I suppose there’s comfort in knowing some nature shall remain on this planet after we temporary human occupants annihilate ourselves through war, famine, pestilence or broadcasted toxicity. I certainly hope the new occupants will take better care of the place.
I have never seen the Grand Canyon, but your writing makes it come alive. I spent some time in Nee Mexico about 20 years ago visiting a friend and it was amazing and beautiful. I agree with you about the power of the natural world to heal our wounds. I live on a river in a village in NH, and the river is always present, sight, sound, ( well frozen in winter) but having a larger, cycle present helps to break out of the turmoil present today. River’s going to flow. I am sure you know the poem by Wendell Berry called The Peace of Wild Things ? Going to just leave it here. Seems appropriate. ♥️ thank you for your writing.
The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
Thanks, Linda, I hadn't thought of Berry's poem in a long time and it's great to be reminded of it. If I could, I would simply motorcycle to national parks and BLM lands and hike and explore endlessly. Might happen yet. Also, get thee to Arizona. You will find the canyon to be life affirming and emotionally overwhelming with beauty.
I was there some years ago and it felt surreal (as a tourist from overseas) to be picnicking in The Grand Canyon.
But it didn’t compare to the next time I saw it.
Six years ago we were flying from London to Vegas, cruising at about 35,000 feet when the wife said to look out the window. There, far below, was The Grand Canyon.
The view of it, from that height, was absolutely breathtaking. I will never forget it.
Your description of the moving feeling the standing at the south rim was exactly how I felt the first time. Having left religious belief and faith in a god left me long ago along with the Baptist church, but standing there looking out over the vastness left me with a spiritual feeling I never experienced in any church atendance or Bible study. I too feel that natures beauty always washes my mind of the ills of the world.
Thank you for sharing this, it’s the first time I’ve heard someone describe the exact same feeling I had.
Thanks, Mike. I think anyone who is able to look out across that canyon on not feel something inexplicable moving in them is already kind of dead. The experience is generally impossible to articulate, though it's always fun to try. I appreciate you reading!
I first visited the Grand Canyon in September 2001. Its size and majesty silenced me — which does not occur often.
I also was stunned by the naming of its features, such as Shiva's Temple, Cheops Pyramid, Apollo Temple. Someone along the way had realized this was a world treasure and named its features after people and places from the world's great mythologies. Some features were also named after Native American tribes which had inhabited the Canyon for centuries before.
Can you imagine that happening today? No, we'd have the Spiro Agnew Outcropping and the Tip O'Neill Butte. Thank goodness for Clarence Edward Dutton, one of Powell's colleagues and mapmakers, who had the imagination and vision to celebrate a truly world-significant site with great names from the world's treasury of stories.
A nice piece of information for enjoying the canyon that people wouldn’t know had they not read history. I just finished Wallace Stegner’s “West of the 100th Meridian” about Powell’s two trips down the canyon and how they created scientific protocols and policies for settlement of the West.
I suppose there’s comfort in knowing some nature shall remain on this planet after we temporary human occupants annihilate ourselves through war, famine, pestilence or broadcasted toxicity. I certainly hope the new occupants will take better care of the place.
If the new tenants are related to us, I wouldn't expect a different outcome of their stewardship.
I have never seen the Grand Canyon, but your writing makes it come alive. I spent some time in Nee Mexico about 20 years ago visiting a friend and it was amazing and beautiful. I agree with you about the power of the natural world to heal our wounds. I live on a river in a village in NH, and the river is always present, sight, sound, ( well frozen in winter) but having a larger, cycle present helps to break out of the turmoil present today. River’s going to flow. I am sure you know the poem by Wendell Berry called The Peace of Wild Things ? Going to just leave it here. Seems appropriate. ♥️ thank you for your writing.
The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Thanks, Linda, I hadn't thought of Berry's poem in a long time and it's great to be reminded of it. If I could, I would simply motorcycle to national parks and BLM lands and hike and explore endlessly. Might happen yet. Also, get thee to Arizona. You will find the canyon to be life affirming and emotionally overwhelming with beauty.
I was there some years ago and it felt surreal (as a tourist from overseas) to be picnicking in The Grand Canyon.
But it didn’t compare to the next time I saw it.
Six years ago we were flying from London to Vegas, cruising at about 35,000 feet when the wife said to look out the window. There, far below, was The Grand Canyon.
The view of it, from that height, was absolutely breathtaking. I will never forget it.
Your description of the moving feeling the standing at the south rim was exactly how I felt the first time. Having left religious belief and faith in a god left me long ago along with the Baptist church, but standing there looking out over the vastness left me with a spiritual feeling I never experienced in any church atendance or Bible study. I too feel that natures beauty always washes my mind of the ills of the world.
Thank you for sharing this, it’s the first time I’ve heard someone describe the exact same feeling I had.
Thanks, Mike. I think anyone who is able to look out across that canyon on not feel something inexplicable moving in them is already kind of dead. The experience is generally impossible to articulate, though it's always fun to try. I appreciate you reading!
I first visited the Grand Canyon in September 2001. Its size and majesty silenced me — which does not occur often.
I also was stunned by the naming of its features, such as Shiva's Temple, Cheops Pyramid, Apollo Temple. Someone along the way had realized this was a world treasure and named its features after people and places from the world's great mythologies. Some features were also named after Native American tribes which had inhabited the Canyon for centuries before.
Can you imagine that happening today? No, we'd have the Spiro Agnew Outcropping and the Tip O'Neill Butte. Thank goodness for Clarence Edward Dutton, one of Powell's colleagues and mapmakers, who had the imagination and vision to celebrate a truly world-significant site with great names from the world's treasury of stories.
A nice piece of information for enjoying the canyon that people wouldn’t know had they not read history. I just finished Wallace Stegner’s “West of the 100th Meridian” about Powell’s two trips down the canyon and how they created scientific protocols and policies for settlement of the West.