“Now we enter the ancient wood.
In what wild forms the gnarled
and mossy boughs are twisted,
what a sensation of sacred repose.”
-Henry James Slack
The Ministry of the Beautiful,
“Conversation III: The Oak-wood,” 1850

“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.”
-Hal Borland

Bristlecone pines are the oldest living trees on Earth. These magnificent trees are about 2,000 years old, relatively young considering in some areas they are 5,000 years old!

My mind and spirit are in awe of them. I can only imagine the history that these trees have witnessed, the ancient wisdom they could impart, and the stories they could tell!
Being in their presence is a sacred experience.

The bristlecone pines are resilient. They thrive in harsh conditions.
A lot can be learned from these beautiful trees.

A palo verde
is sunlit laughter
when Spring walks
desert ways;
A pepper tree is
a lace mantilla
through which the
moonlight plays…
The eucalyptus
has gypsy breeding
that laughs at wind and rain;
Gnarled sycamores sing
where canyons are deep,
a peace-filled, calm refrain…
But high on mountains,
the pines stand praying,
their voices whisper low
as they chant together
an ageless measure,
“Reach out and up, and grow!”
-Lorraine Babbitt
“Tree Portraits,” in Arizona Highways, September 1961

There are rich counsels in the trees.
-Herbert P. Horne

“As dawn breaks, my backlighted silhouette,
gnarled and twisted by forces that ebb and flow
across time and space, stands a silent watch.
My stark, misshapen, still rugged body
has adapted well to that over
which I have had no dominion.
Designated by design or default
as the chronicler of decades, centuries,
and millennia, I anchor time to space
on a subalpine bed of dolomite,
my wellspring of life.
With regards from an old Bristlecone Pine”

Excerpt of “To Whom It May Concern”,  a poem by Frances Johnson.

“What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.”
-Blackfoot

I’ve been filming a series on Native American rock art in the Southwest. Petroglyphs and pictographs are so incredibly fascinating and beautiful. I have lots of footage I still need to edit and an ever growing list of sites I want to film. If you haven’t seen any of the series yet, here are the first three videos. I hope you enjoy!

I’ve been posting some landscape videos on YouTube, but forgot to share them on here. Instead of writing a post for each video, I’ll just share the latest three videos here. In the future I’ll try to be more diligent on sharing them in a timely manner. I hope you enjoy these landscape videos. 🙂

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.” 
-Robert Fulghum