Biking, walking, music.  These things make me recognize the heart of the day.  Meditate on matters.  Bring my thoughts to repose and stir new awakenings.  There are many beautiful turns in life.  Sometimes a tour down a trail can be a corollary for the larger journeys we are making.

Sunday evening we walked up into the foothills from Embudito Hills Park. The texture of the land here is remarkable.

The San Francisco Peaks of Flagstaff are well beyond the visual horizon, but the San Mateo Mountains are beautiful and prominent here with an echo of space between us.

These mountains make me quiet with awe and solace, like ancestors bearing ancient unwritten wisdom.

The stunning wildgrowth makes me pause, stop and wonder.  Listen.  I look once, I look again and I see more.  Sometimes this time of day gives us pause for concern but why else would we express it if not for an abiding warmth and appreciation of life.  Consider this passage by Cormac McCarthy:

“He rode on, the two horses following, riding doves up out of pools of standing water and the sun descending out of the dark discolored overcast to the west where its redness ran down the narrow band of sky above the mountains like blood falling through water and the desert fresh from the rain turning gold in the evening light and then deepening to dark, a slow inkening over of the bajada and the rising hills and the stark stone length of the cordilleras darkening far to the south in Mexico”.   P 286 All the Pretty Horses

We process what we know so we can move on.  We reconcile what we know with the mystery and do our best to make sense.  Most importantly we draw the inspiration to go onward carrying purpose.  The meaning we ourselves create, and it may be worth something.  Try it.

The mesa the Acoma people call home is on the horizon and to the right tilting.  The light is good here.

Trees have an enduring presence and parent along many communities of smaller plants.

Purple is the color of dignity and many people look wonderful wearing it.

We live a few miles from the foothills so we drove to get here.  I’m not an idealogue at all when it comes to transportation modes.  I use it all and think this is one of the great boons of our times.  The main thing I try to concentrate on is to not overdue any one thing and only spend my resources on what is truly important.  A walk on Sunday evening in the Sandia Foothills with Mai was the right thing to do.  I enjoy every moment.