Unrestrained River

Elwha River Trail, Olympic National Park

Hiking along the River. I can hardly recall the last time I walked along a River. We humans confuse a Channel with a River. The channel for delivery of human goods. And for dumping human trash. The source from which to take water for growing human food. And from which to take energy for living human ways. Shackling a River into the Channel to make her work for us... Hiking along. Watching. Listening. Crystalline Burbles. Meandering cheerfully. Pushing through cliffs. Unbounded energy. Working for nobody. And for everybody.

Peculiarly Squirrelish

Fells Reservation, Massachusetts

Red Squirrel. With complicated Latin name: Tamiasciurus Hudsonicus. She is not an urban creature. Prefers the freedom of forests. Not very many remain on Fells. Seeing Her here is a real treat. Recalls John Muir's enchanting writings about Douglas, her close cousin from the Pacific Coast.

All the true squirrels are more or less birdlike in speech and movements; but the Douglas is preeminently so, possessing, as he does, every attribute peculiarly squirrelish enthusiastically concentrated. He is the squirrel of squirrels, flashing from branch to branch of his favorite evergreens crisp and glossy and undiseased as a sunbeam. Give him wings and he would outfly any bird in the woods. His big gray cousin is a looser animal, seemingly light enough to float on the wind; yet when leaping from limb to limb, or out of one tree-top to another, he sometimes halts to gather strength, as if making efforts concerning the upshot of which he does not always feel exactly confident. But the Douglas, with his denser body, leaps and glides in hidden strength, seemingly as independent of common muscles as a mountain stream. He threads the tasseled branches of the pines, stirring their needles like a rustling breeze; now shooting across openings in arrowy lines; now launching in curves, glinting deftly from side to side in sudden zigzags, and swirling in giddy loops and spirals around the knotty trunks; getting into what seem to be the most impossible situations without sense of danger; now on his haunches, now on his head; yet ever graceful, and punctuating his most irrepressible outbursts of energy with little dots and dashes of perfect repose. He is, without exception, the wildest animal I ever saw,...

JOHN MUIR, The Mountains of California

A Day for Watching

Keokea Bay, Hawai’i aka Big Island

The Hurricane has just passed by the Island. First Thought: The Waves. No surfers today. They say: It is too chaotic. Or too dangerous? I do not see the chaos. It is the Size. It is the Power. Crushing into the Cliffs. An Infinite Energy. Giving IT to the Cliffs. To the Air. And to Me. In millions of flying droplets.

Nor'easter is Here Again

Fresh Pond, Cambridge, Massachusetts

For all of us Here, Nor'easter means Strong Winds and Lots of Snow. It happens whenever Tropic and Arctic decide to visit us at the same time. Creating THIS Amalgam of Beauty. With the Message: We are all HERE!

The Ice on Center Stage

Fells Reservation, Massachusetts

It is Cold. Very Cold. No snow today. The Ice on Center Stage. Sculpting along the Streams. The Ponds. Wherever Clear meets Dense. Glowing Fantasy.

How Distant from the Nature?

Lake Angeles Trail, Olympic National Park

On the ascent to Lake Angeles. The Trees all around. The Sun coming through. Making IT feel like a Stage. Popping flowery grounds. The Stream gurgling. And then the Emerald. Among the Mountains. Back down through the Forest. The Hiker en route to the Lake. Stopping. Chatting. Waves Goodbye. Moving On. I spot this letter. Pinched by the branch.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep,
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn's rain,
I am the soft, uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft star that shines at night,
Do no stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Are we humans REALLY that Distant from the Nature?