Find Beauty

Pima Canyon View of Tucson
Tucson, AZ

"Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some folks have asked me why I enjoy the desert so much. At times, I've skirted around this issue abstractly, but let me be forthwright. The desert challenges my eye and my soul to find beauty. It's not readily apparent. Obvious, it's not.

Within a short time of any treck to mountains, the landscapes awaken my senses and I become a student of nature. I study light and the presense and absences of colors which I see in vast open spaces. The me becomes we as I become one with the Saguaro giants. I am part of this thing called life and a planet called earth. I am both a passenger, citizen, and visitor of a solar system.

My observations are simple. The desert and its light teaches me to enjoy what I see and to be patient. In time, at the appropriate time, nature reveals her prize. All I need do is wait. If I wait long enough, I find beauty in just about anything that surrounds in the open spances of the desert. Here I see what life I've been missing. That, my friends, is the beauty of the desert. My eyes, soul, and senses welcome it's instruction. Each day brings a new tutorial. I welcome it as much as desert mountain stream. It refreshes and renews me. It waters my parched soul.

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