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Posts Tagged ‘henry david thoreau’

Life: There’s Nothing Simple About It

Posted in Journeys, Nature, Writing, tagged , , , on February 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

“ G**D**! How magnificently, intricate, interwoven and complex this all is. How can we make ourselves worthy of our limited comprehensions of such magnificence?” — George Sibley

Taking on Henry David Thoreau

The complexity of nature means when the water level is low here, wading birds are the prominent species. When it's not so shallow, ducks claim it as their habitat. -- Photo by Pat Bean

The complexity of nature means when the water level is low here, wading birds are the prominent species. When it’s not so shallow, ducks claim it as their habitat. — Photo by Pat Bean

            I’ve long been a fan of Henry David Thoreau, whose quote,- “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” has long been a personal mantra. But after reading his famed book, Walden, I was left with a nagging thought that parts of it were like Jell-O that never set.

It's not a simple thing becoming a plant from a seed. Everything has to work just right. -- Photo by Pat Bean

It’s not a simple thing becoming a plant from a seed. Everything has to work just right. — Photo by Pat Bean

Now I’m all for living a simple life. My daughters sometimes even chastise me because my kitchen gadgets are few and my can opener a manual one. And I’m truly against buying stuff – that lesson was doubly taught me when I got rid of everything to move all my possessions, plus me and my canine companion into a 21-foot motor home. I was amazed at how many things I had two of – and didn’t even know it.

But I don’t want to live in the woods without a bathtub and eat beans. I want to enjoy at least some of the benefits the human race has accomplished in its lifetime.

Even nature is not simple. It’s complex, as I learned as a reporter covering environmental issues.  You try to save one plant or species and you impact another. You practice conservation and you take away somebody’s livelihood. A tragic flood or fire also comes with benefits.

And when it comes to relationships, each one has so many different complexities that you couldn’t even began to count them.

Nope, life is not simple. So we might just as well embrace it, as Sibley pointed out in his essay, featured in the anthology, When in Doubt, Go Higher.

Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.

Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.

Bean Pat: On thin Ice http://tinyurl.com/gl4wgbh My kind of outdoor adventure, especially at my age.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Infinite

Posted in Journeys, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , on October 16, 2013| 9 Comments »

Tucson sunset -- Photo by Pat Bean

Tucson sunset — Photo by Pat Bean

  “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of dawn.” Henry David Thoreau

Can you feel the passion in this sunset? I can. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Can you feel the passion in this sunset? I can. — Photo by Pat Bean

Sunrises and Sunsets Come in Infinite Colors 

An Arkansas pink and purple morning. -- Photo by Pat Bean

An Arkansas pink and purple morning. — Photo by Pat Bean

A Texas dawn. -- Photo by Pat Bean

A Texas dawn. — Photo by Pat Bean

And I love them all — infinitely.

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Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , on June 7, 2013| 4 Comments »

Time Changes your Life

“Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.”– Khalil Gibran

And your Journals

I write these days more about nature than I do about the daily chaos of living. -- Photo by Pat Bean

I write these days more about nature than I do about the daily chaos of living. This is  a photo of Taggart Lake in Wyoming.   — Photo by Pat Bean

Henry David Thoreau once said that his journals became less personal as the years went by and he found less drama and entanglements in his life.

Reading those words gave me pause to contemplate the changes in my own journal writing. This blog actually makes up about 90 percent of my journaling these days.

In it, I talk much more about birds, nature, magical landscapes, my dog Pepper, writing and the books I’m reading – and my reactions to these topics — than I do about the personal business of living.

That’s quite the opposite of my early journal writing, when I was bogged down in raising children, trying to find love after it failed me again and again, worrying how to survive until the next paycheck, feeling that I wasn’t good enough, and worrying about children who were nowhere to be found at curfew. I probably had enough chaos in the first 50 years of my life to keep a soap opera going daily for 20 years.

And I could journal forever about the birds I see every day, like this northern cardinal. -- Photo by Pat Bean

And I could journal forever about the birds I see every day, like this northern cardinal. — Photo by Pat Bean

Some of that inner anguish, when I could face it, was written down in my journals in the expectation that no one would ever read what I was writing but me.

In total contrast, here I am today keeping a very public journal, and loving it. I won’t say that my life doesn’t still go through an occasional soap-opera installment, but time has given me plenty of experience to know life will continue on even without the drama.

            Bean’s Pat: Memory Lane at the Museum http://tinyurl.com/ljrr9eb I love the comparison of scenes. A Thomas Moran print of Shoshone Falls on the Snake River hung in my home for many years. The artist also painted  Devil’s Slide in Weber Canyon, which was located  not to far from my former Utah home.  FYI: The reason  the color of  Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone has changed is because of human pollution especially coins thrown into the hole. The first time I saw the pool, many years ago, it was still emerald green,

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A Morning Walk with Pepper

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Nature, tagged , , , on March 8, 2013| 12 Comments »

       “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” — Henry David Thoreau

A view looking east over Tucson from my apartment. - Photo by Pat Bean

A view looking east over Tucson from my apartment. – Photo by Pat Bean

Cactus and Birds and Mountains

          I finally am out of the heavy, clunky boot I’ve been wearing for almost two months after breaking my ankle. 

A lesser goldfinch

A lesser goldfinch — Photo by Pat Bean

         The doctor said I’m healing well and lifted all restrictions, telling me just to take it easy and go to physical therapy for the next six weeks.

          The best part of all this is that I’m now back to taking Pepper on two of her four daily walks. Hopefully by the end of next week it will be all four.

          This morning’s walk, meanwhile, was fantastic. Without ever leaving my apartment complex, I got good photos of an impressive saguaro cactus, mountains to the east and west, and a lesser goldfinch.

          Of course I wanted to share.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: 29 ways to stay creative http://tinyurl.com/a7guy52 Good ideas, and fun, too.

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Blue Ridge Parkway: Roanoke River Crossing

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , , , on October 28, 2012| 4 Comments »

             “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.” – Henry David Thoreau.

Pepper pulled me down the trail, and I was hard pressed to keep up and not stumble. But when she pulled me back up the trail, I thought: “Oh what a good dog you are.” — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 32

Oh goodie! I’ll be able to get a good picture of the Roanoke River. — Photo by Pat Bean

I’m suffering a distorted kind of writer’s block as I try to blog about my 466-mile journey down the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s not that I don’t have things I want to tell you about this amazing adventure, but that I have too much to tell you and too many pictures to choose from that I took along the way.

My thoughts seem quite jumbled. I think I need to stop thinking so much about trying to put things in order and just get on with the writing, tackling it piece by piece for the next few days, or as Anne LaMott said so well, “Bird by Bird.”

I got a great shop of the bridge that crossed the Roanoke River, but the view of the river itself from the viewpoint was blocked by foliage. — Photo by Pat Bean

This day Pepper and I crossed the Roanoke River, and had a fantastic view of it from the bridge high above it. Of course there was no place to stop and take a picture, which was why I was happy to see a trail head leading down to a viewpoint right after we exited the bridge.

It was a great little hike, in which I was pulled both up and down the trail by Pepper, but no decent view of the river. I’d have to make sure I filed the bridge-crossing view somewhere in my little gray cells, I thought.

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An Easy Trail With a View

Posted in Favorite Hikes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on June 22, 2012| 10 Comments »

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

The start of the trail from the Grotto shuttle bus stop. Come hike me the trail called to me. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

Walk the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail With Me

Rocks form a mysterious tunnel shortly before the trail descends to the Emerald Pools. — Photo by Pat Bean

A two-mile trail between the Grotto and Zion Lodge, the Kayenta/Emerald Pools Trail in Zion National Park is ideal for wandering/wondering old broads like me. It has only a mild, 150-foot-elevation gain but there is something to see around every bend in the road.

The May day I walked it, I had a playful squirrel, hoping for a handout which it didn’t get, follow me for a while, saw a magnificent blue-bellied lizard, and had excellent views of the Virgin River Valley 150 feet below me.

Of course there were flowers: Indian paintbrush, columbine, shooting stars, wall flowers and daisies, just to name a few.

These were expected. What wasn’t was the short tunnel formed by rocks that one had to pass through and the opportunity to walk behind a waterfall.

The waterfall was only a trickle this day, but it was still cool to walk behind it. — Photo by Pat Bean

I wish you had been with me.

Bean’s Pat: Darla Writes http://tinyurl.com/7bl7zo6 The best writing advice ever. I promise. Tell me if you agree.  This wandering/wondering old broad’s blog pick of the day.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Launch

Posted in Journeys, Travel, Uncategorized, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , on January 7, 2012| 9 Comments »

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” – Henry David Thoreau

Launching myself out of an airplane was a scary moment -- but I smiled all the way down. -- Photo by NikNak

I’ve always thought the advice to do something that scares you at least once a year was good advice. Besides the jolt of adrenalin it gives your brain, it helps in gaining a true appreciation for life.

Following that advice wasn’t hard to do when white-water rafting was my passion. But with age, that activity drifted away with the currents. I found that canoeing was more in tune with my body.

When I turned 70, I got my annual  jolt of adrenalin by jumping out of an airplane, which I thought perfectly fit this week’s photo challenge.

But I now I face another challenge. What can this wandering/wondering old broad do this year to scare herself. I’m open to suggestions.

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