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.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Beauty Requires Effort to Plumb


Bryce Canyon is filled with many surprises. One is the experience of hiking to the bottom of the canyon along the Navajo Loop Trail and finding a grove of large Douglas-fir trees that are 500 to 600 years old. The orange hue of the surrounding hoodoo walls causes everything in the vicinity - including the trees - to become saturated in brilliant orange splendor. Another surprise is coming upon delicate-looking Rock Columbine flowers blooming alone on stark, arid, reddish limestone slopes deep within the canyon.

Both of these discoveries require a bit of effort to reach. Similarly, if we hope to find beauty in our daily lives, we must be willing to put in the effort to look for it. Merely remaining passive to the sometimes challenging circumstances of life in society, and then expecting to find beautiful things all laid out for us will not work. It takes a bit of effort and love to plumb the depths, where beauty almost always lies hidden!




 Photos: Douglas-Firs and Rock Columbines; Bryce Canyon National Park, UT; May 24, 2014

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