Dream Quarry
An abandoned quarry sits filled with groundwater south of Boulder Creek and reflects the resplendent rays of the morning sun near Boulder, Colorado. Looking at this scene many months later, and still within a reasonable proximity to Earth Day, my mind kept being inexplicably drawn to a few words from Hamlet:
To die, to sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub! For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause - there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.
Will the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren be like those dreams? Should our actions in life give us pause? As we seek and quarry, focusing on the now and the me, to what end will it lead? We know our experience of this life on this blue planet will end, however we might like to put off the reality of that thought for another day. Do we owe anything to those whom we assume will still exist when that day comes? If there is anything I hope my children and grandchildren and their children will be able to experience, it is wild places on this Earth. Places where an introspective view of human primacy is irrelevant. Places where frogs sing and animals move without a yoke to human purpose. Places to which we owe the best of ourselves.
Dream Quarry
An abandoned quarry sits filled with groundwater south of Boulder Creek and reflects the resplendent rays of the morning sun near Boulder, Colorado. Looking at this scene many months later, and still within a reasonable proximity to Earth Day, my mind kept being inexplicably drawn to a few words from Hamlet:
To die, to sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub! For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause - there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.
Will the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren be like those dreams? Should our actions in life give us pause? As we seek and quarry, focusing on the now and the me, to what end will it lead? We know our experience of this life on this blue planet will end, however we might like to put off the reality of that thought for another day. Do we owe anything to those whom we assume will still exist when that day comes? If there is anything I hope my children and grandchildren and their children will be able to experience, it is wild places on this Earth. Places where an introspective view of human primacy is irrelevant. Places where frogs sing and animals move without a yoke to human purpose. Places to which we owe the best of ourselves.