 I believe that EVERY president - of both political parties - is at their very best when dissolving into the larger, more spiritual, more expansive context of our outdoor temples - our National Parks. This past Sunday - Father's Day - it was Barack Obama's turn 😊 #barackobama #nationalparkservice #stephenhatch #wildernessmysticism  “I have lost my smile, but don't worry. The dandelion has it.” Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnamese Zen teacher Photo: Dandelions in the Flattops Wilderness, CO, June 19, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  "The rarest and most beautiful of the flowering plants I discovered on this first grand excursion [in the Great Lakes region of Canada in 1864] was Calypso borealis (the Hider of the North). I had been fording streams more and more difficult to cross and wading bogs and swamps that seemed more and more extensive and more difficult to force one's way through . . . I began to fear that I would not be able to reach dry ground before dark, and therefore would have to pass the night in the swamp. I was faint and hungry. "But when the sun was getting low and everything seemed most bewildering and discouraging, I found beautiful Calypso on the mossy bank of a stream, growing not in the ground but on a bed of yellow mosses in which its small white bulb had found a soft nest and from which its one leaf and one flower sprung. The flower was white and made the impression of the utmost simple purity like a snowflower . . . It seemed the most spiritual of all the flower people I had ever met. I sat down beside it and fairly wept for joy . . . "I never before saw a plant so full of life, so perfectly spiritual. . . . I felt as if I were in the presence of superior beings who loved me and beckoned me to come . . . Could angels in their better land show us a more beautiful plant? How good is our Heavenly Father in granting us such friends as are these plant-creatures, filling us wherever we go with pleasure so deep, so pure, so endless. "It seems wonderful that so frail and lovely a plant has such power over human hearts. This Calypso meeting happened some forty-five years ago, and it was more memorable and impressive than any of my meetings with human beings excepting, perhaps, Emerson and one or two others . . . "How long I sat beside Calypso I don't know. Hunger and weariness vanished, and only after the sun was low in the west I plashed on through the swamp, strong and exhilarated as if never more to feel any mortal care. At length I saw maple woods on a hill and found a log house." John Muir (This is a combination of two accounts given by Muir) Photo: Our Rocky Mountain version of the Calypso Orchid (C. bulbosa or borealis), near Cameron Pass, CO, June 19, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  A rancher, writer, and First-Wave feminist, Mary Austin knew the power of women. For her, female beauty, intellect and strength could never be separated. She would fit right in, I believe, with today's strong, smart, beautiful and empowered young women!
#maryaustin #stephenhatch #wildernessmysticism #goddessreligion#femalepower  "If we are to have broad-thinking men and women of high mentality, of good physique and with a true perspective on life, we must allow our populace a communion with nature in areas of more or less wilderness condition . . . Perhaps the rebuilding of the body and spirit is the greatest service derivable from our forests, for what worth are material things if we lose the character and quality of people that are the soul of America? Arthur Carhart  Carhart was one of the early framers of the wilderness concept in America. In 1919, he surveyed a road for home-building in the White River National Forest, near Trappers Lake. Upon completion of the survey, he decided that the land should be preserved as wilderness. The Forest Service agreed, and the area was protected. The protection of Trappers Lake was the first of its kind in the history of the Forest Service. Carhart was the driving force behind recreational-use programs in national forests, first at San Isabel National Forest in Colorado and then at Superior National Forest in Minnesota. Photos:Trapper's Lake (June 19, 2016) and Arthur Carhart For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  |
AuthorStephen Hatch, M.A. is a spiritual teacher and photographer from Fort Collins, Colorado. His approach is contemplative, inter-spiritual, and Earth-based. Archives
June 2016
Categories |
RSS Feed
