Category: Our Planet
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Luminosity
In my morning emails today a friend wished me a “luminous day.” I wondered for a bit about how that would express itself, what would it look like to have a luminous day? Or was it a simply a way of wishing me well? Upon reflection, it is true that we are luminous beings, is…
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Late Winter Walks
1. Down the hill past the bridge over the river, I take my silent pause by the cemetery of forest trees drowning in a swamp from the overflow of the nearby lake. In summer, it is a beaver’s paradise, worn out branches plunging into the shallow stagnant waters. Now under the winter cover, all is…
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The Nerve Endings of Nature
Not unlike the subconscious layer of the mind that drives most of our behavior and interaction with other fellow beings, plants also have an underground system for sending out signals in affinity with other kin or other species. There is a lot going on underneath the surface to which we humans are not privy. But…
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Rocky Mountain High
At Kinney Lake, so placid and perfect it might shatter if you coughed, we were still another 15 kilometres from Berg Lake at the foot of Mount Robson, the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies at 3,964 meters. It was the last and most formidable hike of our journey. We would be gaining an elevation…
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The First Rain
The First Rain Majestic, gray clouds wheel past dark peaks. Wind rushes in. The flutter of banana leaves grows tremulous. Droplets of rain pelt down on age-old canopies. Cues to a drama about to unfold. Like wind-up clocks, ox-drawn carts, schoolboys on bikes, and barefoot peasants hauling in the harvest criss-cross the horizon…
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Wadi Rum
“A cloud gathers, the rain falls, men live; the cloud disperses without rain, and men and animals die. In the deserts of southern Arabia there is no rhythm of the seasons, no rise and fall of sap, but empty wastes where only the changing temperature marks the passage of the year. It is a bitter,…
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Hertel Lake at Dusk, Mont St. Hilaire
Here we were at the end of a day’s hike, not sure if we should dutifully obey the park’s rules to exit before dark or our own whim to catch a glimpse of the reservoir in the twilight. We opted to risk the last stretch of the trail in the darkness and snaked our way…
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Enchantments of the River
You need to sail naked Through what is left of the forest To discover what the earth was in the beginning And then penetrate, deeply moved, Through the spaces of light the river offers, Where the forest and the water balance, Wisely governed by the birds. For it is only here where the earth Is…
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Ocean
Be the motion of my breath and the salt of my sweat. Come in, come in to my heart and be the song that never ceases humming and humming, joyous, yes, in being, timeless yet forever changing, day after day, wave upon wave, no two ever the same. Let me be your ears. Hear the…
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Lake Taureau, Quebec in Summer
The lake languished at twilight, churning out soft ripples that licked the shore. The waters darkened, beckoning my senses to what lurked beneath the surface and in the still of the evening, the plunk of a solitary pike resounded, as if no other creature were alive, except us, to bear witness to its play. We…