Where my feet take me

Between rain and a threat of snow in low-lying Southern California, I walked up the little mountain in town to an old stone tower. It makes me feel I'm in another land, one I visit for escape, even the dark kind.

Lots on my mind--death of loved ones, uncertain future, fear that I will never get where I'd hoped to go. I spent considerable time on this walk intrigued with stone. Watching newly-released, underground springs glisten over granite boulders, finding soil and rock slides that will continue as long as the ground is saturated, marveling at the varied moods even stone can trigger.

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Is it inanimate? I think not.

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As I stood under a stone bridge, I noticed the picture-perfect scene of freshness it framed--lively, scudding clouds, tender new grass (this is February in SoCal, remember) and, again, the punctuation of jutting, sprawling rock.

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I once heard piles of weathered boulders described as woolsack, presumably for a resemblance to sacks of wool. I'm not a geologist, but they sometimes do look like a jumble of sacks.

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Stone gives the world texture, substance, history--forged in the beginnings of earth time, breaking down to allow new life.

There is so much going on when you look closely.

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Late in the day, I saw this

but took no photo:

white ghosts of mountains

flicker in and out of the

drifting cloud bank

and this:

bare branches, storm-stripped.

through the lattice of their limbs,

piles of dusty-pink clouds
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And, as it always does, Nature pulled me to my feet, gave me a staff and said get on with it.