A few years ago, I realized that daylight has a different sound than night does. Not the usual distinctions, like birdsong, crickets, traffic. When the sun rises, I hear a difference in the world. A tone, very subtle, with more vibrance in sunlight than the velvety sound of night. I haven’t found an explanation for […]
The Place Where You Go to Listen Read More »
There is a great mystery on this journey: that I seem to choose some places to go, and that others call me to come. Alaska called. Before leaving home, I gave little thought to going to Alaska. In the mayhem of leaving, I barely gave thought to where I was going once I pulled out
Denali: the Great One Read More »
I fell in love with Homer as we drove down the uninspiring last slope of Route 1 into the town, but I have no idea why it happened then. I’d been driving along the Cook Inlet for the last hour, with one magnificent snow-capped volcano after another looming up across the water, so Kachemak Bay,
In love in Homer, Alaska Read More »
The first thing that happened in Alaska was that we lost our sense of time. There were three of us at that point. George and I had picked up our friend, Guy, in Whitehorse, in the Yukon, where he’d flown up from Vancouver. We drove to Destruction Bay the same day, staying the night
Timeless in Alaska Read More »
I so hoped it would be another year, even a few more months, before I wrote this. But great spirits come in their own time, and leave in their own time, and Splash, my companion and spirit guide, has left in hers. She turned 14 in April, and then, in May, we found out that
This essay was updated and republished as ‘I have located heaven.’ Please enjoy it here: https://thesouloftheearth.com/waterton-lakes-national-park/ (More images are in the Waterton wildflowers gallery, which is here.)
Latitude 49º 6′ 33.63″, Longitude -113º 50′ 58.92″ Read More »
There are moments that tilt life, even if we don’t know it at the time. Not the big moments, when our paths take sudden and dramatic turns, like locking eyes with the stranger who will become a great love, or taking your child in your arms for the first time. The quiet ones. Moments that
In my favorite creation story the world is sung into existence. I first came across this wonderful idea as a child, in one of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, ‘The Magician’s Nephew’, where he has his divine embodiment, Aslan the lion, slowly move across a pitch-black and featureless void, singing first the stars into the darkness, then
If places were men, Portland, Oregon would be the guy I met at a farmers market. We both like to hike, and read, and travel. He talks about his feelings. He recycles. It’s all very satisfying, but a bit damp. Moab, Utah would be running away with the cowboy who comes to town occasionally, never
A new version of this essay is here: https://thesouloftheearth.com/utah-land-stone-tablets/
A land of stone tablets Read More »