An abundance of joy is flowing in the springtime Rockies!

"I think that one of the properties of that compound which we call man is that when exposed to the rays of mountain beauty, it glows with joy."

The Contemplative John Muir

Yesterday's excursion up into my own backyard - Rocky Mountain National Park - was absolutely magical! The Big Thompson River was overflowing its banks as it meandered through Moraine Park, watering lush meadows filled with Wild Purple Flag Iris and Golden Banner. Bees, butterflies, birds and elk were present in abundance, all reveling in the exuberant atmosphere. Up higher on Trail Ridge - at 12,000 feet - the melting was accelerating at an incredible pace, especially with the 70 degree weather we've been having. Everything in the mountains feels so alive right now, so vibrant, so joy-filled! What a blessing it is to have the chance to explore this amazing planet :)

Photos: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 8, 2015

Each day is a god . . .

"Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split. I wake in a god."

Annie Dillard
"Holy the Firm"

Photo: New Aspen foliage and a snowy Hallett Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO May 29, 2015

We each have the capacity to mediate the loving gaze of God to one another!

One of the most beautiful aspects of life is the fact that we each have the capacity - and the calling - to shine the light of love, respect and admiration on one another, and then to sit back and watch with delight and awe as the sacredness of the other person unveils itself from under its usual hiding places and begins to glow. How do we practice this highlighting? Through compliments, through loving gestures, and through mindful attention to the beauty of one other. When we practice in this way, we actually begin to mediate the "loving gaze of God" to one another :)  How amazing!

Photo: Chimney Rock, Ghost Ranch, NM, May 25, 2015

I am trying with all my skill to do a painting that is all of women.

"I am trying with all my skill to do a painting that is all of women."

Georgia O'Keeffe

Photos: The desert country where O'Keeffe painted, near Ghost Ranch, NM, May 25, 2015

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.

"Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure."

Alfred North Whitehead

Photos: (Top) One of the Spanish Peaks, near LaVeta, CO; (Middle) Indian Paintbrush, Vedauwoo, WY; (Bottom) Hummingbird, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; These photos were taken May 22 - 26, 2015

All that is beautiful is difficult

"All that is beautiful is difficult."

Plato
 

Photos: Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM, May 22-23, 2015

The Importance of Getting Away for a Time from Cell Phone and Internet Reach.

I am grateful that we still have natural areas that are out of cell phone or internet reach. It is so important to be able to "unplug" for a while - to read a spiritually-nourishing book, to reflect, to journal, to meditate, to rest. For it is in the midst of this kind of solitude that we are finally able to release our social roles and get in the touch with the true self that is one with the Divine, one with the cosmos, and one with the beauty of the natural world.

Photo: Joanne reading in a hidden section of Horsetooth Mountain Park, CO, May 30, 2015

Reflections on the Ilusion and Necessity of the Personality Cult

All my life, I've lived by the notion once expressed by Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." However, over the past six months or so, I've come to a stunning awareness: most people are only interested in "ideas" insofar as they are embodied in concrete PEOPLE. I've avoided the "cult of personality" for forty years, but now I find myself smack dab in the middle of it. To be honest, when I go out to speak, people often seem just as interested in the passion and personal style I use to express my insights as the insights themselves. Who would ever have guessed? And now I find myself in the curious position of being advised to focus on marketing "myself" - my passion and my personality (as an earthy contemplative or "worldly monk") rather than on the insights themselves. How do I reconcile these two opposing viewpoints?

My trip to Chaco Canyon several weeks ago has provided one possible solution. As I spent the weekend visiting the remains of ancient pueblos and examining some fossil shells and pottery pieces that appeared along the trail, I realized that my own life - when looked at from the perspective of the 4.5 billion-year history of the Earth - is really more like an ECHO of a bygone era than a substantial and lasting reality.

This means that when I'm forced to market myself and my persona (rather than simply my insights, which I like to think have more universal value) as a means of making a living, I can only do so by PRETENDING my personal style is something lasting and substantial. In other words, it's a sort of "game" I - and all of us - are being asked to play. How crazy! There really does seem to be a Trickster Spirit at work here! However, since this need for role-playing seems to be the case, I find that solitary times of retreat are needed in my life - especially now - to help me see through the relative unreality of the personal social role in order to identify with a vast and spacious cosmic perspective that goes far beyond my own short life and persona! For it is THIS vastness - beyond social role-playing - that is, I'm still convinced, the TRUE self  :)

Photos: Evening-Primroses, Anasazi dwellings, fossil shells and pottery shards, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM, May 23, 2015

Life is either a great adventure or nothing!

"Life is either a great adventure or nothing."

Helen Keller


 

 I LOVE Marsh-marigolds because they are one of the very first subalpine wildflowers to bloom each June, signaling the fact that the summer adventure season is finally HERE! But there is still a WHOLE LOT of snow to travel through in order to get to the peaks!

Photos: Marsh-Marigolds on the Colorado River Trail, and various views from Trail Ridge, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 1, 2015

In ceremony, we are the land chanting, we are the land dancing.

"In ceremony, we are the land chanting, we are the land dancing."

Joseph Rael
Beautiful Painted Arrow
Picuris Pueblo

(Top) Verbena and a ceremonial Kiva; (Middle) Claret Cup Cactus; (Bottom) Petroglyph. All three photos were taken at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM, May 23-24, 2015. The Ancestral Puebloans flourished here from about 850 through 1250 A.D.

Echo Amphitheater: A Shrine for Christian Insight Meditation

Echo Amphitheater, in Northern New Mexico, is a spiritual shrine for me because it embodies perfectly the practice of Insight Meditation. It is a large concave bowl carved out of the sandstone cliff and accessed by a path that leads right up to its base. As you face the amphitheater, you find a small hill and a thicket of densely-packed pinyon pine and juniper trees spreading out behind you. Then further behind those is the state highway. The fascinating thing is that if you position yourself just right between the trees and the concave cliff, you can hear echoes of the cars that pass on the highway resounding off the sandstone wall, but you can’t hear their original sounds. I've experienced the same phenomenon at night with coyote calls whenever I've stayed in the campground adjacent to the amphitheater. When the coyotes are placed just right, the calls take on a magical quality as they echo off the amphitheater, especially when I can’t hear the original sounds because of the thicket of trees. 

Similarly, in Buddhist Insight Meditation, our thoughts appear like echoes coming from a great distance, with no original Sounds ever present! In the context of Christian Mysticism, all thoughts and emotions - insofar as they have a desire for love and fulfillment at their root - are echoes of a Divine Love-Word that never had a chance to be spoken, on account of the fact that God - the Great Mystery - eternally lost himself in love before he even had a chance to speak the Word! And yet - and HERE is the mystery - those echoes of divine love continue appearing ANYWAY! How amazing!

Photos: Echo Amphitheater and surrounding cliffs, near Abiquiu, NM; May 22 and 25, 2015

There is tons of snow up on Trail Ridge!

It was amazing yesterday to see how much snow there still is up at 11,000 feet on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. Some of the roadside snow banks were over 30 feet tall, and the vast alpine landscape was dressed in pristine white. Down a bit lower, the first subalpine wildflower - the Marsh Marigold - was starting to bloom, signaling the beginning of our summertime adventure season!

Photos: The distant Gore Range, roadside snowbanks, and Marsh Marigolds, Trail Ridge, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 1, 2015

I never felt the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

"I never felt the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: A lone crow looks off toward the Never Summer Range, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, June 1, 2015

It's winter at 10,000 feet and Spring at 8,500 feet!

It's winter at 10,000 feet and Spring at 8,500 feet. I love it!

Photos: Snow in the Snowy Range, WY, and Springtime Paintbrush and a Hummingbird at Vedauwoo, WY; May 26, 2015

Warm, sunny days thrill plants and animals and rocks alike . . .

"Warm, sunny days thrill plants and animals and rocks alike, making sap and blood flow fast, and making every particle of the crystal mountains throb and swirl and dance in glad accord like star-dust . . . Everything kept in joyful rhythmic motion in the pulses of Nature's big heart."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: Cottonwoods, a Hummingbird, and Indian Paintbrush; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, and Vedauwoo Recreation Area, WY, May 26 and 29, 2015