“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This one from This DayPictures app popped up my computer today. It triggered a hundred thousand words worth of memories of a solo snowshoe trek ten years ago high up in Alaska’s Talkeetna Range.
Snowshoes hushed shush over a white landscape is a clam like none other . . . my Silent Nuance Of Wonder (SNOW) Abba therapy.
Lord willing, I’m planning a repeat performance next February 28th when we’re permanently settled back home in the Last Frontier . . . provided I’m still fogging a mirror and my decade older bod will still be able to make it . . . if not, it will be a ‘cool’ way to exit the planet 😊
Hatcher Pass, Alaska
“We need silence to be alone with God, to speak to Him, to listen to Him, to ponder His words deep in our hearts. We need to be alone with God in silence to be renewed and transformed. Silence gives us a new outlook on life. In it we are filled with the energy of God Himself that makes us do all things with joy.” – Mother Teresa
“He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray… He was alone there.”
Been kinda’ dry here lately in the Great Smoky Mountains. Today Smoky came by our cabin to wade in the creek out front and remind us . . . Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires!
Always an adventure sharing the forest with our feral friends up here on the mountain > down in the ‘holler’ > by the ‘crick’ 😊
Fallen aspen leaves kinda’ resemble potato chips, and fall hiking in the Last Frontier is sorta’ like eating potato chips . . . it’s hard to stop at just one more!😊
Here’s a few ‘potato chip’ pics from today’s wilderness wander, sadly my last before snow-birding south in a couple of days . . . well maybe . . . there’s still lotsa’ golden potato chips out there😊
Looks like we’ll be on a jet headed south for the winter next week. Rather than spend the day going through another box of Kleenex today, I hiked up Castle Mountain to dry my tears 😊. I built a rock cairn on top with a Good Book pocket edition for other solitude seekers.
Here’s a few pics snapped along the trail, and one of my foraging feral friends who showed up to bid me adieu. Like Arnold, I assured him, “I’ll be back!” 😊
Seasons transitions are Nature’s Beauty Pageants. Forest floors carpeted in gold . . . mountains engraved with a 3,000 ft. white line . . . the Last Frontier’s spectacular Fall surrendering to Winter transition.
Here’s a few displays that set my soul singing How Great Thou Art this afternoon . . . gazing in awesome wonder. I M Blessed . . . May U B 2
Oh Lord, my God When I, in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee How great Thou art!
Wild berries captured my attention on today’s woods-wander.
Perhaps it was the dampening drizzle, or the fading yellow Devil’s Club with its red fruits, that cast an uncharacteristic, slightly glum mood to my ever wandering musings.
It was a pair of raindrops that fixed my gaze. Precariously clinging to high-bush cranberries . . . they mystically transformed into ‘teardrops’. . . Fall’s final fruits perishing to Winter’s impending, frozen death . . . Snap Out Of It Freddy!!!
Back home, tossing another log on the fire, my ‘drizzly’ attitude began to dry out . . . temporarily.
Opening my email, I read Ray’s Daily blog post for today. Ray’s creative, humorous, pensive blog has been a favorite read of mine. I surmise from his gifted writing style he’s an elderly Jewish man, who may actually be older than me 😊
Erma Bombeck was a popular American author, humorist and newspaper columnist. Today Ray posted her poignant, introspective reflections penned shortly before her death in 1996 . . . . food for thought as today each of us find ourselves another day closer to our own Winter . . . the Good News . . . the eternal Spring of Eternity awaits for those who choose to claim Christ as their own . . . now I feel much better😊
Be Blessed!
IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER
Erma Bombeck
I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for the day.
I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
I would have talked less and listened more.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.
I would have eaten the popcorn in the ‘good’ living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.
I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn’t show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life anyone ever gets to assist God in a miracle.
When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.”
There would have been more “I love you’s.” More “I’m sorry’s.”
But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute…look at it and really see it … live it and never give it back. Stop sweating the small stuff. Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what. Instead, let’s cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us. Let’s think about what God HAS blessed us with. And what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, as well.
Of all the places I’ve been blessed to meander throughout this untamed, rugged, awesome Last Frontier corner of creation, Hatcher Pass remains among my most special.
“You can’t see the forest for the trees.” . . . in today’s chaotic word, life’s ‘forest’ beauty is woefully shrouded by it’s tumultuous ‘trees’ of power, greed, bigotry, hatred, and lust.
Paradoxically, whenever my wanders find me above treeline, the calamity of life’s forests below fade, and I catch a glimpse of heaven’s serenity that awaits. Gratefully gazing in mystical wonder, such were where my thoughts drifted yesterday.
As high clouds accentuated the silence of creation’s calming whispers, here’s the ethereal Hatcher Pass scene I wish your eyes could have beheld it with me.
I M Blessed . . . May U B 2!
“Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is Yours.“
Abba's Art 