Back in Wapiti outside Jasper, now that there is less snow and more mud, the trees show signs of life, the air is fresh as ever and the rain starts … when clouds cover the mountains one can duck and run or get wet.
In the winter, one just enjoys the snow falling, and stays warm.
The river flows green, cool and true.
The river with Mountains in the background.
Looking downstream.
And the moon lighting the paths through the campground.
The Clouds in the early Morning.
The news is the Tram is open, though I think it may require crampons to climb to the top through the snow and ice.
The Tram
As always the woods and the river are filled with paths and inviting hours of walking or shooting or watching or sitting in wonder at the Grace so plainly set before one … in one’s solitude. Even the view out the window is remarkably refreshing.
The Trees
But one has to realize that with the lack of frigid temperatures the crowds have gathered and what was once solitude is a busy metropolitan gathering. Where we parked alone or with one or two a whole passel of RV’s had gathered, and even out the south end the crowds of one and two have gathered, so that on every leg there is at least a tent or two.
The Crowds
We stopped to kibitz with two sitting for breakfast early on our walk about the entire open camp sites. Which means that we just cannot be alone any longer in solitude. Which is so great for me, the extrovert …
not.
But I, remarkably so, still enjoy meeting people and sharing stories with them.
Two doctors who’d been to Tanzania and two teachers from NWT were last evening’s visit into the late evening.
To wake one morning finally and have a reasonable workload, deadlines met, and still looming, a job still hunted for … but for today … to know what today requires and know I can accomplish these things.
And have even an hour, amidst the tasks, to enjoy beauty, and the creation of and sharing of where life has taken me and us, unexpected and delightful.
Perhaps the hour really is not mine to claim, but that will only be known later so for now the joy of life relived.
On a week to a conference, prohibited from attending by a lay-pastor full of spite, I relaxed in the mountain views out the door, and the joy of working … for it was too cold to ski Sunshine, a gift from a friend and a life-long love of mine. I never was ever too keen on skiing when the valley temperatures are below -30C. Somehow pain and frost bite just take the joy out of gliding free down across and through the snow on telemarks skis.
So I was inside, though able to see beauty each day.
Bustling Beauty
Bleeping Cold Steam Rising From Frigid Flowing Water
The day we left the conference the temperatures went wildly warm, up to just below zero and then above.
The big snow fall sat on slopes barely intact and the helicopters flew to bomb the snow loose before nature decided to pack it all at once down on top of the valley inhabitants or wanderers. As if back in Fort Ripley with the constant bombing and shelling practice shaking the earth with loud ominous thunder echoing across the clouds invisible.
When a day later we headed north to traverse the icefields and dry camp at the new un-serviced Whirlpool campground we knew the road likely would be closed from 11 to 17 for three hours, yes the math is off, for snow bombing (avalanche control).
The previous and falling snow made a quiet wonderland, traversable still, though just deep enough.
We pulled off to breathe, and to take photos, and to marvel.
The trees held the snow, on the steep slopes off the roadway.
To no surprise then the flashing signs at Lake Louise, and the barricade closed at the Saskatchewan River Crossing. The surprise was that at that rather major junction there is a summer only hotel and service station, with fuel and everything else … in even the telephone line to the pay phone is disconnected and dormant for the winter. And that I checked by walking through the deep snow because for miles (okay Canadian Kilometers with a long o J) there is absolutely NOOOO cell service. So we had no updates and no way to notify friends and family that we’d decided to simply wait for the road to open.
Cloud draped Mountains around the Barricade Closed
We tried driving into a trailhead parking lot, but the snow was too deep and the truck simply not high enough nor powerful enough with enough traction to pull through all the snow up to mid axel. It bogged down and I stopped, and shovelled, and shovelled and shovelled and … finally it did not just spin in place but backed out.
Stuck it had serendipitously leveled the trailer to so close to perfect, that considering our options, we just shoveled some more and put the camper right back where it had been stuck, though now with ample area around to walk and service everything needed should we stay overnight and now after 1700 it looked like that was going to be necessary.
Dry, private camping, waiting
And it was. And there was no news even as a few trucks arrived, trying to get to Prince George, unaware of the closed road.
We finally met a park ranger returning from the far side of the barricade. The news was they’d closed the road at 11 ish, and at 12 ish the day before an avalanche had crossed the road. A path was punched through the snow and debris, but the helicopter snow bombers could not fly because of the high winds and the forecast did not make that likely for another few days, Monday at the earliest.
So we settled in not wondering if or when, because by Monday I needed to be home in Cold Lake.
Where the snow had fallen and was melting warmly into the ground, in drops by drops even off the deck railing out my door.
Home Free
And we sort of celebrated Valentine’s Day, early in the mountains and late at home with roses.
Each one entered a simple game to surrender to what cannot be forced against a ball and a pin with a club
But like in life one surrenders to what one is called to be and do
Profound or not
To see
Mystically
What
Is
There
But
Others
Cannot
Know
For it is what one alone sees
…
The Light of Grace
…
Yet there was for so many so little
So little that can be done when all that is
is loss.
So we remember.
For generations there were always many who suffered at the hands of others looking to move ahead
At the cost of
Those around them …
…
And who betrayed those closest to them in order to get ahead as their loved one is left vulnerable
Because the beloved could not face the reality of the world that they created out of a profound fear of the light leaving them alone
So they attack
And whip others into a frenzy to attack their loved one for fictitious events
And the loved one is
Charged
Ruined
Left as good as dead
In the dark
Alone
Once again paying the price for being the one that loved unconditionally, and loves unconditionally.
So we remember.
Fortunately the darkness will not continue to overwhelm and leave one to die
For this day we remember that the Light breaks in
Through
All
That
Is broken
Spreading against all fears
Especially the imaginary ones of abandonment that haunt
Those
Who attack at all costs to save themselves from imaginary enemies projected onto their scapegoat.
So we remember
The Light
Loves unconditionally and inspires
Simple statements of truth:
“The success of love is in the loving – it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.”
“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.”
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, Brian Kolodiejchuk, 2007
While seeking health and hope and renewal this was possible to capture the light from:
Big Horn Sheep Looking
To what do you aspire?
Where are you looking this day?
What hope carries you
Through the darkness
Into the light
That arrives through the cracks of life and being and love itself?
So we remember that
As for me and my household we will serve the Lord,
For by grace alone are we able to stand when we are alone in the darkness waiting for the Light of truth and justice to arrive.
So we remember
That
There
Is
Light.
Can you remember?
Can you see?
Do you remember the light of unconditional love?
It is Epiphany,
The day we remember
That the Light of Grace, Truth and Love
Illuminates every darkness
From the spark
Within
The
Holy Ones
…
Saints made by grace from Sinners, yet always both simultaneously.
This we remember
Is
How
God’s
Grace
Is
For
Everyone
Even those
Who ruin
Their loved ones betrayed.
Can you remember this in your darkness?
What makes up your darkness this day of Light?
Whoever you are, the Light shines in the darkness,
So dance a dance of hope.
“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
Saint Mother Teresa: Something Beautiful For God, Malcolm Muggeridge, 1971
And what is between you and God is not that you need to think, believe, speak, write, do or not all that is right for God,
But that because God has long since done everything right with you,
And made you
A Saint always, even as you remain always a Sinner
And not having to earn God’s unconditional love
What will you do this day? Or any day,
Other than to respond to the greatest news
That the world has or will ever hear
…
How will you approach each day?
Why other than
To seek justice when it is impossible, for it is already given to you.
To speak truth when it will never be heard, for even before you were born it was heard from your lips, between the cries that wrack your life unpredictably, unwanted, to not be denied.
To offer grace even though the response is cruel, for only by grace are you still standing.
To love unconditionally even though those loved are inseparably exiled from your love, protection and security, for already unconditional love met you and carried you each day past, present and future.
To find joy even though it has been ripped from your heart by jailers and rules, for the Ruler and Jailer has already met you with a joy in you, specifically you, and all that makes up you.
For you have been accepted as you are, equipped as a Saint, a person through which the Light shines.
So Shine even when it is declared that Darkness will not be denied.
Justice, truth, grace, unconditional love, joy, and shining Light:
This is what we are made to be made of.
This is our Game, no matter the goals we take on, this is our Game,
Which cannot be won by other than surrendering to what is,
We wait, taking in the celebration of light, looking through the lens of Grace that Jesus makes clear, hoping that this time, especially this time, God will come to us and set things right, before there is no more time to set things right,
That truth will be heard, the lies uncovered, life reset before the twilight zone came to visit my world.
But the world always resists Grace, since Grace comforts those disadvantaged, and disadvantages the comfortable.
There are things to see.
There are things to say.
There are truths which are being played with, and in the end the next generation learns that the lies are better than the truth.
It is like photography, everything is simple, even beautiful: until you realize something is being sacrificed: something precious; something basic and fundamental; something that seems …
Something so fundamental that there is nothing left if this is sacrificed.
We visited the mountains, to help me recover from acute bronchitis that just would not go away.
New Camper
In the parking lot, a brand new camper compared to the ancient one we were using, having to fix it so it did not kill us.
There is something refreshing about breathing the mountain air.
But when it’s full of CO it puts a throbbing headache in the way and had I not opened the door so often that night ….
So this seemed a better option but not possible for us.
There were beautiful things,
beautiful light and snow on pine trees and clouds,
if you raised your head, which is always really hard to avoid.
Light
On the way I caught the fog, again and again, and coming out of the fog is marvelous, for photographers, because the light … the light plays with reality to make it seem different, special.
Dull Fog
It’s not always special; sometimes it’s just ordinary.
Light on the Road
And then the sunlight hits the fog while the road flies by.
But then … then
It hits you.
See the Office
And there are lots of shots that show its beauty that just hit you.
Light on Trees
As you stop the light hits the trees.
Light on Trees 1
And all that can be played with making it even more …
Light on Trees 2
It looks great, even if it is not real.
Picnic
But the picnic table is real.
Pyramid
Simple real in the early, early morning hours just as light starts to peak around the mountain air.
Pyramid 1
And Pyramid Mountain never looked so good, as the camera pushes through the darkness and the software reveals what the human eye could barely see.
And the software can make it look more than surreal, more than a cloudy mountain top with pines and fog, but how can more be really more when the reality is quite enough plus some?
Pyramid Real
Even if you have to wait a few hours for the sun to shine clear amid the clouds and shadows of late afternoon.
Simple skiing, now that’s real with the real mountains and clouds and snow laden pine trees … and the clear mountain air healing the bronchitis.
And that makes the waiting of Advent a waiting for truth, the truth God revealed on Christmas.
John the Baptist knew crazy but he never knew crazy, not crazy like I’ve had to suffer since ….
The Camper Gets DustedCall Home from NowhereThe Lakeview at the End of the RoadRed Canoe on the Way DownLooking OnColour and WaterMore Colour and WaterThe IslandPatternsPatterns AgainColour on the Way Out
Snow by the Athabasca
Waking at the fresh hour of 9 the light snow falls everywhere around dampening the sounds, covering the views and clearing the mind … and making the photography some of my favorite: not cold at -2, not too wet, and diffused, specular light everywhere!
Path into the WoodsDeeper on the Path
Knotty Tree
Pines with a View to the Foothills
Pines and the Athabasca River
Up River
Down River
Path Down River
Path in the Pines
Path in the Pines 2
Quite often in life, how you orient yourself determines what you see, how you perceive it, and what you can do with it.
The same path, with a different perspective, is … enticing.
See the world as God’s invitation to engage and enjoy and provide care and beauty to others, all others.
And sometimes, taking a better view of the same thing produces a whole new understanding, and perspective.
Early Morning Mountains
Kathie needed something besides the ground to sleep on so she found this for a weekend to the mountains.
The basics upgraded, with highway sandings
On the way it became obvious that a sway bar hitch was needed. As the roads became skating rinks at Hinton, traffic slowing to a crawl behind a smart semi driver, more than one slide and slip gave proof that this hitch more than paid for itself: without it we would have seen the ditch spinning out of control.
The Lifesaver: Getting Hitched Right
The unit had all sides, but the fantastic piece is this time of year the campground is deserted for the most part, and even after all the delays, we arrived, the third vehicle only in the campground. It’s mountain air, fresh, cool and quiet, next to a flowing river.
The Backside
And me, the put it on your back or leave it behind, suddenly had on my back, well the back of my truck, a camper, not mine, to provide electricity, and warmth and comfort needed at these advanced years. And the freedom, freedom relative to the shakes, fatigue, weight loss, insomnia, and fear of the previous years … well the comparison is like night and day; death and life.
The Dark side, there’s always a dark side.
It took an awful lot of hard work to get this borrowed trailer ready for the trip, for use after being in moth balls for the last three years plus.
But here it is: all comfortable and well, pristine air in no short supply. And in the morning light, the views as always prove renewing. That’s something I’ve needed after the last 3 years. That was a darkside.
