The Solace and Balm of Nature’s Arms

I awoke with the words of Wordsworth in my head.  That doesn’t normally happen to me.  Must have something to do with the lovely way I spent my weekend. Must also be connected to the sad fact of returning to reality.

A few hours northeast of Phoenix is what’s known as the High Country or the Mogollon Rim (pronounced  muggy own). Here are a few photographic attempts at capturing the stunning art that is the natural world.

The lines of Wordsworth’s poem accompany the photos.  Granted his poem is about the sea, but the sentiment, “the world is too much with us” fits the reason behind why I go to the mountain, why I seek out the natural world, why I feel whole after a walk among growing things.  Think of his words as background music.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!  This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours,  And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;  It moves us not.

–Great God! I’d rather be  A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,  Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;  Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

-Wordsworth