 “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/   The two days I spent camped in solitude this past weekend on Skinny Fish Lake really helped reinvigorate my meditation practice. The spaciousness of the lake spreading out directly in front of my camp became like a STAGE upon which various waterfowl, jumping fish, rippling breezes, and mountain reflections - like the sunset alpenglow pictured here on Saturday night - were able to appear and then dissipate. This process offered a direct mirror of my mind during meditation, when the spaciousness of awareness provides an INNER stage upon which all of the various thoughts, perceptions and emotions are able to appear like echoes out of nowhere and then dissipate once more. Just as it is incredibly fascinating to marvel at the number of different creatures that might appear upon the lake-surface, so meditation enables us to stand in awe and wonder at the great variety of thoughts that arise, not knowing precisely WHAT thought or perception will decide to appear next! Photo: Alpenglow on Skinny Fish Lake, Flattops Wilderness, CO, June 18, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  Yesterday as I summited a ridge, I could hardly believe what I saw in the distance - a new forest fire! It is burning in Colorado about three miles south of the Wyoming border, and the high winds we are experiencing in the high country have caused the fire to explode in size. When I got down into internet range yesterday evening, I saw that the fire (the Beaver Creek Fire) was at about 850 acres in size. When I researched it just now, I saw that it had grown to 3800 acres! I am somewhat concerned, because it is burning just north of one of my favorite backpacking destinations in the Park Range - the Seven Lakes area. However, that region is FULL of beetle-killed Lodgepole Pine and Engelmann Spruce trees. Subalpine Fir is just about the only species that is thriving. What amazes me is the fact that we went from having a surplus of snow in the mountains (where the fire is burning, it was 140% of the normal snowpack) to now having HIGH fire danger on account of the high temps (it was 96 degrees in Fort Collins yesterday - a record for June 21st) - and fires like this! www.denverpost.com/2016/06/21/wildfire-walden-grows-to-500-acres/ |
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
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