Here, you’ll find unfortunately true tales of an accidental naturalist’s misadventures in the wild, as well as shorter, inspirational reflections of nature
Growing up in Chicago, I had to discover my own mountains. I could choose from skyscrapers or clouds. Tall buildings were okay, and I still love them, especially with the world-class architecture that’s downtown Chicago. But high-rises always look the same, no matter what day you ride up the elevator. Clouds are different. They change […]
Yellowstone Caldera will eventually end the world!!
If we look at the world today, we see a vast array of splits, divisions, and conflicts between and among peoples. Worldwide, there are protests, revolutions, the talk of war between great powers. There are splits between religions, and within religions. There is heightened class warfare. Although […]
Navajo Mountain, from the south
Standing in a forest of snags, a dead woodland. Ponderosa scorched by fire. No less in beauty than a living thing. Aspen goldening in autumn. Sun rises. Navajo Mountain, a bluing turtle’s back, looming above the Paria Plateau, framed by the bleeding maroon of the Vermillion Cliffs.
A bevy of […]
I’d been living the drought for years, dodging forest fires, watching trees die, seeing ponds dry up. 2021 wasn’t only the year of Corona, it was the year of the megadrought. 75% of the West is in severe or exceptional drought, and my little piece of the Four Corners was no exception to the exceptional.
Some […]
North Rim Vista
The topography resembles papier mache, crinkled a little here and there. This is a region of implacable upheaval. I become lost in its bays and shelf forests. When one region falls into shadow and cools, my eyes, like ravens, fly off to another butte, or an adjacent scarp. I stand on […]
A Daoist might say: Go with the flow. A Buddhist might advise you: Detach from it. A Hindu yogi may conclude: There is no flow. It’s an illusion. A Christian mystic might tell you to embrace the flow. It has something to teach you. In the end, they all say the same thing.
I’d been drawn […]
I dropped down a gravel road from the western scarp wall of Hart Mountain, a gigantic fault block that, like a keep with retaining walls 3,600 feet high, dominates the surrounding terrain of Warner Valley. The road almost in freefall. The cliffs impose heavy shadows upon the floor of Warner Valley near the town of […]
I’m perched on top of a knife edge, a volcanic dike. I’m completely enswathed in solitude for miles in every direction except for the far off, silent glints of the pickups on the highway rattling toward Newcomb, NM. I hiked up toward the Shiprock monolith, its Anglo name, of course. To the Dine’, it has […]
Today stands as the last day of the year, 2004, and I suppose it is a miracle that the mercury cloys out of its winter torpor to stretch up into the cloudless blue of 59 degrees F and counting. I claw my away out of my own Chicago torpor.
You need to send out your work, […]
You ever feel like running your car over someone’s face? Maybe it’s just me.
This particular Saturday felt with its cold gray clipper blowing in off Lake Michigan like the first real day of winter, even though a month of days stood between now and its official start. In the Windy City, this weekend before Thanksgiving, […]