We don’t have plays and music and contact with sophisticated minds, and a round of social engagements. All we have are sun and wind and rain, and space in which to move and breathe. All we have are the forests, and the calm expanses of the lakes, and time to call our own. All we have are the hunting and fishing and the swimming, and each other.

We don’t see pictures in famous galleries. But the other day, after a sleet storm that had coated the world with a sheath of ice, I saw a pine grosbeak in a little poplar tree. The setting sun slanted through a gap in the black wall of the forest, and held bird and tree in a celestial spotlight. Every twig turned to diamond encrusted-gold, and the red of the bird’s breast glowed like a huge ruby as he fluffed his feathers in the wind. I could hardly believe it. I could only stand still and stare. And then I repeated to myself again something that I once learned in the hope that it would safeguard me from ever becoming hardened to beauty and wonder. I found it long ago, when I had to study Emerson:

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how men would believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the City of God which has been shown!

- Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

. . .

This morning Heron Dance also published a creativity journal
(Maniacs Seeking The New Encounter) here.

Travels With Ada Update.
I head to North Carolina today to stay with a long time Heron Dance reader and supporter.
More on my planned travels here.