The Beauty of Nature

Since I spent yesterday on my trip with Mom to the Petrified Forest, I didn’t get to write in my blog.  No biggie – I’ll cover it all today.

So – today’s topic will be nature, specifically the Petrified Forest.  The pictures I post on Facebook will not come close to what I see in my mind’s eye.  This is part of why photography sometimes frustrates me.  I want people to be able to see what I see, and the photos do not give what I saw justice.

The colors, the vastness, the absolute beauty of the area was breathtaking.  Imagine being the first person to ever set your eyes on such a site?  Imagine being the first person ever to stand on the edge of the canyon and look across and see for hundreds of miles.  The only sound is the wind and the ravens cawing to each other.  You see a lone hawk in pursuit of its pray; a darting sparrow. 

Standing on the edge of the canyon at the Agate Bridge area was like being the only person in the world.  The immenseness of the view and the wind enveloping me in a cocoon of isolation was peaceful and humbling.  I could have stood there for hours.  I had not felt that close to nature and a higher being in years.  I didn’t want to leave.  I wanted to sit on the edge of the rock, close my eyes and just listen.  Listen to the silence.  Yet, it wasn’t silent.  My ears filled with the sounds that only nature can produce.  The whistling of the wind through a small crack in the rocks, the baby ravens in their nest begging their parents for food, the wind – the constant wind. 

Obviously my favorite spot was the Agate Bridge!  While looking at the beauty of all the stops we made along that 30 mile road through the Petrified Forest, I thought about how nature created such sights.  How the wind and the rain caused the limestone to literally melt, while the hard shale and petrified wood stubbornly resisted such destruction.  The white sands of the limestone glowed in the sun, almost blinding me and in the middle of that, a petrified tree.  The contrast between the two a poetic description of life.  Will we just melt when rough weather beats upon our heads, or will we stubbornly refuse to be beaten? 

The colors I saw while looking across that vast expanse of land will never quite be captured in my photos – no matter how hard I try to photoShop them to match what I saw.   Maybe I just see life as more colorful than it really is???  What a beautiful thought.

Blessed Be