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, November 27, 2014

The Mystical Meaning of Thanksgiving



Here is a link to the talk I gave last Sunday at the Althea Center in Denver, CO.  The talk itself is about 30 minutes long, but the tape includes a good portion of the rest of the service as well.  Happy Thanksgiving!

https://soundcloud.com/shatch-6/1-the-mystical-meaning-of

Photo: Rawah Range, October 3, 2014

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Tomorrow is the Beginning of My Annual Solitary Spiritual Retreat in the Redrock Desert of Utah


"I am going to lure you and lead you out into the desert, and there I will speak to your heart."

Hosea 2:14

Tomorrow I am going on my annual solitary spiritual retreat in the redrock desert of Canyonlands National Park (Utah). I'll be there for five days. If you happen to think of me during that time, please send out a prayer or affirmation. This year, I am especially seeking guidance on ways I might make more of living from my gifts. Thank You!

Photo: Colorful rock formations in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 24, 2012

This week, let us be especially thankful for the Indigenous Nations who inhabit this land.


"How do you inspire respect for something? By giving thanks, by doing it. We have to do that. We have to be thankful. Two things were told to us: to be thankful, so those are our ceremonies, ceremonies of thanksgiving. We built nations around it, and you can do that, too. And the other thing they said was enjoy life. That's a rule, a law - enjoy life - you're supposed to. I know you can only do as much as you can do and then when you do that, you're supposed to get outside and enjoy life. Don't take yourself so seriously."

Chief Oren Lyons,
Onondaga Nation




This week, let us be especially thankful for the indigenous nations who inhabit this land. Let us remember that it is they who - for  countless generations - have blessed the earth, air, fire and water of this land through their prayers and ceremonies, and through a continuous attitude of gratefulness. We STILL need those prayers and ceremonies if any of us are to survive the devastating onslaughts of the corporate-industrial system. Indigenous peoples have put up with a lot over the years, but - fortunately, for the sake of all of us - you are still here. May you and your families be blessed in a special way this week.



Photos: (Top) Sunset on Mills Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21, 2014; (Middle) Rocky spires in the mist, with Limber Pines leaning over Emerald Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 24, 2014; (Bottom) Greyrock, Cottonwoods, and fields, Bellvue, CO, November 25, 2014

Walking liberates thoughts.


"Walking liberates thoughts. It is then that thoughts can arise, surface or take shape. A walk unshackles the body's limbs along with the mind's faculties. The motion of the body gives a little more spring to the mind. To stimulate the thinking, to move reflection forward, to deepen inventiveness, the mind needs the help of an active body. My thoughts sleep if I sit still; my fancy does not go so well by itself as when my legs move it. So there's no point in sitting over your desk when reflection is blocked. You need to get up and take a stroll. Walk, to get yourself moving, so that in sympathy with the body's surge the mind too will start moving again."

Frederic Gros,
"A Philosophy of Walking"




Photos: (Top) Fremont Cottonwood leaf on Watson Lake, Bellvue, CO, November 19, 2014; (Middle) Alpenglow on Long's Peak, Mills Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 22, 2014; (Bottom) Limber Pines with Hallett Peak looming in the mist, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 24, 2014


Tuesday, November 25, 2014

A Christian Contemplative Answer to the Question: "Who Am I"?



The other day, I watched a documentary about Deepak Chopra, filmed by his son. One of the points made by Chopra throughout the movie was the idea that the spiritual quest is inherently tied to the question: "Who am I?" The quest for the true self as an unchanging, unborn and undying reality seems to be at the crux of many Eastern paths, including the one Deepak Chopra is following.

Yesterday, hiking through the snow and mist up in the nearby mountains, I realized that for me, the true self is actually quite elusive and mysterious. As a Christian contemplative, I've found that "kenosis" - the Greek word for self-emptying - is perhaps the most important answer I can give to the question "Who am I?" The path on which I've been lead involves the practice of identifying with a spacious mind and heart, one in which both God - the transcendent source - and myself are LOST together in self-emptying bliss. Out of this vastness - a spaciousness whose other name is LOVE - all beings and all phenomena come popping out during each millisecond of time, like echoes of an unspoken Divine Word arising out of nowhere. Thus, the reality of the "true self" - here, at least - is more a mysterious space where all of creation can occur, than a reality in and of itself.

The path of Christian Mysticism also emphasizes another realization; namely, that the true self is innately RELATIONAL. In an interesting dialogue between Robert Aitken Roshi and Brother David Steindl-Rast (a Benedictine monk), Steindl-Rast quotes William of St. Thierry, who says: "What you can grasp gives you knowledge. What grasps YOU makes you wise." Aitken agrees, and goes on to quote Dogen Zenji, who exclaimed: "That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion. That the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment." When we try to grasp at (or avoid) things, we are subconsciously trying to shore up the seeming solidity of the false self. However, when we allow those same things to grasp US (or to playfully push us away!) - that is, to grasp our awareness - we start to become who we are truly meant to be: a transparent "eye" through which all things can come to know and appreciate their own majesty and beauty.




That is definitely the case with my photography. It is not a matter of ME deciding to photograph this or that. Rather, those things - whether it be a mountain peeriing out of the mist, a snow-bedecked evergreen, or a wide-open sky - begin to grasp ahold of me (and my camera) in order to express and know their own beauty and goodness through my perception and appreciation! As Thomas Berry says: "The human is called to be the mind and heart of the universe." Here again, the true self is found in being emptied out into the world, where it serves as a vehicle for the Cosmos - and for the Creator and Mother Earth - to know and appreciate themselves.

There is, of course, a place for the ego in all of this. Although the goal is for the ego - i.e., the solid, bounded sense of self - to become translucent to the Greater Whole (to become "a transparent eyeball," as Emerson famously put it), it is NEEDED to help discern the unique ways in which WE are meant to serve this seeing. In other words, each of us is called to become a different lens onto the Whole. Each of us is meant to focus that "eye" on a different aspect of the cosmos. For me, that usually involves Western landscapes, contemplative insights, and an understanding of the various personality types we human beings manifest during our time here on Earth. For another person, the transparent lens may, for example, focus on those who are sick, in jail, oppressed, or poor. For another, the lens may focus on scientific or mechanical pursuits.

The temptation, of course, is to allow OTHERS to tell us how we should focus our gifts. The function of a strong ego is to form a boundary that says "No" to the intrusive expectations of others (and to our own superficial desires), and "Yes" to the true inner promptings that lead us into the ways in which we are meant to focus our own unique gifts. In fact, every contemplative I've ever known possesses a strong ego. They closely guard their space, possess intense discipline, and don't easily let others - or the society - intrude on their inner territory. But the ultimate goal, of course, is for this boundary-setting ego to become transparent to a vision on the Greater Whole.




May each of us discover the unique ways in which WE are called to serve as the vast, self-emptying love out of which all creation emerges, and as the one-of-a-kind lens through which the cosmos can become aware of its own great goodness and beauty!

Photos: (Top) Limber Pine trunk, with rock spires fading in and out of the mist, Emerald Lake; (Middle) Lodgepole Pine bedecked in snow; (Bottom) A rock, Bear Lake, and Hallett Peak. All three photos were taken in Rocky Mountain National Park (CO) on November 24, 2014

By walking, you escape from the temptation to be someone.



"Walking can provoke abundances of beauty that turn the soul over, excesses of ecstasy on the peaks, the high passes (where the body explodes) . . . By walking you are not going to meet yourself.  By walking, you escape from the very idea of identity, the temptation to be someone, to have a name and history . . . The freedom in walking lies in not being anyone; for the walking body has no history, it is just an eddy in the stream of immemorial life."

Frederic Gros,
"A Philosophy of Walking"






Photos: Emerald Lake Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 24, 2014



Monday, November 24, 2014

When you walk, news becomes unimportant . . .


"When you walk, news becomes unimportant. Soon you have lost all knowledge of the world and its gymnastics, the most recent town goal, the latest scandal. You no longer await the surprise development, or want to hear how it really all began, or what happened in the end. Heard the latest? When you are walking, all that ceases to matter. Being in the presence of what absolutely endures detaches us from that ephemeral news for which we are usually agog. After walking far and long, you can even come to wonder in surprise how you could ever have been interested in it. The slow respiration of things makes everyday huffing and puffing appear vain, unhealthy agitation . . .




"The first eternity we encounter is that of rocks . . . , of the skylines: all that is resistant, unchanging. And being confronted with that overhanging solidity reduces trivial facts, the pathetic news, to the significance of dust blowing in the wind. A motionless eternity vibrating where it stands . . . Walking makes the rumors and complaints fall suddenly silent, stops the ceaseless interior chatter through which we comment on others, evaluate ourselves, recompose, interpret."

Frederic Gros,
"A Philosophy of Walking"




Photos: (Top) Sunset on Long's Peak, (Middle) Ice on Lake Haiyaha; (Bottom) Lichen-covered rock on The Loch; All three photos were taken in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21-22, 2014

Sunday, November 23, 2014

When you are walking, there is only one sort of performance that counts: the brilliance of the sky, the splendor of the landscape.


"Efforts have been made to create a new market in hiking accessories: revolutionary shoes, incredible socks, high-performance trousers . . . [But] when you are walking, there is only one sort of performance that counts: the brilliance of the sky, the splendor of the landscape.  Walking is not a sport."

Frederic Gros,
"A Philosophy of Walking"






Photos: (Top) Sunset on Mills Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21, 2014; (Middle) Lake Haiyaha, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21, 2014; (Bottom) The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 22, 2014 



Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Spirits of these rocks and waters hail you after long waiting as their kinsmen and persuade you to closer communion

"[Here we] come in contact with the rock and water spirits of the place . . . The Spirits of these rocks and waters hail you after long waiting as their kinsmen and persuade you to closer communion . . . How interesting does man become considered in his relations to the spirit of this rock and water! How significant does every atom of our world become amid the influences of those beings unseen, spiritual, angelic mountaineers that so throng these pure mansions of crystal foam and purple granite! I cannot refrain from speaking to this little bush at my side and to the spray drops that come to my paper and to the individual sands of the slopelet I am sitting upon."

The Contemplative John Muir



Chris Claborn has a special connection to the spirits of the landscape. On today's hike up to The Loch, Chris pointed my attention to the crying of one of the trees in the wind. The call went on for quite a while, and I really enjoyed listening!


Photos: Chris Claborn at The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 22, 2014

God's own life is an adventure!



"God's own life is an adventure!"

Alfred North Whitehead

Yesterday's hike was quite amazing! I broke trail on snowshoes for several miles up to Lake Hiayaha, where the ice was beginning to crystallize in intricately delicate patterns. Then I hiked two bowls over just in time for the alpenglow on Long's Peak at Mills Lake.




All of this was followed, of course, by a beautiful snowshoe hike back down in the dark with the aid of a headlamp. What a great day!


Photos: (Top) Intricate ice on Lake Haiyaha, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21, 2014; (Middle) Alpenglow on Long's Peak, with a Limber Pine in the foreground, Mills Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21, 2014; (Bottom) Alpenglow on Long's Peak from Mills Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21, 2014

Friday, November 21, 2014

And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go!


"Have you gazed on naked grandeur
where there's nothing else to gaze on, . . .
Big mountains heaved in heaven,
which the blinding sunsets blazon, . . .
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God's sake go and do it; . . .
And hearken to the Wild - it's wanting YOU . . .
There's a whisper on the night-wind,
there's a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go."


Robert Service

Photo: Abandoned cabin, with the Nokhu Crags looming above; near Lake Agnes, Never Summer Mountains, CO; November 6, 2014

The silence of nature gives us an intuitive feeling of the great silence that was before the word.


"The silence of nature is a blessed silence because it gives us an intuitive feeling of the great silence that was before the word and out of which everything arose"

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"




Photos:(Top) Sunset on Bellvue Dome and Watson Lake, Bellvue, CO, November 19, 2014; (Middle) Sunrise alpenglow on the foothills, viewed across the street from my house, Larimer County, CO, November 18, 2014; (Bottom) Snowy landscape and Arthur's Rock, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014




Thursday, November 20, 2014

Elk and Gas Stations Go Together in Estes Park!


One can have a truly "WILD time" getting gas in Estes Park!

Photo: Elk grazing at the Safeway gas pumps, Estes Park, CO, November 14, 2014

A Landscape is Like a Person Who Has Variety of Different Moods.



"When we dwell with mountains, see them face to face, every day, they seem as creatures with a sort of life - friends subject to moods, now talking, now taciturn, with whom we converse as person to person."

The Contemplative John Muir





As you can tell, I've been spending a lot of time at Watson Lake, located just a few miles from my house. It has been wonderful to discover the incredible variety of different moods that a single landscape can have! How amazing it is to live on this Earth and to call it "home"!






Photos: Bellvue Dome, Watson Lake, and Canada Geese, Bellvue, CO, November 19, 2014

All things are "Thou."


Well, today is my birthday, and I've experienced a rather interesting mindset this week.  Several times, I've had the sense that I am supposed to prepare for SOMEONE ELSE's birthday. I chuckle every time this occurs, because I quickly realize that it is actually MINE!

I believe there is a spiritual component to this state of mind.  For I am increasingly beginning to view my self as "other," and in so doing, am actually mediating divine love to it. Archetypal psychologist Thomas Moore tells us that "We become able to love ourselves only when we learn to love that self as an object. We now have a view of ourselves as someone else." Indeed, we might say that EVERYTHING is other, including even our own self.

Moving to a deeper understanding, we could say that everyone - including God - is actually a "Thou", yet without even being able to say that there is any "I" to speak this "Thou."   Applied to God, this means, as Raimon Panikkar tells us, that "God does not have the experience of 'myself.'  God has it rather of 'himself."  And this is so because of God's eternal and blissful self-emptying.

May all of us this day begin to enter the magic of seeing all things, including especially ourselves, as a lovable other - as a "Thou" - yet without being able to find any "I" who might carry out this act!

Photo: Blue Spruce and Willow tree, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Intense Winds, Geese and Spiritual Liberation


Spending time with intense winds and the geese on my afternoon hikes over the past several days has been quite transformative for me. The wind has helped blow away the majority of my emotional and intellectual frettings . . . ,

 

while the geese and their constant honking have served to remind me that there is so much more to this life than merely human society. After all, the geese have been around millions of years longer than we have! Biologists estimate that birds first appeared on earth 150 million years ago, while the genus Homo (including humans and their predecessors) developed only 2.5 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans didn't appear until 200,000 years ago! Such vast differences in time scale can bring us a sense of liberation, helping us realize that our current societal issues are just a "blink" in the course of geological time!



Photos: (Top) The wind whips across Watson Lake, Bellvue, CO, November 17, 2014; (Middle) Canada geese on Watson Lake, near sunset, Bellvue, CO, November 17, 2014; (Bottom) Geese on Watson Lake, Bellvue, CO, November 18, 2014

Silence is the Word of God


"Contemplation is essentially a listening in silence. The contemplative waits on the Word of God in silence, and when he is 'answered,' it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence. It is by his SILENCE ITSELF suddenly, inexplicably, revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God."

Thomas Merton



Photos: (Top) Willow trees, snow, and Bellvue Dome, Bingham Hill, CO, November 13, 2014; (Middle);  Autumn's last chance to display her colors, Arthur's Rock Trail, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014; (Bottom) Burnt Ponderosa Pine, Galena Burn, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Human Society is NOT the true reality!


We so often act as though the world is made for human society. We think OUR news, OUR entertainment industry, OUR corporations, OUR religion and OUR concerns are absolute reality. However, whenever I spend time at a place like Watson Lake, just a few miles from my home, I'm struck by how UNTRUE this actually is! There, thousands of Canada Geese meet and socialize with one another, honking almost continuously, shifting positions between two or three different parties, and all the while seeming to have a great time! In fact, I like to call the lake an "airport," because so many flocks of geese are always taking off and landing.

I wonder why we human beings think the universe revolves around us? I've always been fascinated by the timeline displayed in an exhibit at Denver's Museum of Nature and Science. It reminds us that if we compress all of the Earth's 4.6 billion year history into the space of twelve months, we can gain valuable perspective on just how recent the human enterprise really is. Accordingly, if the Earth forms (or is created) on January 1, then life begins in the oceans on March 20. Amazingly, life doesn't move onto land until November 29. Then, dinosaurs appear on December 10. And humanity does not make its entrance until December 31!

I love the sense of humility that good science can offer, and the insight that an awareness of The Greater Whole can give whenever I am hiking, photographing, journaling and meditating in the Great Outdoors. For it is then that I realize a simple fact: human society - especially modern ego-based Euro-American society - is NOT all there is!

Photo: Canada Geese, Watson Lake, and Bellvue Dome, Bellvue, CO, November 17, 2014

Lessons Gleaned from the Changeable Nature of Human Beings

During my afternoon walk today, I found myself grappling with a lifelong experience of human beings as highly unpredictable and changeable. Perhaps others don't have a similar experience, and I accept the fact that it may simply be part of the "karma" I've been given. Maybe I was a very fickle and unreliable person in a previous life, and now I am getting a dose of my own medicine! In any case, it seems to me that people are often non-communicative for no apparent reason, by turns BOTH engaged and distancing, and highly changeable in attitude. My guess is that others might also say the same about ME.

What I'm learning from all of this is that the ego-self of both myself and others is actually quite illusory, or at least impermanent and shapeshifting. I find liberation from frustration when I begin to see both others and myself - together with my own expectations of others - as a PLAY of sunlight diamonds on the vast lake of consciousness. Our egos are like echoes resounding against a canyon wall, appearing seemingly out of nowhere.


Ultimately, the shapeshifting nature of human beings teaches me that only three things are real: the transcendent God, the immanent Goddess - or Sophia - and the position in the middle, which Emerson called a "transparent eyeball." Each one of us is simply a unique aspect of that "seeing" positioned in the middle, whereby God gazes upon Goddess and Goddess gazes upon God. Or, to put it in more Buddhist-sounding terms, this is a seeing in which FORM appears out of emptiness, and EMPTINESS appears smack-dab in the middle of form. When I realize this great truth, then neither my own ego nor that of others seems to matter very much at all. Here, it is the very changeability of we as human beings - and the resulting frustration - that COMPELS me to let go and become transparent to THIS Reality.



Photos: (Top) Watson Lake, Canada Geese and the foothills at sunset, Bellvue, CO, November 17, 2014; (Middle) Last light and reflections on the Poudre River, Bellvue, CO, November 17, 2014; (Bottom) Charred Ponderosa Pines, Galena Burn, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014

Monday, November 17, 2014

Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die.


"One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in the ultimate dimension.  I saw that it was not really dead, but that it was merging with the moist soil in order to appear on the tree the following spring in another form.  I smiled at the leaf and said, 'You are pretending.'  Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die, including the leaf."

Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo: Elm leaf on frozen Watson Lake, with Bellvue Dome in the background, Bellvue, CO, November 17, 2014
Imagination is in fact one of the traits that makes us most human. Whenever I hike up to Arthur's Rock - just a few miles from my home - I love seeing the face of "Arthur" gazing intently up at the western sky. This face encourages me to be spacious in my awareness, and to maintain the sense of optimism I've felt ever since I was a kid whenever I look toward the west. Similarly, when I photographed golden Willow trees the other day next to the Big Thompson River, I imagined the water as Mother Earth's hair flowing down ceaselessly from the mountains.




And when I hiked up to Emerald Lake later that afternoon, the contorted Limber Pines appeared to me as wise elders who've weathered the storms of life, encouraging me to do likewise.




Imagination is actually a form of perception, as indigenous peoples have always known. Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us that "The feat of imagination is in showing the convertability of every thing into every other thing." Thus, imagination is a a major way of actualizing the innate oneness of all things. However, imagining is not simply an activity that WE engage in. Rather, it is a living presence who visits us. As Joy Harjo - a poet and musician from the Muskogee Nation - reminds us: "The imagining needs praise as does any living thing. Stories are evidence of this praise." Our Euro-American culture views this awareness of both the imagination and of Nature as personal as a naive "anthropomorphizing," as though human beings are the only creature that is innately personal. However, Thomas Moore reminds us that "When a psychologist says that we are projecting personality in the world when we talk to it, that psychologist is speaking NARCISSISTICALLY, as though personality and soul belong only to the human subject."

In our era, people in our society have given up their own imaginative capacities, relying instead on the imaginings of the so-called "professionals"; that is, of movie and TV producers, to do the imagining FOR them. This shirking of one's human responsibility to creatively re-imagine the world is one of the reasons for the massive epidemic of depression that afflicts our culture. For indigenous peoples, our imagining gives us a participation in the life and action of the Creator. In the absence of this kind of imagining, people in our current society have begun to feel passive and disconnected from the life around them. It is no wonder, then, that depression is so prevalent!

May all of us discover the unique ways in which WE are called to participate in the Creator's work by exercising OUR OWN imaginative capacities!

Photos: (Top) The "face" of Arthur's Rock gazes up at the western sky, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014; (Middle) The Big Thompson River is Mother's Earth's hair flowing down from the mountains between golden Willow trees, west of Loveland, CO, November 14, 2014; (Bottom) A gnarly Limber Pine is a wise elder encouraging us to weather the storms of life, Dream Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 14, 2014.  The Thomas Moore quote is from Care of the Soul, p. 61.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

The function of all good spirituality is to provide the heart and mind with a healthy dose of awe and wonder.



I don't know what life would be like without a sense of mystery! Whether it manifests itself in the form of a rock spire fading in and out of the mist, a landscape in which golden foliage and snow-sprinkled cliffs resemble a surreal painting, or a sunburst appearing like an iridescent pearl through snow clouds just before sunset, mystery never fails to awaken the imagination.

I'm convinced, in fact, that the function of all good spirituality is to provide the heart and mind with a healthy dose of awe and wonder. Specifically, meditation practice excels in showing us that all phenomena, thoughts and feelings exist as echoes arising within the spaciousness of awareness as though out of nowhere! Speaking mythically, we might say that the Creator was just about to speak a word of love to the world, but LOST himself in self-emptying bliss just before he could even utter the word! Yet - surprise! - echoes of that unspoken love-word - appearing at the root of all creatures and all things - are somehow able to appear, anyway!




Photos: (Top) A rock spire fades in and out of the mist, with a Limber Pine growing in the foreground, Emerald Lake Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 14, 2014; (Middle) Golden Willow foliage and snowy cliffs resemble a surreal painting, west of Loveland, CO, November 14, 2014; (Bottom) A late-lying sun shining through snow-clouds resembles an iridescent pearl, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014