"My life was ecstasy . . . I can remember how I was astonished.  I said to myself, - I said to others, - 'There comes into my mind such an indescribable, infinite, all-absorbing, divine, heavenly, pleasure, a sense of elevation and expansion, and I have had nothing to do with it.  I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers.  This is a pleasure, a joy, an existence which I have not procured myself.  I speak as a witness on the stand, and tell what I have perceived' . . . I was daily intoxicated, and yet no person could call me intemperate.  With all your science can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?"

Henry David Thoreau

Hallett Peak at sunset, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; November 27, 2012