Wildness Reflected - Mission Mountains View From Ninepipe Wildlife Refuge, Montana

“What would the world be, once bereft 
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, 
O let them be left, wildness and wet; 
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”

-Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), 

from Inversnaid 

Sun Up, Shore Bright - Peterson Lake, near Big Fork, Montana

“ …Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me 

keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be 
astonished.…”

— Mary Oliver (1935-2019), from “Messenger,” found in Mary Oliver’s collection Thirst

Pebbled Beach - Flathead Lake, Montana

“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” - Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Coffee’s On! - Flathead Lake, Montana

 

Still Water Lily Pads - Placid Lake, Montana

"....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...."

-from The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

(Listen here - even repeatedly, as I did! - to the author read this dose of utter loveliness and calm. I try not to gush, but Wendell Berry is SO gush-worthy...)

Reflection - Rainbow Lake, Montana

"The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image."

- Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932)