You were a perfect illusion
It was a perfect illusion
It was a perfect illusion
Somewhere in all the confusion
It was a perfect illusion, illusion, illusion.
 

Lady GaGa

If people stay somewhere long enough, the spirits will begin to speak to them. It’s the power of the spirits coming up from the land. The spirits and the old powers aren’t lost, they just need people to be around long enough and the spirits will begin to influence them” 
Gary Snyder

Tell me its nicer dreaming, visions soft and sure
No way to find theres nothing left to me and her
Nothing more but a heart still at war....

Counting Crows

I have been to the end of the earth, I have been to the end of the waters, I have been to the end of the sky, I have been to the end of the mountains, I have found none that are not my friends. - 

The Navajo

"As you look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear the circle of birth, life, and death. for when you stand in the present moment you are timeless."

Rodney Yee

Many have I loved - Many times been bitten Many times I've gazed along the open road.Many times I've lied - Many times I've listened Many times I've wondered how much there is to know. Many dreams come true and some have silver linings I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold. Mellow is the man who knows what he's been missing Many many men can't see the open road. 

~Plant/Page

When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

"I think over again my small adventures
My fears, those small ones that seemed so big
For all the vital things I had to get and reach
And yet there is only one great thing
The only thing
To live to see the great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world."
 

- Unknown Inuit

There mystery has been placed, but realising the vast hollow yonder makes me feel that the mystery is here I, who an here on the verge, standing on the margin of the sky, am in the mystery itself.

Richard Jefferies

“The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.”

Edward Abby

Chasing Rainbows in Independence California. Just the beginning of what would become a wild adventure into Utah and the land of the Ancients.

I have always been intrigued with ancient writing. There is something so profound about a civilization that survived on so little and left such a small footprint on this earth.

"If in these caverns you shelter take
plaise do them no harm.
Lave everything you find a round hanging up or on the ground"
P.Lynch
Sovereigns Of The Sage

Placer County

The love of the wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need - if only we had eyes to see.

 
Edward Abbey

The love of the wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need - if only we had eyes to see.

Edward Abby

Placer County

I have no riches but my thoughts,
Yet these are wealth enough for me;
My thoughts of you are golden coins
Stamped in the mint of memory;

And I must spend them all in song,
For thoughts, as well as gold, must be
Left on the hither side of death
To gain their immortality.

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

― Henry David Thoreau

Saturn on a line
A sun afire on strings and wires
To spin above my head and make it right
But any time you like
You can catch a sight of angel eyes all emptiness and infinite

And I dream of Michelangelo when I'm lying in my bed
I see god upon the ceiling I see angels overhead
And he seems so close as he reaches out his hand
But we are never quite as close as we are led to understand
 

Counting Crows

Remembering/Forgetting The Hurt/Pain ...Walking hundreds of miles... Remembering/Forgetting ... walking to heal... Seeing beauty after intense pain is like being born again. The haunting memories and the overwhelming tears streaming down warm cheeks in a cold breeze. Fighting back insanity and looking forward to better days.

"There is stress and there is always going to be stress in life. Different things will stress people and how they handle the stress is likely different from person to person. You have many things that stress you and may of these things also stress me".... 

We should never have to fight for love it should be a transition of love for each other along with acceptance of imperfectness... 

Much of the stress and emptiness that haunt us can be traced back to our lack of attention to beauty. Internally, the mind becomes coarse and dull if it remains unvisited by images and thoughts that hold the radiance of beauty.

John O'Donohue

I wanted so badly Somebody other than me

Staring back at me But you were gone

I wanted to see you walking backwards

And get the sensation of you coming home

I wanted to see you walking away from me

Without the sensation of you leaving me alone

Counting Crows

I walk along these Canyons in the summer 'neath the sunshine
I am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me.

Counting Crows
 

A long December and there's reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last

I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin'

Now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyons

And it's one more night in California

If you think that I could be forgiven I wish you would.

Counting Crows...

I did a marathon drive home from Utah .Driving from Escalante over the Burr Trail through Capitol Reef, Utah, Reno Nevada to California. I had to use 4 wheel drive over the summit in the high Sierras, the whole time in the back of my mind was low snow in the North Fork drainage.
As I drove into the lower sierras early in the morning with little sleep and feeling road weary there was an amazing greeting from the Dog Woods shining like fresh pearls among the Kellogg Oaks and Sugar pines. 
The first day home I hit my favorite Dogwood spot on a beautiful slope of B.L.M. land that has been brushed and well taken care of.
The Dog Woods are in full Bloom, and are spectacular this year even though we are experiencing severe drought conditions.
Home Day two the weather predictions of low snow were on the horizon, I prepared for a hike as the storm was clearing checking radar I headed out. I got to my favorite go to weather spot hiking in clearing clouds,at least I thought. I got to the canyon rim and as I got my camera out it started to rain no big deal get out the umbrella as so many times before, then WIND,then SNOW, lots of it. The dogs started stressing and I had to call it. This is where I should have just said ok how much colder and wetter can I get ? the dogs have fur their fine, but no I pack up in a raging snow storm and head back up a very steep slope meant for mules and miners I get to the top wet from rain, snow, and sweat. to see the storm break and shine some of the most beautiful light on the snow covered Pinnacles . I wanted to cry.... I walked away so sad ,cold ,tired, and wet. 
I just was not done, so I headed back up the road to the Dog Woods now in a few inches of snow... oh the sight of pale green and pearl white Dog Wood blooms draped in crystal white snow. 
So Not all was lost many images to post after the mowing, weed eating and pool cleaning and planning for my next trip back to Utah for a slot canyon adventure.
 

"I realized that I don't have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life. It's a trip more wonderful than I could have imagined."
Kerry Washington

Leaves

One by one, like leaves from a tree 
All my faiths have forsaken me; 
But the stars above my head 
Burn in white and delicate red, 
And beneath my feet the earth 
Brings the sturdy grass to birth. 
I who was content to be 
But a silken-singing tree, 
But a rustle of delight 
In the wistful heart of night-- 
I have lost the leaves that knew 
Touch of rain and weight of dew. 
Blinded by a leafy crown 
I looked neither up nor down-- 
But the little leaves that die 
Have left me room to see the sky; 
Now for the first time I know 
Stars above and earth below.

Sarah Teasdale

After almost a year of healing and finding my way once again I found this very inspirational writing I have changed some of it to fit the situation not sure where the credit goes but I will say Emily Faulk if I am found wrong please correct me. 
Most people who know me know that i lost my husband, my soulmate, my best friend  7 years ago this month from esophageal cancer, he was 37 years old when he died.  Life has not been the same but I have choose to live... I put myself in a very compromised situation in 2012 that has lead me down another path of healing... This letter just spoke volumes
 You Know Who You Are
Without pain we cannot understand the beauty of healing...
Thank You for setting me free.
Thank You for saving me a future full of pain.
Thank You for showing your true colors.
Thank You for giving me a reason for saying goodbye to the biggest blockade I ever faced.
Thank you for opening up my future again.
Thank You for giving me a reason to walk away and start over.
Thank You for reminding me I am worth so much more, and I don't have to take the emotional abuse and trauma of this experience lying down.
Thank You for showing me there are better ways to spend my time and my tears.
BEST OF ALL...Thank You for bringing me to my knees,for reminding me of what pain feels like, without pain cannot understand the beauty of healing...
Without bad one cannot understand good.
Without you I would not have lost myself, but because of you I have learned to LIVE again
You Know Who You Are.

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.

(Lewis Carroll)

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.

 
(Kurt Vonnegut)

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

(Louise Erdrich)

Leaves

One by one, like leaves from a tree 
All my faiths have forsaken me; 
But the stars above my head 
Burn in white and delicate red, 
And beneath my feet the earth 
Brings the sturdy grass to birth. 
I who was content to be 
But a silken-singing tree, 
But a rustle of delight 
In the wistful heart of night-- 
I have lost the leaves that knew 
Touch of rain and weight of dew. 
Blinded by a leafy crown 
I looked neither up nor down-- 
But the little leaves that die 
Have left me room to see the sky; 
Now for the first time I know 
Stars above and earth below.

Sarah Teasdale

Survival...

When I am all alone
Envy me most,
Then my thoughts flutter round me
In a glimmering host;

Some dressed in silver,
Some dressed in white,
Each like a taper
Blossoming light;

Most of them merry,
Some of them grave,
Each of them lithe
As willows that wave;

Some bearing violets,
Some bearing bay,
One with a burning rose
Hidden away --

When I am all alone
Envy me then,
For I have better friends
Than women and men.

Sarah Teasdale

 “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell

Inner Burned Soul
This pain I'm feeling like a knife to my chest 
Nothing goes right even when I try my best 
Now cloudy and dark, I lose all will 
Never seeing it through,the fate begins to kill 

Losing all feeling, with this cold steel in place 
I'll never feel pain again, I have lost the race 
Selfish it seems when thoughts begin to turn 
Nothing else matters as my heart starts to burn 

Ranting on to no one, as if it's the cure 
Passing is my life which I've lived so impure 
Not only am I confused, with my councious mind's thoughts 
But also with the way the inner soul rots 

They say it's the distance, or maybe the trust 
But maybe we were acting, in only pure lust 
If that were the case, then why am I here? 
To feel this pain again is my biggest fear 

Don't run from the truth, or the thoughts you have 
Only dread the actions when you cross their paths 
Laying down slowly, tonight is my last 
Weary eyes closing, now taking off the mask 

Not waking in the morning, in the place I once called home 
But rather in no place, forever I shall roam
© Thomas Johnston

 “Sometimes letting go is simply changing the labels you place on an event. Looking at the same event with fresh eyes.” ― Steve Maraboli

“Like any stage of the hydrologic process, we have our own peculiarities, our organs making us nothing more than water pools or springs of bizarre shape, filled with pulsing tubes and chambers.” 

Craig Childs

“Engrave in Marble all the good things that happen to you, and write in Sand all the bad things from the past. Let go the past, and never look back unless you plan to go that path. Life is within you Today right at this moment, and you will create Tomorrow".

“Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.” 

Mark Twain

Joy

I AM wild, I will sing to the trees,

I will sing to the stars in the sky,

I love, I am loved, he is mine,

Now at last I can die!

I am sandaled with wind and with flame,

I have heart-fire and singing to give,

I can tread on the grass or the stars,

Now at last I can live!

Sara Teasdale (1915)

If there is any life when death is over,

These tawny beaches will know much of me,

I shall come back, as constant and as changeful

As the unchanging, many-colored sea.

If life was small, if it has made me scornful,

Forgive me; I shall straighten like a flame

In the great calm of death, and if you want me

Stand on the sea-ward dunes and call my name.

Sara Teasdale

I should be glad of loneliness
And hours that go on broken wings,
A thirsty body, a tired heart
And the unchanging ache of things,

If I could make a single song
As lovely and as full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star
On a winter night.

Sarah Teasdale

Sea Longing

A THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
    Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
    The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
    And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,—
    Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
    The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
    Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,—
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
    Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

Sarah Teasdale

The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds in its net a wonder forever.

Jacques Coustea

“Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.”

Echart Tolle

“Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are."

Eckhart Tolle

"The disciples are drawn to the high altars with magnetic certainty, knowing that a great Presence hovers over the ranges ... You were within the portals of the temple ... to enter the wilderness and seek, in the primal patterns of nature, a magical union with beauty."
- Ansel Adams, Sierra Club Bulletin, 1931

Joy

I AM wild, I will sing to the trees,

I will sing to the stars in the sky,

I love, I am loved, he is mine,

Now at last I can die!

I am sandaled with wind and with flame,

I have heart-fire and singing to give,

I can tread on the grass or the stars,

Now at last I can live!

Sara Teasdale (1915)

People fall into two categories – gold and coal. To see the strength of their character you only need to put them through fire. Gold endures the flames to become a beautiful piece of jewelry. Coal burns fast and turns into ashes. Thus judge a person’s character not in moments of triumph, success and glory but in times of defeat, sorrow and loss.

Zoe Pearls of Wisdom

When the last living thing
Has died on account of us,
How poetical it would be
If Earth could say,
In a voice floating up
Perhaps
From the floor
Of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.”

Kurt Vonnegut

The glories and the beauties of form, color, and sound unite in the Grand Canyon - forms unrivaled even by the mountains, colors that vie with sunsets, and sounds that span the diapason from tempest to tinkling raindrop, from cataract to bubbling fountain.

John Wesley Powell

The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need – if only we had the eyes to see.
– Edward Abbey

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” – Johnny Cash

“No more cars in national parks. Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs--anything--but keep the automobiles and the motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places. An increasingly pagan and hedonistic people (thank God!), we are learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier than our churches. Therefore let us behave accordingly.” 

― Edward Abbey

“When you understand,” Brandy says, “that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan,” Brandy says, “then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.” ― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The elements that unite to make the Grand Canyon the most sublime spectacle in nature are multifarious and exceedingly diverse.”

John Wesley Powell

When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.

C.S. Lewis

Places
by Sara Teasdale
Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;
And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.

But before all else a work of art is the creation of love. Love for the subject first and for the medium second. Love is the fundamental necessity underlying the need to create, underlying the emotion that gives it form, and from which grows the unfinished product that is presented to the world. Love is the general criterion by which the rare photograph is judged. It must contain it to be not less than the best of which the photographer is capable. - Eliot Porter

The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer's understanding of his subject and mastery of his process. - Edward Weston
This is a place I return to each spring where an abundance of poppies bloom with an incredible view of the North Fork American River. On my hike back at the top of a steep climb the White Lupine in the Sky greets me, I always have to stop and enjoy its beauty.  It's not that they are rare but this is the only one I see in this particular canyon. On this evening we just happened t be having some RARE weather here in California with clouds and a slight sprinkle. I do love this spot and the view this evening.

The Wanderer

I saw the sunset-colored sands, 
The Nile, like flowing fire between, 
Where Ramses stares forth serene
And ammon's heavy temple stands. 

I saw the rocks where long ago, 
Above the sea that cries and breaks, 
Bright Perseus with Medusa's snakes
Set free the maiden white like snow. 

And many skies have covered me, 
And many winds have blown me forth, 
And I have loved the green, bright north, 
And I have loved the cold, sweet sea. 

But what to me are north and south, 
And what the lire of many lands, 
Since you have learned to catch my hands
And lay a kiss upon my mouth.

Sara Teasdale 

When I think of heaven (Deliver me in a black-winged bird) I think of dying Lay me down in a field of flame and heather Render up my body into the burning heart of God in the belly of a black-winged bird Don't try to bleed me I've been here before ...
~ Counting Crows ~

I had the privilege of photographing this amazing man on what I'd call a whim... The images and his amazing story has been published in Roadkill Magazine spring 2016 3rd edition.

Look at another person while living; the soul is not visible, only the body which it animates. Therefore, merely because after death the soul is not visible is no demonstration that it does not still live.
Richard Jefferies

 " I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ”

John Muir

No excursion can be made into the Sierra that may not prove an enduring blessing. Notwithstanding the great height of the summits, and the ice and the snow, and the gorges and canyons and sheer giddy precipices, no mountain chain on the globe is more kindly and approachable. Visions of ineffable beauty and harmony, health and exhilaration of body and soul, and grand foundation lessons in Nature’s eternal love are the sure reward of every earnest looker in this glorious wilderness.

John Muir

This is the alpenglo, the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light the mountains seem to kindle to a rapt religious consciousness, and stand hushed like worshipers waiting to be blessed. then suddenly comes darkness and the stars.

John Muir

The roads that Nature has opened through the heart of the High Sierra are hard to travel. So the sedate plodder of the lowlands would say, whether accustomed to trace the level furrows of fields, or the paved streets of cities. But as people oftentimes build better than they know, so also do they walk and climb and wander better than they know, and so it comes, that urged onward by a mysterious love of wild beauty and adventure, we find ourselves far from the beaten ways of life, toiling through these rugged mountain passes without thinking of a reason for embracing with such ungovernable enthusiasm so much stem privation and hardship.

John Muir

Sea to Summit Veil {mosquito net}

My Summer hike on The JMT... Looking forward to this summer with a lighter camera and a TRIPOD. ISO 1000 handheld Canon 5Dmkll 16- 32 mm lens the only gear I could manage solo hiking with a bear canister.

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty 
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through.

Joni Mitchel

Your photography is a record of your living - for anyone who really sees. You may see and be affected by other people's ways, you may even use them to find your own, but you will have eventually to free yourself of them. That is what Nietzche meant when he said, 'I have just read Schopenhauer, now I have to get rid of him.' He knew how insidious other people's ways could be, particularly those which have the forcefulness of profound experience, if you let them get between you and your own personal vision.

Paul Strand

Every soul is one step away from what they could never imagine...

October 13, 1971 ~ May 19, 2008

Because of the love and strength of this man I am able to do the things I do. I have always loved photography since I was in 4~H in the 6th grade.  While the children were young and Chris was going to school he could not afford to get me a full frame camera. Time went on and Chris got a better job and bought me my first digital full frame camera a Canon 5D MK l.  I was able to photograph my children and everything else I could.  He always encouraged me with my photography and every crazy thing I wanted to do... He was my rock.

   John 14:1

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.  Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?' Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’