It’s 2 a.m. and I am working at a hotel desk in Postojna, Slovenia. I am a college professor from Iowa and I know only halting Slovene, but should anybody need help at this hour, I have all the vocabulary I might need: ne vem and ne razumem—I don’t know and I don’t understand. Jure, the regular desk …
PHOTO: Southern Colorado’s East Spanish Peak four years after the East Peak Fire I had just come back from a discouraging walk, full of reminders of the beauty we lost in a forest fire four years ago, and I sat down with my tea to browse Facebook. The photo of the clear ocean off Key …
This fearfulness is new. Once a sunset was just a sunset, a raincloud a blessed sign of needed moisture. Now, though, our refuge, our place of peace has an overlay of danger. My confidence in the steadfastness of the mountain and its valleys and ridges has been shaken. Three years ago was the big event, the …
The view from our cabin deck. The top of the ridge in the left and center of the photo was burned—you can see the skeletons of remaining trees. The meadow was protected, both by the path of the East Peak Fire and by fire fighters, so many of the centuries-old trees there remain. The clouds, while …
In the years after a fire, the remaining trees overproduce pinecones to help re-propagate the forest. This photo shows the road in front of our cabin. The trees next to the road were spared fire damage and have thrown off huge bounties of pinecones every year since the East Peak fire of 2013.
Winds as high as 90 mph again hit the East Spanish Peak last week. That’s hurricane level. Last year’s winds did this: topped off the trees that had been burned in the East Peak Fire of 2013. Most made it to the ground, but a few remain hanging like natural guillotines.
Out of the Ashes. Copyright Patricia Prijatel I posted this on Cure magazine’s gallery site and then realized I should actually share it here as well. I began painting this a couple of years ago, after a wildfire at our Colorado cabin. These are wallflowers, gorgeous, colorful little beauties that should make you feel better …
We finally got to our Colorado cabin a couple of weeks ago. This is the meadow in front of the cabin. It’s a great place to recover. We had a forest fire here two years ago, so the land itself is recovering. We’re quite the pair.
We’re often told we need to just keep on task, putting one word after another. At times, though, we’re better off walking away for a bit.
This beautiful Vermont scene feels like a prayer to me—a thankful, hopeful moment with God. Sometimes we think prayer has to be formal. To me, just giving thanks for this and for all the beauty in our lives is the best prayer we can offer. PHOTO BY PAT: Warren, Vermont