A note: I have been writing notes and stories and thoughts as I have gone along my journey, but not seeing any hits in the little counter when I signed in, I took a break. However, a few people have commented “what happened to your blog!?!”, so here I am writing again. I apologize for any broken hearts during my absence. In the words of Mark Twain, the rumor of my death is somewhat exaggerated

And now, a blog: there are a lot of stories to tell, and thoughts to share. Those will come with time, but I will re-start my story telling with something that happened this morning. I went out for a walk, as I do many mornings. In these walks, I often pass churches, most of which have steeples with bells–but I never actually HEAR the bells so it was a pleasant surprise to hear them this morning.

I stopped in to the church for a moment (and ended up there for the entire service, but more about that shortly). I was so enamored with what I saw and heard that I grabbed one of those little cards you can find in the back of your average church pew and scribbled some notes. Here they are word-for-word, in no particular order except for that in which I wrote them down:

• Rainbow Flag (draped along a wall/behind the cross)
• Psychedelic Jesus picture (artist on LSD?)
• Mixed architectural themes
• Guy in a Las Vegas T-shirt
• Guy in a suit and tie
• DJ/Keyboardist in a T-shirt
• Older lady drummer (and a pretty decent one, too)
• Mixed service features
  • Communion drink/bread on a table up front
  • Rock Band
  • Time for “Sharing God’s Peace” (greeting other parishoners, similar to in a Catholic mass)
  • Liturgically themed, but no straightforward “liturgy” with the exception of one congregational reading and the Lord’s Prayer
  • Time for meditation/personal prayer
• Woman Preacher (good message, good story teller)
• No pulpit, though there was a small lectern on the center ‘table’ on the platform and a music stand everyone moved around
• Older building
• Organ pipes, just a few (maybe they were just chimes?)
• Big wood cross off to one side
• Columns
• Traditional stained glass windows (except the psychedelic Jesus one)
• Old time pews
• Architectural themes VERY mixed, from Gothic Cathedral to pioneer/American, Victorian, and modern (among others)
• The preacher threw the bird! (Yes, she flipped us all off–as part of a story, but still…not many people can say they were flipped off during a sermon, by the preacher!)
• The center table with the communion stuff had a butterfly and rainbow themed tablecloth on it

And now some thoughts.

1. At first I sat down because I was curious, and wanted to take in the scene before me, but as the service continued I was drawn more and more to the atmosphere of the church.
2. I was greeted numerous times, even by congregational members not in my pew–despite my coming in midway through the song and praise service and simply sitting down in the back.
3. The message/sermon discussed the golden rule. It was one of the more pointed and entertaining sermons I have heard on that idea in a rather long time. At one point the woman speaking made a comment to the effect of:

“and we, as gay people…[I missed most of the next sentence, being surprised by this comment]…understand very well some of the reactions people–even those who know us relatively well–have when they discover we are gay. We are still the same person, with the same abilities, but for whatever reason we are sometimes seen or treated differently.”

That is not an exact quote, but should convey the idea. She then went on to talk about how important it is to treat others with respect regardless of how they view us.

4. The psychedelic Jesus. The more I looked at it, the more it grew on me. He had a relaxed, nearly prone posture (on his back) not unlike God in the famous God-meets-Adam painting, with his arm outstretched. But instead of reaching out to Adam, He was reaching out to an empty nothing, to everyone. And instead of looking at Adam, he was looking out at you. (There were actually many arms. I wasn’t sure if they were reflections, or actual arms, but he appeared to have several fainter arms pointing different directions–all to abstract colorful emptiness).

   This was all imposed over a black background. Lots of colors, and gemstones, and shiny bits I couldn’t identify covered the entire mural. While it wasn’t anything like how I have personally imagined Jesus, it was strangely uplifting, as if Jesus were in Heaven, with lots of random colors and decorations. (Well, if I were tripping it might look like Heaven). I apologize for not having a picture of this amazing piece! Like the Bible says, words can not describe .

Up until this point I assumed I had walked into a variant of a Unitarian-Universalist Church (the name over the door was “Metropolitan Community Church of the Rockies”), but at that point I began to take further stock of my surroundings. It dawned on me that there was a reason there were so many same sex couples (and some ‘straight’ couples too). In the first moments of realization I thought “…and now is when I feel awkward…” but that was not the case.

The longer I sat there, the more relaxed and comfortable I felt. No, I am not coming out as gay (I am quite happy with women, thank you!), but for whatever reason the atmosphere was such that I was OK with simply BEING. The greeters at the door didn’t ask if I was gay, or ‘community church whatever’. They greeted me and pointed me to several seats, some part way up the aisle (despite my having been rather late to the service). Somewhere between the mixtures of dress, ‘status’ (I saw a homeless man sit next to a well dressed executive type), architecture, decoration, and so on I actually felt very comfortable.

I could go on, but it would result in too many of my own words, so I will close with the communion invitation, hastily transcribed onto another card and copied carefully onto my computer:

This is God’s table, and all are welcome here. Wherever you are in your spiritual journey, you are invited to join…come, take a cracker and dip it in the juice, then go and be blessed.

I don’t know where each of you stand on matters of gay rights, or salvation for homosexuals, or similar debates tearing up the Christian world at the moment. But I know where this church is in terms of displaying a joyful and Christlike atmosphere–and it is right on the mark.

Metropolitan Community Church of the Rockies: if you are reading this, thank you for an excellent morning, and may others follow your fine example .

Between the cities of Denver, which lies at the very western edge of the prairies and plains of the Midwest; and Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles ) the major cities of the west coast, are nearly 1,000 miles of desert, mountains, canyonlands, and other relatively inhospitable lands. People do live here, but there are no cities or towns of any significance save one: Salt Lake City.

‘Founded’ in 1847 by Mormon emigrants fleeing persecution in the east, Salt Lake City has grown to become a major stopover for many who traverse the west today. With the (relatively) new system of state, federal, and interstate highways travel is much easier today than it was 150 years ago, but despite the plethora of routes headed east and west across the country, the Salt Lake City area is still a hub of transportation and travel–even if you don’t stop there, you will (like as not) still drive through or by. Even if you take I-70 west from Denver on your way to Los Angeles, (the southernmost Interstate before one gets to New Mexico) you come within 100 miles of Salt Lake City. Nearly a dozen other routes that transect the west to connect Seattle, Spokane, Boise (to the north) and Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Southern California with Denver, Cheyenne, and the midwest all route through Salt Lake City. It really is a crossroads–at least geographically speaking.

But enough about where it is. WHAT about Salt Lake City? I did some exploring:

• I ran into some cool hippie/peace loving anarchists. I found a free speech shop that was (almost) more liberal than most I had seen in Santa Cruz. THAT was both surprising and pleasant. I had several great conversations with some of those folks. By in large they are a bit more liberal than I am in some areas, but I can definitely sympathize with a lot of their ideals and dreams. The girl at the shop explained the movement, while not new, had been fairly limited until quite recently–and that it has since begun to grow. I wish them luck in bringing this new crossroad to their part of the west.
• Salt Lake City has a ridiculously amazing library. Not only does it have an incredible number of resources, the largest ‘zine collection of any public library (or so I’m told), but it LOOKS amazing. It even has a rooftop garden! More on that in a few. The main library actually won a Library of the Year award in 2006. Here is a picture from the outside. It is the building that is NOT the clocktower (the clocktower is on City Hall):
  
• Kuma was not allowed in Temple Square, but we did spend time wandering around that part of town. This is a short photo essay on a few of the more curious things we saw:
  
  In case you can’t make it out, this building has a waterfall on it! It starts just below the tower, in that open area. It then drops over a series of falls, each fall wider than it’s predecessor until it finally collects in a fair size pool at sidewalk level. When I was there in 2006, we were able to take a tour (with a human friend, not Kuma) and one of the priests on site told us the waterfall is actually part of the air conditioning system! Unfortunately, we did not have sufficient time for him to explain the details to me. The building also had extensive gardens on the rooftop, which were not only aesthetically pleasing, but an integral part of the building’s climate control as well. There are several other really neat features to the building, but I will only mention one here–the balcony in the main auditorium area has no support pillars holding it up. If you stand on the main floor it is completely open from front to back without so much as a brick to support the immense balcony–it is instead balanced by a counterweight on a long arm. Picture: (not mine)
  
• Peeking through the gate into the Temple area, we saw a couple taking their wedding pictures. I thought it was interesting that the Bride and Groom were so far apart–they took a whole set of pictures like this! The bride is also facing sideways, although it is hard to see in my picture, while the groom is facing forward. That was curious to me as well:
  
• This is the Temple, as seen from across the street. This is a composite image stitched together by image recognition software on my phone, which occasionally glitches, so you may see some weird spots:
  
• At one point we stumbled upon this image etched into a rock:
  
  My initial reaction was “James White!” (link for my non-Adventist friends). ‘Twas somewhat confusing as I have no association between James White and Salt Lake City despite my deep familiarity with his story–none significant enough to warrant a picture on a rock, anyway. Turns out my reaction was misplaced–click on the picture for the real (uncropped) explanation.
• This is Kuma holding up the fort. Or maybe pulling it over, I’m not entirely sure. Ok, so it’s not a fort, it’s the Temple…regardless:

And so it goes. We were ultimately in Salt Lake City for a week (we left Superbowl Sunday, for Denver).  There are many more stories, of course. All in due time And a few pictures, too, but the rest of the pictures have longer stories with them and really deserve their own posts, so for now I “leave you from within the shadow of the everlasting hills. May peace be with you, this day and always,” the traditional closing words of the Music and the Spoken Word.

I thought I saw one tonight. While walking with the dog in Liberty Park (a moderate size park in Salt Lake City) I noted what appeared at first to be a person climbing around on a bulldozer across the way. As we walked closer, the person appeared to climb into or onto the cab, and play with the controls. The machine did not turn on, the person sort of just meandered and floated around in the general vicinity of the cab.

My first thought was “Huh, I’ve just caught a prankster” which was followed swiftly with “oh cool, a ghost!”. Upon hearing myself utter the second thought, I said “Self, wait just a minute”.

After further investigation I discovered the cause, which consisted of several components:

• The bulldozer
• A street beyond the bulldozer (from my perspective)
• A car on that street
• A for realsies person, between the bulldozer and the street

As the car drove down the street behind the bulldozer, its headlights lit the person from the back and cast a shadow in front of them, which happened to fall on the bulldozer. From my perspective I could see neither the person nor the car for several seconds.

As the car drove, and the person walked, the shadow moved around the bulldozer. The illusion was very complete—legs, arms, and heads were all moving in relatively appropriate manners.

It is interesting what our brains will tell us with an incomplete set of information. Even skeptical as I am of the existence of ghosts, the idea that it WAS a ghost was still the first (ok, second) idea that popped into my head. Granted it came as a playful idea, and not a particularly serious one—but even so it gave me pause. If I–with experience as a night security guard (three years worth—it paid the tuition!), a tendency toward non-acceptance of ghosts, and as one practices reassessing my instinctual reactions to any non-life threatening situation–can have as my initial reaction “ghost!” what must be the thought of someone with only some, or none of these skills/viewpoints?

Some would instantly say “shadow!”, and if I had been paying more attention to the scene instead of my dog at that instant, I may have too. Fact is that I didn’t, though. I thought “prankster…ghost???”.

It would be cool if ghosts existed, at least some ghosts (can’t say I’m fond of Bloody Mary). But I suspect most or all ‘event’s are something similar to what I experienced tonight. Sure, others may not involve bulldozers or headlights, but there should be some other natural explanation which fits that particular scenario or event. At the very least it is wise in my humble opinion to try and rule out all natural causes before assuming there is a supernatural element. Or if one is accepting of a supernatural element, then I think one should not impose (which is different than ‘share’) that on others without some sort of supporting evidence.

Could there be ghosts? Sure. But I have a better question: how does one get people from saying “I know it was a ghost” to “It may have been a ghost, a rat, an owl, or a random alignment of objects (headlights, people, bulldozers)”.

I don’t expect anyone to give up a belief overnight–especially if they have had a particularly striking encounter with the supernatural or paranormal–but I do wonder how I can turn “it was a ghost!” into “well, the idea of it being a ghost crossed my mind–but wait until I tell you what I found around the backside of the bulldozer!”

The trip up 93 from Vegas went about as well as could be hoped for, though there was some confusion near the end as to where to drop of my rider. Eventually it got sorted out, though. I hope he is well and safe, and will leave it at that.

In other news, just as we were leaving Las Vegas (about 12 noon) I got a message from someone responding to an ad I had placed on the SLC Craigslist site. I mentioned that I had a car with room and good gas mileage and offered space going…places. And got a call!

Just tonight (Thursday) I met with the girl here in the SLC public library. She ran off to see this evening lecture (in which I have only moderate interest and bigger priorities). Iam presently writing blog stuffs, uploading pictures, and searching/responding to Craigslist business. When the lecture gets out we may continue our discussion which will necessarily include timing of the trip to Denver. Wyoming weather can get NASTY, so we want to time it well.

The dog and I visited around Salt Lake City today, but that is deserving of its own post which I will (probably) write in the morning. For now, good evening from Salt Lake City, the Crossroads of the West!

Kuma holds down the fort. Or tips it over. One or the other

One does not usually think of miles of trails and interpretive signs, only minutes (literally) from the Strip. But that there are! Red Rocks is just one of several public lands managed by the BLM or the State of Nevada available to the general public for recreation.

Kuma and I visited two areas of Red Rocks Canyon, both being just west of town on Charleston Road (thank you Janet and Jeff for the suggestions). Unless I wax poetic about the natural history or ecology of the area, there is not much to say that you can’t see in pictures, so here they are!

A cool rock formation

Playing around on the rocks

He is quite the climber, it turns out (and also afraid of heights)

Some flowers I came across, growing out of a crack in the rock (sorry for the poor focus)

The view from the top

The world is a pretty cool place, and seeing it from the road is no exception. While I was teaching, or working on the Canopy Tour I strove to remind people that the places they were seeing, and the things I was telling them WERE cool, pretty, special, and on and on. But not because I was spoon feeding it to them—but because it existed, and they were able to witness it. I was merely fortunate enough to be their guide . Of course, some places are easier to appreciate than others (Redwood Canyons from over 100 feet in the air being among them), but there is beauty everywhere if you learn to look for it.

Tonight was one of the easier moments, and I just want to share it with you briefly. I saw the most incredible thing. I drove out of Las Vegas, down a dark desert highway (cool wind in my hair…no smell of palitas, though) in order to get Kuma out of the car and perhaps catch a few winks before he, I, and rideshare friend pedal up the hill to Salt Lake City next morning. The library had closed, with it’s rather pleasant high speed connection, and it was getting late—a good time to let the dog out since traffic is minimal .

As we played I noted what I thought were the city lights on the clouds down at the end of the valley—lights from The Strip, the airport, downtown all mixed together at this distance to produce a variety of colors on the low lying fog, which mixed together into an orangish city glow in the higher clouds. An occasional plane slid by silently. And then, a mystery!

The clouds behind one hill were particularly bright orange, and try as I might I could not figure out what building or complex might be contributing to this phenomona. I watched for several minutes (between the occasional passing car) until I saw an egg shaped orange object appear behind the clouds. It was the Moon!

For nearly half an hour it rose slowly—a large orange blob suspended over the city. Its face simultaneously was crisscrossed with dark, stringy clouds and illuminated the thinner, airy fog. It was very pretty, and constantly changing. It was moments like this that I had a quality SLR camera capable of capturing such moments. A tripod wouldn’t hurt, either.

I did manage to snap a few shots with my cell phone, and while woefully inadequate they may give you the smallest idea of what I was looking at. I like that despite the limitations of the phone on the camera, you can still make out the horizon, that is just the coolest thing to me. (Clicking will enlarge the pictures).

I suppose my question to you would be: (and I don’t need an answer now, just stick it in your brain to mull over later) what have we missed because we were driving too fast? Or dismissed something too quickly? Or said in typical tourist/human form: “Oh nice! *Snap* Where’s the next thing?” and then swivel our heads to the next sight without having seen the first.

Cameras and cell phones are ubiquitous and cheap. What else is out there? You can enjoy, and often even record whatever it is even without a fancy piece of equipment. Toys are nice, don’t get me wrong—but even without them, what can you capture?

All the pictures in this blog are taken with my cell phone camera unless otherwise indicated. A simple 2mp limited settings, short focal length piece of glass and plastic. I guess what I’m saying is they aren’t neat pictures because I had nice equipment—they are neat pictures because I looked for the picture as I went along, and then figured out how to make my equipment capture it.

There are limits, of course—like my desire for the Moon shots tonight. But just because you lack the fancy toys to record the big, pretty scenes doesn’t mean you can’t take a minute and enjoy them. Or, if you have time and a dog, 20 or 30 minutes. And enjoy it.

Beauty is found everywhere—it is easy to find it in National Parks and campsites and on roadtrips because it is spoonfed at those places. But it exists in pine cones, and in cornfields, and even in those little cement squares around sidewalk trees. Find it. Record it. Share it.

To me, at least, paradoilea are relatively rare–and when I do see them, it is abstract: the headlights and bumper of a car might be an example.

Two exceptions could be made for Monday the first of February, however. We’ll start with the more obvious one:

I stumbled across this rock in Red Rocks Canyon area midafternoon. The light was just right…in real life I thought it was a pirate, but now I see a stoic older gentleman lost in thought. Perhaps a bit pinched, but who knows.

Then there is this next one, which is a little more abstract. In fact, I did not notice it until it was pointed out to me by a friend:

This one we saw Monday morning in the glass of an unpowered TV. Look at the TV screen in the middle (the dark square) to see it. Look at the reflection. Do you, too, see Jabba the Hutt?

In retrospect, maybe the first is NOT a pirate…OR an old man. Maybe it is…A STORMTROOPER!!! (note: stormtrooper image not mine)

People are always seeing religious characters in inanimate objects, from Jesus on grilled cheese to elephant deities in flowers. And maybe those things really are miracles, but that is a digression from my question: I wonder what it says about someone (here’s looking at you, Jeff ) if they see science-fiction characters in inanimate objects? Er…wait…I saw the storm trooper…

I’ll be back later! Gotta go check on myself

For example, I visited a really neat wetlands. It was artificially created and has a lot of dumped concrete and other relatively clean waste, water, mud, and an ongoing project in which people plant/monitor stuff. The information kiosk at the entrance said the park contains 300 species of plants, and nearly 200 species of animals, which is remarkable to say the least. It is big–a mile long, at least, and probably half a mile across. The park is part of a water treatment plan–I am familiar with the concept but do not know the details of this particular set up. The part Kuma and I visited looked something like these two panoramic shots:

Immediately off the parking lot were a few concrete sidewalks. At first I wondered about this, but I soon discovered the NON-hardened trails were mud heaven, I was up to my ankles in the stuff (still went anyway, but that’s besides the point).

As we wandered through the sidewalk trails in amongst the reeds, I noticed something interesting in a number of spots:

Those are animal tracks. Most places I saw them, they were from one animal–a rabbit, a pair of quail, etc. This picture includes coyote and rabbit both, which is kind of neat.

This was all very cool (once I got over the “how many freaking animals are running around with concrete feet!” part), until I came across this set, then I laughed out loud:

These sets come from a duck, or a sea-gull, or some such. But that’s not why they made me laugh. Here, look closer:

Did you see it? Huh? Huh?

There are only FIVE tracks!

Last time I checked, most birds had two legs…not sure if there was a hoppy bird, or (as I suspect) the park staff actually created the tracks artificially. Looking cursorily, the sets I saw looked ‘real’ enough (though I am hardly a professional tracker), but after I saw this I noticed a couple other things, too:

• All the tracks, with only one (or two) exceptions, had the animal running from right to left across the trail. ALL of them.
• The raccoon tracks found the trashcan and wandered around it. It is worth noting here that the trashcan was bolted down with no ‘trashcan’ track in the concrete. It could NOT have been there when the concrete was laid and the tracks were made…plus the raccoon tracks were HUGE, the biggest I have ever seen by a long, long shot.

So in the end I am uncertain as to the origin of the tracks, but I enjoyed them regardless

And I did find some real animal tracks just off the trail, in the mud:

At first I thought the bird tracks were from a turkey, but after some investigating I realized the whole area had just been under water (it had rained a few days earlier), and not only that but some of the bird tracks were HUGE. Check this one out, for example:

I am pretty sure this guy was my “turkey”. Found him wandering about in the holding ponds, looking for fish.

I am especially proud of that picture: it was taken with my camera *through* my binoculars, with no tripod or brace. In addition to the egret, note the sun reflected in the binocular lens! I thought that was a pretty neat artifact. I suspect the larger track was made by a Great Blue Heron, but I didn’t see any the day we were there, they must have been elsewhere. In addition to this egret, I saw:

• Coots
• Two types of grebes (Pied-billed) and (Clarks or Western)
• Ducks galore: at least three species–some were divers, others were more your Mallard type
• Seagulls

I am pretty sure on most of the species, but I completely forgot to check myself in the bird book. I will update when I remember to do that.

I left Santa Cruz on Friday afternoon with a $5 bill (I put about $10 in the tank to assure I got to San Francisco to meet my first ridesharer, so I only had the fiver leftover). The drive from Santa Cruz to the San Francisco City line (about 60 miles) took me almost exactly one hour.

The drive from the SF city line to the rendevous with James (the ridesahre/snowboarder guy) was only about ten miles–but it took me almost another hour. I took this picture at a dead standstill, a few miles into a miles long stop and go traffic jam:

I, at least, got a big kick out of the “SLOW DOWN TO 35″ when I *might* have been doing 1/10th of that speed. Regardless, traffic was successfully fought, and I dropped him off near Donner Pass about 11:30. Not only was James a really neat guy (James: if you’ve found this, it’s true), but he filled the gas tank on both ends—which I was not expecting, and very (very) much appreciated. After dropping him off with his friend, I thought I might get back down the hill sixty miles or so to some relatives, but:

For those of you not from the snowy north, that is indeed snow! While we outran the rain that had been coming onshore in San Francisco, it managed to catch up to us by the time I turned around to head the ten or so miles back to the Donner Pass rest area. There was a chain check station, where highway officials check that your chains are in the car, and sometimes make you put them on depending on conditions.

When I got to my turn at the station, the checker just smiled at me and waved me through —no check, no questions, just “have a good night!”. I love my Subaru. The picture above was taken as I pulled out the next morning.

So that was Friday and Friday night. Next morning Kuma and I played for a while off the highway somewhere outside of Reno:

Ok, so I cheated. Don’t tell anyone, but this picture was actually taken in Las Vegas three weeks earlier than the stories in this post occured. You would never know, though, and it does get the point across nicely

After playing with Kuma for a while, and also playing phone tag with a few other people, I met this little guy (below), who had somehow managed to put an ad on Craigslist seeking a ride to Las Vegas. In exchange, he offered all gas paid for.

Well, I gave him a ride to Las Vegas, and dropped him off to his new owner late Saturday night (Reno–>Vegas is only about 400 miles). Gas money in hand, and some in the tank, I was now the proud holder of $50 (put some in the gas tank) $35 cash! AND a bag of food! (No picture, sorry). It is more than I had had 24 hours earlier, which is progress! And so now I am in Vegas, stretching my dollar, meeting friends (several now), and waiting for responses from a few Craigslisters wanting rides to various locations.

You might think a roadtrip in which I am ‘sitting’ around town waiting for riders, with limited cash, would be boring. But it’s not! That said, Vegas is its own story and will be told momentarily. Or, if you read the other post first, then was told a little few minutes ago :S.

I took a walk this morning. The last, perhaps, in this place I have invested so much. The last for a while, at least. Were there a salary, and some decision making power, and perhaps one other thing, I would love dearly to stay on as a forester of sorts.

But there is not; and in so many other ways, too, it is time to move on. I head out this afternoon, into a vast, deep, unknown future. Throw unforgiving and uncertain in there, too. I won’t be offended. I head out with confidence, and await whatever is coming.

But I took a walk this morning, in my last hours here, and this is what I saw:

By all reasonable measures, insignificant. Most who take a walk along the trail will pass this by (or have already). Some may notice it (naturalists, hint hint–it’s along the Blue Trail), and fewer still will be able to identify it (it is Tarweed, a relative of daisies and dandelions).

But identifying it is not the point. Nor is not identifying it, or misidentifying it. The fact is, it’s there and that–to me, at least–is huge.

I took a walk this morning, and saw it. It in multiples of its kind. A huge, expansive patch of them. (Ok, so the patch was a few feet wide by a few feet long, but that’s a lot for Tarweed). I saw a huge, expansive patch of small green leaves and tall, dark dead stems, and I rejoiced. For you see, in this spot a year ago, there were none.

A year ago, I took a walk this morning, and I saw this:

Broom. Invasive. Grows so thick it chokes out all but the sturdiest trees. It even crowds out animals as it eliminates their food, their habitat, and their runways. I took a walk that morning, a year and more ago, and decided I would change the world. As time rolled on blood and sweat were spent, and perhaps a few tears, too. In some ways, progress could be seen as patches cleared (of broom), but in so many others progress was stagnant. No one listened, at times. Or cared, at others. Sometimes it rained more in the soul than in the forest. There were good times, too, of course, scattered liberally throughout.

I took a walk this morning. And this is what I saw: A set of small, green leaves, as seen above. Insignificant in the scheme of things, but deeply satisfying none-the-less.

A year from now, when I take a walk, this is what I will see:

Tarweed, in bloom. Small. Overlooked. Miniscule.

From frustration to success.

Significant.

I took a walk this morning. Did you?