Driving through the American SW last week, I was reminded of our deep, intrinsic, soul-stirring connection with nature. How is it and why is it, in the city, in our busy lives, we get so easily removed, psychically, from the greatest masterpieces on Earth, natural wonder? Just go for a drive, and oh yeah, leave behind your iphone, and you could enjoy beauty as haunting as any Youtube video -- perhaps even more so. Seriously.
If you've been to the SW, you know what I'm talking about. Deep veins of salmon orange clay layered in ancient gray ash and white earth dwarf you in mile-high canyons. This mystery, and the eternal pueblos hovering like cathedrals atop towering mesas that stretch for miles, is enough to inspire any masterpiece. I remember that this feeling, this observation of nature as the original muse, is what first drove me to paint and to write. As I hike through an old native ruin, climb into caves along cliffsides, remnants of old villages, and snap photos of 1000-year-old petroglyphs, my urge to create re-surfaces. Just like our ancestors, I want to create a shrine of art to honor the gods of earthly power.
In observing mother nature's works-of-art, perhaps we are invited to express our own unique, natural way of seeing and being in the world.
