The full moon sets into a penumbral eclipse, sinking into the tree-lined ridge with spidery fingers of arboreal silhouettes etched across the lunar surface. Meanwhile, early commuters in the valley below sip steaming coffee and steer into another day of meetings, dealings, opportunities and confrontations, oblivious to the celestial spectacle along the ridgetop. ♨
A highlight of Forest Grove, Oregon, is a visit to the water treatment plant, where sewage feeds the Fernhill Wetlands. Before dawn the wetlands bustle with waterfowl and songbird activity as treated waters become the source of life for the thriving chaos of nature. In the aftermath of human waste, a natural place becomes possible.
Gazing into the blue-green depths through this watery portal to the underworld, we don’t see the fiery hell of our imagination, but instead only reflections of our own worlds. Our demons do not dwell in the boiling, stinking waters that ooze from the earth’s bowels. They dance instead in the forests and meadows that surround us. ♨
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is unlike any other canyon in color, charm, in picturesque calendar-ready beauty, wild and frightening.
Wonder-Land Illustrated by Harry J. Norton, published in 1873, was one of the first tourbooks recounting the Yellowstone experience for a general audience.
The Hoh Rain Forest waits as a patient guide, a moss-embroidered forest of wisdom, lined with ferns and storied over with trees older than memory.
Those who made the effort to witness sunrise from Mt. Cadillac in Acadia National Park in the 1960s could become certified members of the “Sunrise-From-Mount-Cadillac Club.”
