Mount Rainier steals my vision! . . .

In the presence of Rainier and her meadows, I frequently lose all power of thought. Gazing on her, I find, is like seeing a lover unclothed for the first time. I’m left speechless and stunned by the majesty of the view. In fact, it seems as though the peak always finds a way to steal my visual capacity away from me, until my eyes are really hers. She is then able - through my vision - to gaze with playful haughtiness on her own amazing beauty! I recognize this phenomenon whenever I feel my awareness gripped by the overwhelming beauty of the setting . . .
 

Photos: (Top) Mount Rainier, Tipsoo Lake and Elderberries; (Middle) Cliff Paintbrush and Mount Rainier; (Bottom) Detail from one of Rainier's glaciers. All three photos were taken in Mount Rainier National Park, WA on August 28-30, 2015

Silent retreats lead to carefully arranging one's thoughts.

"In my opinion, it was chiefly owing to their deep contemplation in their silent retreats in the days of youth that the old Indian orators acquired the habit of carefully arranging their thoughts. They listened to the warbling of birds and noted the grandeur and the beauties of the forest. The majestic clouds - which appear like mountains of granite floating in the air - the golden tints of a summer evening sky, and all the changes of nature, possessed a mysterious significance. All this combined to furnish ample matter for reflection to the contemplating youth."

Andrew Blackbird,
Ottawa Nation

Photos: (Top) Wild Currant leaves and the sun setting behind Notchtop Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015; (Middle and Bottom) Willow leaves, Subalpine Aster, and Elderberries, Lake Agnes, Never Summer Range, CO, August 29, 2015

Wilderness Insight Meditation

The important point in Wilderness Insight Meditation is not only to allow one's ego-identity to dissolve in the spaciousness of divine awareness, but to watch - spellbound - as one's thoughts, perceptions, emotions AND ego-identity reemerge like echoes with no original Sound out of that seamless vastness!

Photo: Changing Willow leaves and Lake Agnes, Never Summer Range, CO, August 29, 2015

Calling the planet "it" can numb us to the awareness that the planet is a sentient, ensouled body with means and ends all her own."

"Calling the planet 'it' can numb us to the awareness that the planet is a sentient, ensouled body with means and ends all her own."

Jane Caputi

Photo: Senecio and Notchtop Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 18, 2015

The blue of meditative mind.

I love the color blue whenever I find it in Nature, in large part because it ushers me directly into a meditative state of mind, where my awareness is as wide as the sky. One of the early desert fathers - Evagrius Ponticus - spoke of "the blue sapphire of the mind." I agree!

Photo: Mountain Gentian with Nokhu Crags in the background, Never Summer Mountains, CO, August 29, 2015

The human body knows that it needs a multiplicity of relationships . . .

"The human body knows that it needs a multiplicity of relationships with the whole of its surroundings. Our bodies have co-evolved with cedar trees and salmon and windstorms and moon and sun, with critters and plants. We believe that the only place we can encounter otherness is in another human being. But another human, alone, cannot possibly provide all that otherness, and the strain rapidly shatters so many marriages and partnerships."

David Abram
Ecological Philosopher

Photo: Indian Paintrbrush and Subalpine Arnica, Saint Louis Lake Trail, near Fraser, CO, August 9, 2015

Seeing the World as Lover

"When you see the world as lover, every being, every phenomenon, can become - if you have a clever, appreciative eye - an expression of that ongoing erotic impulse."

Joanna Macy
Buddhist Deep Ecologist

Photo: Fireweed, Reflection Lake, and Mount Rainier, Mount Rainier National Park, WA, July 28, 2015

"Nones" and Wilderness Mysticism

In preparing for a workshop I'm giving on Wilderness Mysticism this Sunday, I did a little more research about "Nones" - i.e., those who identify themselves as religiously unaffliated. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center study, 23% of the U.S. adult population are Nones, up 8 points from 2007. Especially important in driving this increase are those in the Millennial Generation (born 1981-1996), 35% of whom consider themselves to be Nones. Interestingly, only 7% of Nones identify themselves as atheist or agnostic. While more studies need to be done, it appears that increasing numbers of Nones consider Nature their primary source of religious inspiration. A new study from Baylor University claims that those areas containing especially beautiful landscapes in the vicinity also have a higher percentage of Nones. Portland is certainly an example of this correlation, where 42% of the population identifies as Nones.

In any case, I've been committed over the past 30 years to providing meaningful theological reflection on the spiritual experience of Nature. Many people I know (at least in Colorado, where I live) love to recreate in the Great Outdoors, but very few actually reflect on the meaning of their experience and relate it to their spirituality. I am excited to offer Wilderness Mysticism as one way of doing that! :)

Photos: (Top) Indian Paintbrush and West Glacier Lake; (Middle) Rocks on an unnamed lake. These two photos were taken in the Snowy Range (WY) on August 22, 2015; (Bottom) Subalpine Arnica and Lake Helene, with Notchtop Mountain towering above, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015

The first twinges of an autumnal mindset are occurring!

The autumn colors are beginning to appear in our Rocky Mountain tundra, especially above 10,500 feet. With this change (and with the cooler mornings) I find myself beginning to enter an autumnal state of mind. I experience Fall as a time of invigoration, new projects and fresh vision. I think it has something to do with an inner harvesting of the fruits of insight gained during the Spring and Summer months. In the Summer, I am hardly ever home - at least mentally, if not physically - for that is the time for moving outward in the spirit of adventure. But in the Autumn, something in me brings all of those insights home and allows them to energize the vibrant hues of fresh and exciting projects :)

What does the beginning of Autumn mean for YOU?

Photos: (Top and Bottom) Tundra colors in the Snowy Range, WY, August 22-23, 2015; (Middle) Wild Currant leaves and the sun setting at Notchtop Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015

Even death is in harmony in the mountains . . .

"Even death is in harmony here [in the mountains]. Only in shambles and the downy beds of homes is death terrible . . . On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. Instead of sympathy, the friendly union, of life and death so apparent in Nature, we are taught that death is an accident, a deplorable punishment for the oldest sin, the archenemy of life, etc . . . Every uproar in Nature should be interpreted by the calm circle of light which environs it. Every dark and terrible abyss in Nature is lighted with a like circle of Love. God scatters firebrands, arrows, and death among the fairest and dearest mountains, but they are scattered as stars, orderly . . . "

The Contemplative John Muir 

Yes, yes - I know that Muir's writings on death can seem overly romantic. But I see them as a sort of Zen koan, meant to shock the reader into a new state of awareness . . .

Photo: Bleached elk bone and the sun setting behind Notchtop Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015

Embracing Contradiction

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself; I am large, I contain multitudes."

Walt Whitman

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

One of the things that is most fascinating about life is the fact that we as human beings are a bundle of contradictions. We sense a stable core at the center of our beings, but are carried away by a thousand passions. We want to conform to a singular view of Life, but Life itself keeps showing up as a many-sided jewel. Every truth implies its opposite. Oneness keeps shapeshifting into multiplicity and multiplicity continually transforms into Oneness. Eternity is in love with time, and time forever seeks to partner with the Eternal. Light cannot reveal itself without some degree of shadow, and vice versa. "We are gods with anuses," as cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker famously declared. It's no wonder that quite a few indigenous tribes celebrate a trickster side to the Creator. Raven, Crow, Coyote, Iktomi the Spider. The best thing we can do is throw our heads back and LAUGH at the wonder of it all :)

Photos: (Top) Rose Crown / Queen's Crown and West Glacier Lake; (Middle) Subalpine Arnica, a quartzite block, and Medicine Bow Peak; These two photos were taken in Wyoming's Snowy Range on August 22-23, 2015; (Bottom) Subalpine Aster (Erigeron) and Notchtop Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015

Solitude puts us in touch with our True Self.

"I have never found a companion who was as companionable as solitude."

Henry David Thoreau

Solitude is an important spiritual practice because it strips away all social images and expectations and makes us face who we are and what we really desire in our innermost being. It may take several days for all of the accumulated societal clutter to dissolve in the healing waters of solitude, but once that happens, we come face to face with our True Self. And that occurrence makes us really and truly happy :)

Photos: (Top) Mountain Gentian and Medicine Bow Peak; (Middle) Green quartzite boulder and Sugarloaf Mountain; These two photos were taken in Wyoming's Snowy Range on August 22-23, 2015; (Bottom) Subalpine Arnica and Notchtop Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

Jelaluddin Rumi

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

Leonard Cohen

Photo: Sunburst next to Notchtop Mountain, entering through the hole in a bleached elk bone; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 25, 2015

A hazy mind contains a kind of beauty . . .

The huge forest fires currently burning in Washington State (the largest is over 258,000 acres) have given us here in the Rockies a thick orange haze. This has made for some striking photos. Metaphorically speaking, this situation teaches us that even when our minds feel hazy and the truth appears unclear, there is a sort of beauty in this state of affairs. A truth merely hinted at can be just as striking as insights clearly seen!

Photos: Snowy Range, WY, August 21, 2015

Nature teaches us to think our own thoughts . . .

Earlier, I spoke of the realization that each of us is a completely unique lens through which the Divine knows and celebrates Itself.

However, in our current era, many of us hardly ever listen to or follow our core self. As a result, we run across very few real individuals these days. People identify themselves instead with the media and entertainment culture, which seeks to make each of us into a sort of robot with no mind of our own. Rather than create our own mythical stories that embody the paradoxical life of the Divine, we instead rely on the technological expertise of moviemakers to do the imagining for us. Rather than think our own thoughts, we listen non-stop to the thoughts of others: to the love-dramas of pop-singers, the incessantly negative news promoted by the media, and the dogmas of religious groups that would discourage us from ever coming to our own conclusions. Rather than enjoying the self-possession that is the product of a disciplined life, we rely instead on the "Likes" and "Comments" of OTHERS recorded in Facebook and Instagram posts.

Nature, on the other hand, teaches us to think our own thoughts, imagine new theological stories, be embraced by Silence, and practice the disciplined life we crave. Time spent in the natural world helps us once again become who we REALLY are in our deepest core. How wonderful!

Photos: (Top) Sunrise on Medicine Bow Peak, with white and pink-colored quartzite in the foreground; (Middle) Subalpine Arnica; (Bottom) Mountain Gentian; all three photos were taken in Wyoming's Snowy Range on September 21-23, 2015

One of the most important principles in the spiritual journey is the fact that we always view Truth or Reality through a particular lens.

Photography involves taking a unique and particular perspective on a subject, one that helps open up fresh ways of seeing for the viewer. For me, that means aiming for a layered effect, as in this sunrise photo, or looking at a scene from a ground-level perspective, as in the two wildflower photos. I never present a landscape setting "as it is," but rather through a particular perspective. Similarly, one of the most important principles in the spiritual journey is the fact that we always view Truth or Reality through a particular lens, filter or perspective. We never see things "as they are," but rather through the lens of our own individual, psychological, cultural, gendered, racial, philosophical and religious filters. After all, that is precisely what the Divine is after in creating this world - knowing Itself, Himself and Herself through an infinite number of filters and then marveling at the freshness, nuance and surprise that each filter provides. There is no other filter exactly like ours! And that is true as well for the 7.3 billion other human beings who inhabit the planet. Add to that the perspectives held by the billions of other life forms, and the result is an endless source of amazement available to the Creator. For we human beings, this means both that we remain forever humble (realizing that we only know the Truth through one or several particular fliters), AND that we will always and forever need the perspectives and filters of others to fill out what is lacking in our own. This keeps us ever reaching out toward one another and serves to bond together the plethora of different ways of seeing into one multi-faceted Whole :)

Photos: (Top) Sunrise on Medicine Bow Peak; (Middle) Rose Crown / Queen's Crown, an unnamed lake and Medicine Bow Peak; (Bottom) Mountain Gentians and pond; All three photos were taken in the Snowy Range (WY) on August 21-23, 2015

We so often imagine that our own ideas are elegantly simple, while those of others are hopelessly complex!

This weekend, as I meandered around marshy mountain meadows looking for the last remaining wildflowers of the season, my mind turned to examine a curious human trait. This is the tendency we have to believe that OUR views are elegantly simple, while the beliefs of others are hopelessly complex. For example, during my early fundamentalist days, if a person with an intellectual bent would try to talk to us, we would invariably reply: "I follow Jesus, NOT philosophy!" We'd explain that "The gospel is so simple even a CHILD can understand it!" What we didn't realize was that we held a whole network of supporting beliefs and ideas - many of them unconscious or unexamined - that were every bit as complex and philosophical as those of our "non-Christian" opponents.

Thus, for example, we held to a billiard-ball conception of the self, a substitutionary atonement based in Roman law, the idea that Jesus is an individual rather than a cosmic or archetypal presence, and a dualistic split between Creator and creation. All of these ideas are every bit as complex as the convictions of others. It's just that our own unconscious philosophical beliefs APPEAR simple, while those of someone else who believes differently may seem complex because we are unfamiliar with them, and because those beliefs may require quite a few word-pictures painted from various angles to try to elucidate them. The same is true of we modern contemplatives who may be tempted to believe we trust only in Silence but who actually hold a whole network of complex and unexamined ideas that attempt to articulate the meaning of that Silence. What a curious species we humans are!

Photo: Subalpine Aster (Erigeron) and the cliffs of Medicine Bow Peak, Snowy Range, WY, August 23, 2015

Two Fundamentalisms: Dualistic and Nondualistic

This past weekend, as I was hiking in the beauty of Wyoming's Snowy Range, I enjoyed immensely both the vast and imposing backdrop of the mountain peaks AND the individual expression of beauty - found in wildflowers, trees, rocks and lakes - that arise within that vastness. While walking, I found myself reflecting on the fact that the tendency toward a fundamentalistic mindset is so incredibly pervasive in human affairs. In fact, it often takes seemingly opposite forms! In the realm of spirituality, this means, for example, that for conservative traditionalists, ONLY duality is the true reality. Here, there is a Creator-creation split and a billiard-ball view of the self, both of which deny that any kind of overarching Unity has any reality. On the other hand, a kind of mystical fundamentalism holds that ONLY the Unity has any ultimate existence, and that all individuality - including the words, ideas and thoughts that correspond to discrete insights or beings - are actually illusory. This pattern reveals the fact that fundamentalism is a typically HUMAN trait and is not the possession of any one group. It always focuses on one sliver of the truth to the exclusion of all other slivers. In my experience, all of the various slivers are needed to make a more complete picture. Here, for example, BOTH duality and non-duality issue continually into and proceed from one another. Accordingly, nondual vastness continually gives birth to individual beings, AND individual beings perpetually manifest nonduality in their tendency to run toward the horizon of Unity and dissolve there. Amazingly, both duality and nonduality continually issue in - and shapeshift into - one another. And that, of course, is precisely the magic of life!  

There is, of course, a more inclusive Unity, but this consists in dwelling IN BETWEEN these two realms and in becoming the space in which they integrate into a single, dynamic yet restful Reality :)

Photos: (Top) Subalpine Arnica, A quartzite block, and Medicine Bow Peak; (Middle) Rose Crown (Queen's Crown), an unnamed pond, and Medicine Bow Peak. These two photos were taken on August 23, 2015; (Bottom) Silvery snag in an old burn, August 21, 2015. All three photos were taken in the Snowy Range, WY

All things are divinized in morning light!

"All things are divinized in morning light."

The Contemplative John Muir

This morning I got up at 5 A.M., hiked half way up Medicine Bow Peak, and watched the sunrise. I parked myself and my camera next to a ruddy quartzite boulder, which flushed an even deeper red as the sun rose. At the same time, the craggy ridge leading up to the peak turned soft lavender, while the lakes below still basked in shadow. Because of the thick layer of forest fire haze lying to the east, it took a while for the sun to break through above the new horizon, but this resulted in a sunrise that was especially soft and subtle.

Photo: Sunrise on Medicine Bow Peak, Snowy Range, WY, August 23, 2015

Happiness is finally an inside job . . .

"Happiness is finally an inside job. We are too often 'reeds swaying in the breeze' (Matt. 11:7), dependent moment by moment on others' reaction and approval. This is the modern self: insubstantial, whimsical, totally dependent and calling itself 'free.' I have worked with people in whom I have seen this change: Once they were responding primarily to life outside themselves, but through contact with what I will call 'authentic transcendence,' they're drawing their life from within. They're not letting other people name them. They are named by God, and they have recognized that name as their deepest and truest self."

Richard Rohr
"What the Mystics Know"

Photo: Half Dome at sunrise, Yosemite National Park, CA, July 23, 2015

God sighs to be known in us . . .

"God sighs to become known in us. God is delivered from solitude by the people in whom God reveals himself. The sorrow of the unknown God is softened through and in us."

Ibn al-Arabi
13th century Sufi mystic

Quoted by Franciscan friar Richard Rohr in his book: "What the Mystics Know"

Photos: (Top and Middle) Indian Paintbrush at Twin Crater Lakes, Rawah Wilderness, CO, August 14, 2015; (Bottom) Snowbank and The Sharksteeth, just below Sky Pond, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 15, 2015

The Importance of Self-Forgiveness

There's a lot of talk these days about forgiving others and how important this is for our own inner peace. When we hang on to our grievances regarding what others have done to us, we feel constricted and leaden inside. Forgiveness serves to release us from this tightness. However, what is often neglected is the equally important necessity of forgiving ourselves. We all have mistakes in our past that sometimes continue to plague us into the present. We wish we could reverse the video recorder, as it were, and redo those parts of our lives where we "messed up." But we unfortunately cannot, so we seem to be stuck with all of our mistakes. Obsessing over past errors then becomes like an unhealed wound that festers and will not heal. It is easy, therefore, to understand why - in our own religious culture - so many people, especially evangelicals, find a theology of substitutionary atonement so appealing. If one can say: "Jesus took the blame and punishment for all of my sin, thereby releasing me from guilt," then the resulting liberation can be experienced as quite powerful.

However, for those of us who do not find release in having someone else - especially someone as special as Christ - be punished and killed for our misdeeds, there is another way of release. And that is to realize that the "self" which "blows it" is not the True Self after all. To the contrary, our REAL self is a vast lake of love and awareness that underlies the more superficial parts of our personality, which correspondingly form the "sunlight diamonds" dancing up on the surface of that lake. Those flecks of light are the things we say and do - sometimes helpful and sometimes not so helpful - during the course of our daily lives. Our temptation, however, is to consider those glints to be who-we-really-are, causing us to miss out on the vastness of our underlying Identity. Therefore, we actually NEED those times when we mess up in order to move us - forcibly, almost - to a deeper level, where we REALLY and TRULY dwell on the level of Being. All character development, in fact, is simply a deepening awareness - through both thick and thin - of this deeper Self.

And for those seekers who are Christ-followers, the liberating truth is the fact that this deeper Self is actually the ever-present reality of  . . . Christ!  Christ, Buddha-Nature, Brahman, Tunkashila, Gaia, Sophia, the Tao, Yahweh, Allah, Wakan Tanka, Ein Sof, the No-Self - they are all THERE, on that deeper level! But we could never KNOW the majesty of that vast Lake of divinity unless it were lit - you guessed it - by the sunlight diamonds of our more superficial selves dancing up on the surface! Forgiveness in this context comes in realizing that we can let go of our mistakes (AND our accomplishments) in order to identify instead with the deeper level of the vast True Self.

Oh, and one more thing. A lot of the talk these days about self-love or self-forgiveness can seem quite shallow in its tendency to remain caught up in a solipsism of "me, myself and I." In truth, the Self is a community, and the "I" who does the self-forgiving is actually not simply "me" but is instead . . . . [ ] !

Photos: (Top) Rosy and Western Yellow Paintbrush blooming above Saint Louis Lake near Fraser, CO, August 8, 2015; (Middle) Elephanthead blooming on the shore of one of the Twin Crater Lakes, Rawah Wilderness, CO, August 14, 2015; (Bottom) Fireweed and Arctic Gentian blooming on the shore of Lake of Glass, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 15, 2015

Read not the Times. Read the Eternities . . .

"Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair, - the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how willing people are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, - to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, - a temple open to the sky, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it so difficult to process the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which are insignificant . . . Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation. It is important to preserve the mind's chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their holy-of-holies for an hour, aye, for many hours! To make a very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us, - the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? . . . We should exclude such trespassers from the only holy ground which can be sacred to us. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers . . . If we have thus desecrated ourselves, - and who has not? - the remedy will be wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once more a temple of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and naive children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities . . . Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts . . ."

Henry David Thoreau
"Life Without Principle"
1863

Photos: (Top) Rosy Paintbrush and Lulu Mountain, Never Summer Range, CO, August 4, 2015; (Middle) Colorado Columbine, Snow Lake, and Nokhu Crags, Never Summer Range, CO, August 4, 2015; (Bottom) Queen's Crown and waterfall, just below Sky Pond, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, August 15, 2015

My Experiment with Being Constantly "Plugged In"

My Experiment with Being Constantly "Plugged In"

Because I don't want the life-sapping temptation of constantly checking Facebook, Instagram and email, I've made a conscious choice - for many years now, as a part of my "Worldly Monk" vocation - of not having a smartphone. I feel this enables me to be more fully present and engaged in the moment - and to the people I'm with - rather than constantly (and passively) checking for messages, "Likes" and comments.

In March, I bought an IPad to use both for Instagram (which can't be accessed from my desktop computer) and to use in my Wilderness Mysticism Powerpoint presentations. Unlike a smartphone, it only has access to the internet when I'm in an area that has Wifi. In general, this means I can use it only when I'm in my office, since I generally don't bring the IPad with me to other places.

However, over the past several weeks, I did an experiment. I began bringing the IPad with me to work at night, to my janitorial accounts. For the past 30 years, I've had a janitorial business - with just a few accounts which I clean by myself - which enables me to think, pray, and do mantric prayer. It's the "manual labor" component of my contemplative lifestyle. But during the past several weeks, I had ready access to the internet all throughout my worknight - via the IPad and the Wifi access provided by my cleaning accounts

Here is what I found. With ready access to the IPad, I discovered that I wanted to keep checking for Instagram and Facebook "Likes" and comments all throughout the night. In fact, I began carrying the IPad with me as I made the rounds - especially while gathering trash and cleaning desks. In fact, checking for "Likes" developed into a full-blown compulsion. I found myself feeling increasingly depressed, undisciplined, passive, dependent on the responses of others, unmotivated in my cleaning, uncreative, and "dead" inside.

Last night, I returned to my usual practice of leaving the IPad at home. I felt light, happy, motivated, creative and ABLE TO THINK MY OWN THOUGHTS. My mantric prayer returned, and I once again felt a sense of self-discipline. It was wonderful!

How strange is this lifestyle that our society's technological innovation has developed! Here I think of what Henry David Thoreau wrote in 1863: "In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while."

I wonder what Thoreau would think of our current era, one in which we don't even have to WAIT for the correspondence to arrive?

Photo: Blazing-star able to be its own radiant, solitary self, growing in lava on a cinder cone in Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID, August 2, 2015

We can find our own attractiveness in the larger mirror of Nature!

If we want to feel attractive to others, the best thing to do is to spend time with those things in the natural world that WE find attractive. Forgetting ourselves, we then begin to find our own Larger Self in the mirror of Nature. Then, embodying that beauty and mirroring it to others, they too are enabled to find themselves in Nature's attractiveness!

Photos: (Top) Rosy Paintbrush and cascade; (Middle) Sunrise at my campsite on Saint Louis Lake; (Bottom) Subalpine Arnica meadows. All three photos were taken on the Saint Louis Lake Trail near Fraser, CO, August 9, 2015