I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
      – Kurt Vonnegut

Only at the periphery of our lives, where we and our understanding of God alike are undone, can we understand bewilderment as occasioning another way of knowing.
      – Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.   
       - Joseph Campbell

Gandalf to Bilbo – “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
   ”I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anyone sees in them.”
   - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The quality of a human life expands or contracts in relation to how much courage and curiousity one brings to it. Thoreau said he went to live in the woods because he wanted to live deep and suck all of the marrow out of life. I too have that hunger.
A hunger to see what is around the next bend in the river, or over the next mountain range. A curiosity to hear the life story of the guy sitting next to me at the bar. (What can I learn from him about this mysterious thing called life?) A desire to understand the culture and mindset of indigenous people who somehow survived in the subarctic with stone age tools in a land that is dark months a year and freezing cold.  
      Always and forever, we search for the thing that is searching for us.

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.
      - George Santayana

I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
- Narithtra

We shall not cease from exploration 
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.
      - T. S. Eliot 

The mountains are calling and I must go. . . Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. . . Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The wind will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. . . The mountains are calling and I must go.
       - John Muir 

. . .

Below, the final two pages from the Heron Dance art journal, Nurturing The Song Within. It should go to the printer this week.

Pre-order the Collector’s Edition printed by a high-end art book printer here.
These are only available on pre-order. There are now a couple of payment options including four equal monthly installments.
After publication, these journals will be printed by a print-on-demand printer at the same price.

You can download a PDF of the two-page spread below by clicking on the image. It does take a few seconds to download and gain resolution.