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