The Glory of Nature, and School Prayer

Ruby Beach, on the Washington coast

Western trillium

Mount St. Helens

Marymere Falls, Olympic National Park

Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park

It gives me pleasure to consider the beauty I've seen when traveling once the trip is over. This journey had many pleasures, in meeting people, in learning about personal and general history, in the chance to roam outside and see nature in its many forms, from rolling wheat lands, to desert, to swollen rivers and placid lakes, to snow-covered mountains. I've been going through my photos, picking which ones to keep and which ones to discard. These are a few I liked. It has been a while since I posted a poem, so I chose this Diane Ackerman poem, which expresses nicely a prayer in response to nature's beauty.

School Prayer

Diane Ackerman

In the name of daybreak

and the eyelids of morning

and the wayfaring noon

and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor

my soul with hatred,

but offer myself humbly

as a guardian of nature,

as a healer of misery,

as a messenger of wonder,

as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors

And the day that embraces it

and the cloud veils drawn over it

and the uttermost night

and the male and the female

and the plants bursting with seed

and the crowning seasons

of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life

--wherever and in whatever form

it may dwell-- on Earth my home,

and in the mansions of the stars.