“Beside the grand history of the glaciers and their own, the mountain streams sing the history of every avalanche or earthquake and of snow, all easily recognized by the human ear, and every word evoked by the falling leaf and drinking deer, beside a thousand other facts so small and spoken by the stream in so low a voice the human ear cannot hear them. “ — John Muir (1838-914, Mountain Thoughts
“It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.”
— Simone Weil (1909-1943)
(Thank you, Tim Ferriss for this hmmmm-provoking gem.)
“There's this gap, Jack. This opening between the story it is and the story I had wanted it to be - that's where the pain is, and that's where God came in and where I now hope transformation can happen.”
“For too long we avoided that gap, didn’t we?”
“Yes. I turned way from it with every preoccupation known to man. But no more.“
Jack donned his tattered grey fisherman’s hat… “Whenever you’d like to talk about it, you know, our friendship is big enough even for the sorrow.”
—Patti Callahan in Becoming Mrs. Lewis (the audiobook is quite lovely!)
“The second day in Oxford arrived, luminescent, the honey hues of sunlight falling from the leaves to settle on the grass like spilled paint. The air was as clear as glass and soft as cotton.” - from Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan, Chapter 12
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p.97
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
“We are all passengers on this little mossy ship, this delicate dory sailing round the sun that humans call the earth. Joy, shipmates, joy. “ — Edward Abbey (1927-1989), The Hidden Canyon — A River Journey)
“It has become my way to dispense with incessant seeking in favor of stumbling upon answers. In the words of Picasso, "I find, I do not seek.” No longer desperate to know every outcome these days I tend to wait and see, a far more satisfying way of being that lacks specificity and instead favors experience over analysis.”
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p. 163-164
“Here, where much more is hidden than apparent, I am reminded that a companion to mystery is peace; that knowing less and wondering more offers expectancy.”
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p. 163
“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.”
– Theodore Roethke (1908-1963), from Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke
“ “But I no longer want to edit my behavior, twisting myself up like a pretzel.“
“You won't ,” she assured me. "Now that you've tasted the other, you won't go backwards. It'll be better than ever, you'll see. Just let whatever comes flow through you and then away.
Everyone is after the same thing, y'know. It's called intimacy. The only way to experience it is to be yourself.” “
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p.138
-from This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, page 443
“In every good tale there is a seed of truth, and from that seed a lovely story grows. Some of what I've told you is true and some ... well , let's just call it the bloom on the rosebush.”
-from This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, page 444
“It was his favorite tree and he
would sit in its shade all day
and smell the flowers.”
-from The Story of Ferdinand
by Munro Leaf, Drawings by Robert Lawson
“Yet are these things more difficult to accept than that all of existence came out of a single, random moment when cosmic gases exploded? Our eyes perceive so dimly, and our brains are so easily confused. Far better, I believe, to be like children and open ourselves to every beautiful possibility, for there is nothing our hearts can imagine that is not so .”
-from This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, page 444
(Big thanks to Sissie #3 for this glorious walking scenery shot!)
“Montana, you go fifty-five you never get anywhere. When you do get someplace, it is North Dakota.”
-from The Tumbler, A Gabriel Du Pré Mystery by Peter Bowen (1945-2020), page 4
“Now that your worry has proved
such an unlucrative business
Why not find a better job?”
― Hafiz (1315-1390)
The rightness of grasses not mowed to conformity, shrubs and willows allowed to spread within mostly natural inclination ...there’s something about the ...mmmm...I hate to say ‘balance’ but maybe more at ‘compromise’ of this cheek-to-jowl coexistence between accessible wildness and the minimal human constraints in the best kind of campground.
It feeds something in me. Perhaps it mirrors my own inner seeking - like water seeks its level - to be simultaneously unfettered yet at rest within this life season’s constraints.
Click here to hear the meadowlark serenade of my soggy boggy traipse in pursuit of this vie near Ronan, Montana.
Just when I’d given up on any chance of seed starts in my windowsill, hope springs anew! (I’d ‘bean’ hoping - hah!) This humble garden bean reminds us to persevere, even when 2 weeks of dutiful watering seems a bust. In the broader sphere (no broad bean puns, you garden people!), we often are not privileged to see in this life the deep work begun in other’s heart-soil by our seemingly simple daily kindnesses. Just keep planting or watering or whatever you’re supposed to be doing, and trust God to honour your faithfulness to painting in your little part of the big picture.
Such gorgeous greeny greens all along today’s drive route to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho ! I don’t know how I’ve never seen this before, but the new needles on tamarack pines (that turn vibrant yellow and lose their needles in fall) spring out in electric bright green. Grateful to be out under the big sky on such a zesty day!
- from First Light by Richard Bauckham
“The air turned soft. The flowers rioted on the foothills and along the watercourses and clover bloomed. It was the few days between winter and the dusty summer when the earth held water for a moment, People opened the windows of their houses and let air wash through They looked at the beds of iris and the camas lilies, up and brilliant and gone in a week. “
-from Long Son, A Gabriel Du Pré Mystery by Peter Bowen (1945-2020), page 152
What a week - Sunday was shorts and t-shirt sunshine, Monday saw enough snow in the Bitterroot Valley that Corvallis, MT, called a snow day and canceled school!
Springtime in Montana reminds us that change is part of life and there are no regrets when we choose to be fully present.
I never really thought about it before, but: Where else in the world can you watch football surrounded by views like this?! You can check out game day pics and stats here from Montana Grizzly fans, who must be among the most grateful sport enthusiasts...
