscape is . . . [reduced] to a stubble . . . , my heart cannot be broken because I never risked giving it away . . . The land is love.  Love is what we fear . .. It is time for us to take off ours masks . . . and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place.  Loving the land . . . It is a primal affair."

Terry Tempest Williams

Photo: Prairie Coneflower (Mexican Hat) with Horsetooth Reservoir in the middleground, and the High Park Fire in the background close to sunset; June 11, 2012.  Near Ft. Collins, CO. The fire is now at 43, 000 acres.