Just as rivers can flow and give their strength, they can remain still in silence and peace. A source of nourishment and contemplation, we are put to ease and rest. From the beauty, balance, and order, we are made whole for a time. Time enough to regain a perfect peace. By providence and Spirit as the winds and waters settle upon us.
Low elevation overcast skies at a distance to remind an observer of a different mood. By place and circumstance, there is a separation of daylight and darkened skies. To affect a perception among a population about the quality of the day. At least for a while until the layer burns off. For a period of time while people go about their lives in a thin middle area between the earth’s surface and its cloud cover. A middle layer of providence and calm, or a layer to veil what is just beyond and what is to come.
A common view depending upon the day or season. The contrast and character of upward tree growth. A seemingly infinite range of diameters, shades, and shapes. All unique where the trees are as people by where they stand yet different by what they do.
Big Baldy outcropping in Sequoia National Park. The prominent mountain formation en route to the summit of Big Baldy. Where the tree-line and its alpine features are at a relatively uniform elevation. With granite formations that do not support as much vegetation while having significant reach or stature. Very little ground cover with talus and scree spread out here and there.
A finite number of Sequoia trees exist as they grow in the wilderness that hosts them in just the right conditions. While not as plentiful as the sands on the shore of any sea, they are limited nonetheless as a life-form. A purpose that at least testifies of their enormity relatively speaking. Their unique character, shape, and bearing stands out much more prominent as a comparison to other tree creatures of the forest. A lion of the forest, so to speak. Not as a predator, but as a king of the conifer species.
Asymmetrical balance of light cast upon a lake and its sky above. With reflections of color, shapes, land, and sky, a visual message appears to tell us a story of beauty and peace. A natural setting to contemplate, be at rest, and consider what is just beyond the horizon before us.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Ps. 51:10-12
There are times when out and about the trail just vanishes. Or at best becomes sketchy. The Windy Cliffs upside the mountain in Kings Canyon is just such a place. The trail comes and goes while cut horizontally along a cliff with a slope greater than the angle of repose. Meaning, enough rock slides happen on their own weight where a trail gets knocked out or covered. And that’s especially disconcerting when a trail is at best 12″ or so wide while making your way along the slope along a cliff. When you pull and hang onto vegetation roots along a path to keep going when you know you shouldn’t.
Another long walk back. From a high desert summit plateau just West of the Mojave. Places like this help me with perspective about individual significance and value. It’s sort of like looking up at the stars in wonder. As if our comparative individual size and stature have full bearing on our relevance or rarity. Other than size, what “weight” or significance does a person have among far-off places like this? Since we are self-aware sentient beings with the enormous significance of a different type. Are we not valuable and meaningful in the grand scheme of things?
A ‘sub-atomic’ speck in the universe from one perspective and individual singularities from another.
The Kings River runs along the bottom of Kings Canyon. Much of it alongside a two-lane paved road down to the bottom-most part of the canyon at Cedar Grove. With so many places to find a place to park and explore. Or to just find a road to turn off and set out in a different direction. Even better, on foot with a full heart and camera in hand.
At Kaweah Gap, there is this widely familiar monolithic and natural structure along the route. A few days casual hike into the wilderness. Alongside Precipice Lake is this standing cliff just below its immense rocky ascent above. From one side of the lake or the other, a place to fall for or a place to fall over. A place normally either calm and welcoming or with strong winds whipping through.
This is why there is sometimes the false choice of seeing the forest through the trees. To dismiss detail, beauty, and a way to go. Where there is shelter, safety, and acuity in the detail. The forest gives context, situational awareness, and bearing. There is just as much unseen here as there is seen and observed. What is the place doing? What happened here? Who or what feeds off this place? How are the vertical surfaces formed? What do the leaves, wind, and birds say? What angle of elevation is this at? What is dying and what is thriving? Why is moss predominately concentrated on one side of most trees? When did that lightning strike? How much snow weight did those small branches have to bear before being stripped of their growth?
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