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This weeks lens-artists photo challenge is hosted by Sheetal who invites us to “show us the things you love that makes your world spin or things about your world that make you delirious with joy.”

An afternoon drive through Poudre Canyon for a lunch in Walden, Colorado. Or better yet, having lunch in Walden while on a camping trip through the Rocky Mountains.

The Poudre Canyon is a narrow verdant canyon, approximately 40 miles long, on the upper Cache la Poudre River in Larimer County, Colorado in the United States. The canyon is a glacier-formed valley through the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains northwest of Fort Collins.

watching the river
through a window of trees…
spring rain falls ~ Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

Cache la Poudre River

Driving west through the canyon, one will be enticed to pull off the road to view the clouds traveling across Cameron Peak. Cameron Peak is within the Medicine Bow Mountains which are a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains that extend for 100-mile from northern Colorado into southern Wyoming.

a glimpse of moon
over my home village…
then clouds ~ Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

Cameron Peak

A westerly Sunday drive through Poudre Canyon will invite you to stop for lunch in the small town of Walden, Colorado. Walden is located in Jackson County, an amazing sub-alpine valley in Northern Colorado.

evening’s fall colors–
the rainbow in the valley
fades away ~ Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

As of the 2010 census, the population of Walden was 1,394; the fourth least populated in the state of Colorado.

white clouds of mist
blow away…
the village’s mountain ~ Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

The county contains the Never Summer Wilderness, the 71,000-acre Colorado State Forest, and the Arapapho National Wildlife Refuge.

this mountain rain
and the deer’s tears
must be mingling ~ Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

welcome to Walden

During the summer of 2020, the Cameron Peak fire began about 25 miles east of Walden and 15 miles southwest of  Red Feather Lakes near Cameron Pass. It is reported that this fire burnt 208,663 acres (326 sq mi.) through the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in Larimer and Jackson Counties and Rocky Mountain National Park.  The fire became the largest wildfire in Colorado history.

cameron peak fire

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“for us to survive, both as individuals and as a species, we need a revolution in consciousness.”

Love Letter to the Earth, Thich Nhat Hanh, April 21, 2019 Plum Village
Poudre Canyon…summer 2018 Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/200s 39mm 4000 ISO

Another with same thoughts
May be gazing at the pale morning moon 
Of the Long-night month– 
No sight is more sorrowful

~Izumi Shikibu,

Trans: AS Omori & K Doi, Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

BELOVED MOTHER OF ALL THINGS

“I bow my head before you as I look deeply and recognise that you are present in me and that I’m a part of you. I was born from you and you are always present, offering me everything I need for my nourishment and growth. My mother, my father, and all my ancestors are also your children. We breathe your fresh air. We drink your clear water. We eat your nourishing food. Your herbs heal us when we’re sick. …

“Sometimes I forget. Lost in the confusions and worries of daily life, I forget that my body is your body, and sometimes even forget that I have a body at all. Unaware of the presence of my body and the beautiful planet around me and within me, I’m unable to cherish and celebrate the precious gift of life you have given me. Dear Mother, my deep wish is to wake up to the miracle of life. I promise to train myself to be present for myself, my life, and for you in every moment. I know that my true presence is the best gift I can offer to you, the one I love.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Love Letter to the Earth Plum Village

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Poudre Canyon.

“...climate investing is still burdened by many preconceptions and myths.”

Six Climate Investing Myths Debunked, Morgan Stanley
  • Myth 1 – The climate problem is all about global warming
  • Myth 2 – An ESG strategy addresses climate solutions
  • Myth 3 – Renewable energy is the main solution
  • Myth 4 – Renewables need subsidies for compelling returns
  • Myth 5 – Early stage clean-tech investing is a wild goose chase
  • Myth 6 – Climate investing depends highly on political and regulatory changes

Lens-Artists photo challenge: pick a place – how about the earth?

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Death of a loved one disturbs the relationships that sustain a person’s sense of ‘identity’ and the high level of binding and cathexis concentrated on the person who is lost is suddenly disrupted . . . there is a close link between the doctrines of egolessness and suffering.

De Silva, Padmasiri. An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology. Landam, MD, 2000.
Poudre Canyon… f/7.1 1/200s 28mm 4500 ISO

Through this lens of Buddhist thought, I begin to feel a crumbling of a child’s self with an understanding of how my father’s absolute and final absence from our lives disrupted the multiple relationships between my father, mother, sister, and me.  Besides the sudden severing of the identity I was forming via my father, the connecting emotional threads between those of us that were left, although still intact, were unknowingly stretched and pulled by our own individual fears of egolessness.

My father’s death left my mother, a young woman deaf from infancy, with two daughters and pregnant with her first son.  I do not recall whose idea it was to wander outside the house early that morning as my mother slept.  I can, however, imagine my young self following my older sister as if an invisible thread that tied us together tugged me along as she, with her five-year-old world view, undertook an emotional duty to find our father.  Did we believe we could find him fly fishing in the creek that ran alongside the house? Or was there something about the water that enticed us into abandoning our search?  I can recall to this day the cessation of anxiety and arising rapture that coincided with my surrender to the inevitable. Two young men, I am told, rescued us both from this search for our father.

Koeford, BC. A Meditative Journey with Saldage Homesickness for a place, a time, a person that cannot be

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“My right hand does a lot of things–it creates calligraphy and writes poems. Nearly all my poems have been written with my right hand because I don’t use a typewriter. There was only one time when I wrote a poem on a typewriter. When inspiration came to me, I did not have a pen at hand so I just put an envelope into the typewriter, and at that time my left hand participated. All the rest of my poems were written with my right hand alone, yet my right hand never says to the left hand, ‘You, you are good for nothing! You don’t do calligraphy, you don’t write poems. I do all the work, you never do anything!’

whitewaterraftingweb

“The body never discriminates in this way. Don’t think that this is because our bodies do not possess any inherent intelligence. While trying to hang a picture on the wall, I held the nail in my left hand and hammered with the right. But instead of hitting the nail I hit a finger on my left hand. That happens from time to time, especially if you are high up on a ladder. Immediately the right hand put down the hammer and reached over to take care of the left hand, very naturally. The feet began to move to look for a bandage. Everything worked together very smoothly. Later the right hand did not say, “Hay left hand, remember how I helped you? Next time I need something you have to come and help me.’ Our innately wise bodies do not act in that way. So the wisdom of nondiscrimination is present in us as a living bodily reality. We have to train our minds to see in this way.

whitewaterraftingbweb

We form one reality. We exist in interbeing with all of life. When we understand this fundamental truth, our acts of giving will be made in the spirit of nondiscrimination. …we can offer a smile or a loving compassionate gaze. We can give the gift of calm, concentrated presence to help someone who is fearful or anxious. We can make an offering of our time and energy and work with the homeless, or with those who are prisoners or who are addicted to different substances, or to work on helping the environment. We have plenty of gifts to offer; we are far wealthier than we may imagine. We can help secure the happiness of many people even if we don’t have a single penny in our pocket.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Opening the Heart of the Cosmos