From the Faraway, Nearby

this vanishing land

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:41:00 +0000

Central Florida in January

this vanishing land

is a magical place where

fall and spring collide

Crossing an unseen threshold into a world of incredible beauty

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:48:00 +0000

Gloss Mountain State Park - Western Oklahoma

A Winter Morning's Walk in an Urban Jungle Still Dressed for Fall

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:59:00 +0000

Stinchcomb Wildlife Refuge in Urban NW OKC

A Roadside Visit to the In Jesus Name Community Church of Faith, Hope & Love of Houston, Arkansas

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:31:00 +0000

Roadside Chapel - Houston, Arkansas

A delightful surprise on the Little Rock to Conway "backroads" route, this church was built at the turn of the last century and was originally home to the Houston United Methodist Church. The building was added to the National Register of Historic places and is now called the In Jesus Name Community Church of Faith, Hope, and Love.

Sunrise on Paperwhites; Morning on the Farm

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:03:00 +0000

All images shot from P. Allen Smith's Garden Home Retreat

©trryan 2011

The Flame Trees of Perryville

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:33:00 +0000

In the Ouachita National Forest; with autumn's tight grasp on December, outside of Perryville, Arkansas

Fatal Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:30:00 +0000

The Sacred Way

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:16:00 +0000

The Sacred Way - Bear Butte
Near Sturgis, South Dakota

Morning Commute - Giudecca Island, Venezia

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:45:00 +0000

Room with a View - Giudecca, Venezia

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:45:00 +0000

View from Room 2 - Domino Home Hotel, Giudecca, Venice

I will be a Hummingbird

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:14:00 +0000

It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.

- Wangari Maathai

The conservation movement is mourning the loss today of one of its heroes - Nobel prize winner Wangari Maathai died of cancer yesterday in a Nairobi hospital. Best known for creating the Green Belt Movement which planted more than ten million trees around Kenya, Maathai's work centered on improving the lives of women and making the connection that when the land is sustainable so are the people. She was the first African woman to win the prize.

In October 2008 Maathai spoke to a sold-out crowd at Oklahoma City University as part of the university's Distinguished Speakers Series.

She changed my life. She showed me what a powerful woman's voice not only sounded like, but felt like. And she taught me as we traveled through villages what interdependency is all about - environmental issues are issues of social justice.

-Terry Tempest Williams

Photo from Taking Root Website

RIP Wangari

Riding the Milky Way on the Edge of Dawn

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 03:14:00 +0000

Altocumulus clouds over the southern Utah desert as seen above from seat 6E

About the Photograph:

This otherworldly photo was shot with my Iphone on 9-24-11, as the sun was rapidly setting behind the plane, from seat 6E on American Airlines flight #1528 from San Francisco to Dallas. The photo was processed using Instagram.

Baja Medley

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 02:30:00 +0000

About the Photographs:

The photograph was shot this morning while walking on the beach near San Juan del Cabo on the southern-most tip of the Baha Peninsula in Mexico just as the sun was rising out of a cranky Pacific Ocean.

Shot with: iPhone 4 Camera and processed using Instagram. Some of my favorite photo apps for iPhone are found here.

To Stand in the Glow of that Translucent Cone

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:40:00 +0000

Sunrise on the Niobrara
July 2011

"Set wondered what it would be like to be inside, to sense the sanctity there, to stand in the glow of that translucent cone, inside the light, to breath the holy, medicinal air."

N. Scott Momaday - The Ancient Child

About the Photograph:

This photo was shot on a cool, foggy July morning at the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge outside of Valentine, Nebraska just above the Niobrara National Scenic River with an i-phone camera. Cool and foggy being the operative words this day as my home state of Oklahoma was in its seventh week of extreme drought and searing daily temperatures topping well above 100 degrees by noon each day. This divine moment and its fantastically cool temperatures and its complete absence of any human presence was a heady load of paradise and I was pleased with the way the i-phone captured the feeling of the morning as I sensed it. It was indeed like standing in the glow of a translucent cone, as Momaday so eloquently writes, breathing in holy, medicinal air.

I was on the third day of my "50 by 50" road trip (my quest to get all 50 states by my 50th year) having just passed through Kansas, a tiny, tiny slice of Iowa and across most of Nebraska on my way to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Iowa and Nebraska became states #46 and #47 on the life list, #48 South Dakota would be within reach that same morning.

The Niobrara River is a breathtaking, gently-moving river and the equally stunning valleys and canyons it carves out of the Sandhills and the Great Plains are celebrated for their ecological and geographical diversity. A visit here is a must for any traveler wanting to experience the sublime beauty of western Nebraska and America's heartland. For more information visit Niobrara National Scenic River, the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge and the impossibly charming city of Valentine, NE. And go here to "Like" the Niobrara National Scenic River on Facebook. It's always good to show your appreciation for these last great places that are ever-more becoming rare.

The Ancient Child

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:41:00 +0000

Coming Full Circle
Blogger with Ed Young, fellow graduate of PCW High School '79
Walking the Sacred Hoop at Bear Butte in South Dakota

Medicine Wheel
Blogger with Roger Lasthorse, Oglala Lakota (Sioux)
Medicine Wheel, Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming
July 27, 2011

"I think he is about to be transformed....."

N. Scott Momaday

The Ancient Child

The God of Small Things

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:25:00 +0000

The wild overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives - rat snake, yellow bullfrogs, mongoose.

-Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things

Outrageously beautiful Coleus

Rabid Wolf Spider

Spicebush Swallowtail on Ironweed

Ruby-throated Hummingbird on Cardinal Flower

Handsome Trig (bush cricket family)

Half the joy in life is in little things taken on the run. Let us run if we must - but let us keep our hearts young and our eyes open so that nothing worth our while shall escape us. And everything is worth its while if we can only grasp it and its significance.

-Victor Cherbuliez

Carpenter Bee

Pink Gentian - the queen bee wildflower of Indigo Hill

Unidentified Cricket

Unidentified frog freshly emerged from the tadpole sanctuary

Milkweed Tussock Moth Larvae on Common Milkweed

We can do not great things, only small things with love.

- Mother Teresa

Pokeweed

Unidentified Grasshopper

Prairie Coneflower

Milkweed Tussock Moth Larvae on Common Milkweed

Pine pitch

Unidentified Hymenoptera

Spotted Apatelodes Moth Larvae

Spined Micrathena

Great Spangled Fritillary

Duranta erecta is a species of flowering shrub in the verbena family Verbenaceae, native from Mexico to South America and the Caribbean. Common names include Golden Dewdrop, Pigeon Berry, and Skyflower. In Mexico, the native Nahuatl name for the plant is Xcambocoché.

The God of Small Things is alive and well and living in Whipple, Ohio

Field Notes: The Definitive Answer to that Age Old Question.....

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Ursus Americanus scat in blackberry season

The Ledges - Swift River Reservation

Petersham, MA - August, 2011

Yes, a bear "does that" in the woods! And I believe this takes "poetry of place" to an entirely different level.

Thanks to Julie Zickefoose for the ID and to Debby Kaspari for a very "eventful hike" in the Massachusetts' woods where every snap of a twig in the deep, dark forest held promise of meeting the owner of this! Hiking with a heart beat!

Heaven's Quick Hello

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:46:00 +0000

A swallowtail flew
along with us on the run,
landed at my feet.

I had to stop, step
over her. I did not miss
Heaven's quick hello.

-Julie Zickefoose

If Edvard Munch Could Bark

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:37:00 +0000

Jose's Remedies and Herbs

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:33:00 +0000

Little Kings

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 08:54:00 +0000

Baptism by Butterfly; Baptism by Fire

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Originally posted October, 2007

This past weekend I took my seven year-old nephew Brendan to Tenkiller Lake in northeastern Oklahoma for a little nature getaway -- as I have promised to do regularly since moving back.

I believe that those of us not raising children, for whatever reason, are in a unique position as non-active parents to influence kids in ways not always possible by their hard-working and hard-loving parents. Sort of the good-cop/bad-cop dynamic, if you will. It was certainly that way for me growing up as I longed to tumble into the warm hugs of my various unconditionally-loving grandparents, aunts and uncles. If it really does takes a village -- then they certainly provided the soft, subtle edges with which to explore and examine life without the fear of parental objection...i.e. the dreaded "no" and "because I said so".

In returning to live in Oklahoma I arrived with the hope that I might be able to provide a parallel universe for my nephews and nieces; one that created a more significant connection to the natural world and perhaps would also allow for nature to rank an equal if not more compelling landmark in a geography rife with organized sports, television and the computer. Spending time with kids in nature is a responsibility those of us fighting for the welfare of the environment need to take much more seriously – it is without question an investment toward the protection of those sacred outdoor spaces we so dearly love and cherish. I feel the time spent with my nephews and nieces out in nature is not only an investment toward their emotional and physical well-being but might even inspire their future stewardship of our planet.

The trip to Tenkiller Lake was my third outing with Brendan since returning home in August. These adventures are always taken with the hope that those mysterious forces of the natural world would arrive bearing some unimaginably wonderful surprises to create and inspire that sense of wonder so often missing in kids today.

In our first outing, posted previously, Brendan got a very timely, first-hand, close-up lesson from a western diamond-back rattlesnake; so far – so good. In our second outing at the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, he stepped out of an ice-cold swimming hole formed by spring water trapped in slick travertine rock and was instantly covered from head to toe by about a hundred brightly-colored yellow tiger swallowtails.The idea of butterfly kisses took on a whole new meaning in that moment as I watched this shivering boy undulate in the currents of warm air and butterfly wings on this August afternoon.

For a brief moment I thought he might suddenly be carried aloft – slowly rising like a wayward balloon meandering in the thermal currents created by the sheer number of so many softly beating wings. Butterflies and boy together suspended in the fleeting shafts of bright light from the afternoon sun were nothing less than pure poetry and looked as if they had arrived from some other heavenly, ethereal place beyond the pale grasp of this moment. Brendan’s mother, who died during his birth, was crazy about yellow butterflies and it was not hard to imagine that these beautiful winged messengers arrived with her belated but tender kisses. I could only hope this baptism by butterfly would prove to be such a remarkable moment for Brendan that it would keep him engaged and longing to return to the natural world in order to sustain his heightened sense of wonderment.

Last weekend during our outing in the eastern part of Oklahoma still designated as "Cherokee Country" we took an early morning walk on a lightly-traveled path that wound through dense thickets of oak and hickory forest, cut through layers of limestone rock stacked like the loose and crumbling walls of ancient ruins and meandered down to the crystal clear shores of Tenkiller Lake. When we arrived to the shore Brendan announced with wide-eyed bafflement and a sense of nervous alarm that the lake was on fire. A very warm day was followed by a very cool night and now what looked like wisps of smoke were being fanned off the water by the early morning breeze giving the eerie sensation that the water was indeed on fire. Ah, the bountiful grace of nature seldom disappoints and I cannot contain my gratitude as it leaps and bounds in these magical moments.

And within that hazy instance of serendipity and perfect grace marveling at Brendan’s reaction to the smoky mirage on the water -- I realized this moment was not necessarily all for Brendan. Suddenly, I too was seven years old again -- marveling at that same abject sense of wonder I experienced the first time I discovered a whole new world in the mixed woodland and prairie fields hidden on the fringe of my suburban life so many years ago.

It seems I have come full circle and I arrive some forty years later -- seven years old again and reveling in that first moment that the natural world caught my eye and commanded my senses for what would prove to be the entirety of my life. And that’s when it suddenly dawned on me -- standing there next to Brendan as that watery fire danced and swirled and disappeared into the warming air - that this overwhelming drive I had to see the world was born from that unending sense of wonder and discovery the natural world provided during my childhood years.

For the last 22 years I have lived the wanderer’s life - traveling the world not only as a career choice – but to feed this unquenchable desire for discovering new places. Six continents and 85 countries later – I finally understand that this desire to travel and discover the world was seeded in those simple, tender moments of play in those childhood fields inspired by that same sense of wonder and awe that only nature exacts.

Update

July 2011

Four years later - back at the sacred water hole.

The Circle of Life

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Belfast, Northern Ireland
June 30, 2011

An Afternoon in Death Valley (3)

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Starry, Starry Night

noreply@blogger.com (T.R.) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 12:55:00 +0000

May 2011
Newport Coast, CA