Almost-Spring Brings Renewal - Grant Creek, Missoula, Montana

“Rivers have what man most respects and longs for in his own life—a capacity for renewal and replenishment, continual energy, creativity, cleansing.” — John Kauffman (1923-3014), A Look At Our North Atlantic Rivers

Simple Focus - Missoula, Montana

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
— Herbert Simon (1916-2001)

Faerie Cottage, Perhaps... - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“ You and I who still enjoy fairy tales have less reason to wish actual childhood back. We have kept its pleasures and added some grown-up ones as well.” -C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Perfect Golden Gloaming - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"...When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting..."
-  Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885), October's Bright Blue Weather

(The colours really were this perfect!)

 

One Daisy - Teller Trail at Teller Wildlife Refuge, Corvallis, Montana

"...the infinite wealth of Christ’s infinite heart is thine today as though the sun should shine to light one firefly, or the Amazon flow to water the roots of one daisy."   - F.B. Meyer (1847-1929) from The Love Of Christ, Which Passeth Knowledge

 

 

Pocket Of Clear - Missoula, Montana

The 

wind 

whirls and 

whittles out 

pockets of clear

amidst besetting 

haze

-ch

Aspen Dusk - Missoula, Montana

"The light is amber, the air still... Soon, the hooded blue of dusk will fall, followed by the darkness of night and the sky writing of the stars, indecipherable to us mortals, despite our attempts to force narrative upon them."
- from The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg

Purling Creek - Missoula, Montana

"The sky was delft blue, the sun strong. Now and then a breeze teased the branches overhead, tapping them gently against one another. To my right the creek purled softly as it coursed over rocks abandoned by glaciers long ago." - Kathy Reichs, "Deadly Decisions", p. 68

Check in on the latest meanderings of the Sri Lanka travelers at JourneysWithGod.com .

Fence Walk - Missoula, Montana

Fresh snow before I left Montana two-ish weeks ago.  Summery Sri Lankan weather makes that seem a very loooong time ago.

Keep walking along with the Sri Lanka trip at JourneysWithGod.com .

Secret Country - Missoula, Montana

"Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country. Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect." - from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

Powerful Wet Stuff - Rattlesnake Creek,Missoula, Montana

"Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?" - from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

First Snow - Missoula, Montana

"Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes—like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night - little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the image of her. The real shape wil be quite hidden in the end." - from A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Woods On Every Side - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"But when day came, with a sprinkle of rain, and he looked about him and saw on every side an unknown woods, wild heaths, and blue mountain, he thought how large and strange the world was and felt frightened and small." - from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (Nov. 29, 1898 - Nov.22, 1963)

Vibrant Trees - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“Have you ever stood at the edge of a great wood on a high ridge when a wild south-wester broke over it in full fury on an autumn evening?  Imagine that sound.  And then imagine that the wood, instead of being fixed to one place, was rushing at you; and was no longer trees but huge people; yet still like trees because their long arms waved like branches and their heads tossed and leaves fell round them in showers.  It was like that for the Telmarines.  It was a little alarming even for the Narnians.” – from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

Trees Awake - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty, old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his fact and hands, with hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! --she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the Lady of the Wood.”

― C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

Future Forward - Missoula, Montana

“…Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?"

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."

"Oh dear," said Lucy.

"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "… what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.”

― C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, Chapter 10

Existing Moss - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“It is enough that things exist for God to be unavoidable. Let us but grant to a bit of moss or the smallest ant its due nature as an ontological reality, and we can no longer escape the terrifying hand that made us.” - Jacques Maritain (1882-1973)

Winding Glade At Greenough Park - Missoula,Montana

"The heart has a yearning for the unknown, a longing to penetrate the deep shadow and the winding glade, where, as it seems, no human foot has been." - Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)

Wattle Fence Winding - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

"...And long, winding fences, and gray, rimy stone,

Like living things gleamed; 'til the light faintly thrown,

Died far off in the distance away..."

- from Poems (22.Uncle Enoch) by Elizabeth Fawcett Townsend

The title page notes that the book includes "Poems by the late Elizabeth Fawcett Townsend, Printed at the Request of Personal Friends". The printing was in 1862, a few months after the author's death, according to the lovely and personal preface.

As this work is in the public domain, you can read the full text of this and Townsend's other generously printed poems here, and see the scanned pages here. Should you prefer a first edition hard copy,  John Taylor Books will carefully ship this lovely one to you.

Winded Woods on Grant Creek - Missoula, Montana

“When the wind blows through a wood, its mass is cut and closed by every leaf, forming a train of jittery vortices in the air” - AliceOswald