The Aerial Horizon
Forget where your feet are and simply enjoy the view.
Earth in Bas Relief
Light washes away Earth’s contours while shadows create dimension and darkness creates depth…The give and take, the balance of light and shadow, gives shape and vibrance to our illusion.
Templed Chasm
From a distance, we see the chasm as a void containing an unfordable stream…but look closer…in the depths of this abyss, we find small bridges and hidden pathways…small opportunities to bridge the divides that separate us from one another. Graceful temples inclining toward the plateau above, inspiring our motion and bringing a sense of solace to our wandering souls.
Drama Beneath the Rolling Storm
The beautiful isolation and drama of a desert storm…filling the space in between mountains…vaporous columns in the arid sky…layers of detail and hidden treasures…rain showers and rainbows hidden beneath the rolling storm.
Pushing into Dinosaur
As we watch an enormous storm push its way over Dinosaur National Park, we contemplate the parallel between the shape of the landscape and the motion of the weather. Whether water flows over the earth, shaping the landscape or above the earth, shaping the heavens, the motion follows invisible curves defined by cyclonic forces and the distribution of pressure in and around the globe…when there is a high, there is also a low…when there is rain, there is also drought…not in opposition, but in a greater sense of balance where mass and energy are conserved across changing states, temperature and pressure deviations, and the unbalancing effects of industrialization.
Ephemeral
As we pass this way, one truth is evident…All things are ephemeral and our experiences are shaped by the manner in which we interpret the fleeting signs of our existence…Do we look upon the smoke clouds of a wildfire and wallow in our loss, or do we rejoice at the release of energy to be absorbed once again into the ether? In human terms, we will always limit ourselves with our emotions, yet those same emotions are the wellspring of the soul and lead us to rejoice in indefinable feelings that we experience as day overtakes night, light overtakes darkness, and love overtakes hatred.
Abstract Landscape – Line in the Sand
A thin blue line is cuts across the Mojave Desert, water traversing an arid landscape, a narrowly drawn memory of the fluid motion of a landlocked sea.
Smokescreens
While our attentions turn to the threats of wind and water along our coasts, fires burn at an unprecedented rate across the wild middle places of the American continent, leaving the earth shrouded in a thin screen of smoke, trapping the clarity of her magnificent features behind this dirty dreamlike veil…San Rafael Swell is one such feature, as magnificent and unique from every face as the singularity of a giant cresting wave upon the ocean…but we are robbed of the minute details, the clarity, the focus we need to complete the picture and engrain the memory…the smokescreen dulls our perception distracts us from the physical world around us.
Hurricanes
As we come upon a place in the desert called Hurricane, the colorful swirling intricacies of sedimentary earth tell stories of times when the water levels rested high above our comprehension…Meanwhile on the Atlantic Coast, hurricane after hurricane lift the ocean’s waters in violent surges that threaten sea level developments…The unseen part of this story that foretells a sea change is taking place at the poles, as ice shelves break and drift, melting and reintroducing water to the seas and carbon to the atmosphere…these ideas are signs, connected physical manifestations of epochal climate change accelerating like the tale of a whip.
Rising, Reaching, Falling
The water cycle, accelerated by heat, causes water vapor to rise, reach, and fall in a constant process of expansion and a release of latent energy…The more heat, the more energy…The storm, a visual expression of the energy trapped by our atmosphere, reaches into the evening light in pursuit of fuel to continue the cycle.
Vantage Points
The perfect place from which to experience Zion National Park’s tremendous sense of grandeur is from atop Angel’s Landing…From this vantage point, the enormity of the park can be sensed on all quarters, a three dimensional spectacle…But as we criss cross the nation in the back seat of airliners, if we choose to raise the shades and peer down, we may appreciate a new vantage point on earth..and in this layered perspective within our memories and fields of view, we understand the minute nature of our place within this grand creation…tiny worlds within worlds, tiny kingdoms within kingdoms…vantage points on vantage points…
Twas Brillig
Gyring and gimbling in the wabe…Evening falls and the rolling shadows of clouds, illuminated from beneath, conjure visions of unearthly scenes as allusions to The Jaberwocky fill my thoughts…The enduring and imaginative gift of great literature.
Simplification
As with anything in our feeble human existence, we seek to simplify so as to comprehend…We see massive networks of living rivers and their earthen conduit as simply a thing to be visited and viewed, subjected to selfies and bumper sticker passport stamps…yet, we walk this earth with her heartbeat profoundly displayed in complicated networks of water bringing life to the epidermal soil in one place and retreating from diseased atrophying limbs in another…If we stop to see her for her complexities, one day, we may see our viral influence on her health as she gracefully contends with the natural process of aging…We may come to understand that being good stewards of this earth is not abstract altruism, but an essential symbiotic action to secure the fate of an ecosystem of which we are a part.
Abstract Landscape – Writhing in Red Earth
On the floor of an the arid landlocked sea, ancient meanders are dashed and scattered leaving behind elongated abstract ridges of earth resembling some grand aquatic vertebrae writhing in the red earth.
Unmoored
Drifting between up and down as if unmoored and resting, awaiting some force to release it from its stasis.
Illuminate the Darkness
Everywhere there are shadows, yet the very nature of light is to defy our sense of what is possible and to illuminate the darkness… We must be the light and, through our words and deeds, penetrate those dark places, spreading compassion, practicing empathy, sharing ideas that make us stronger, casting out those ideas that make us smaller, embracing people for their differences, changing minds, and driving out darkness. This is our Virginia. Those strangers among us who would intractably cling to darkness and hate, you demean us…leave your hatred behind and let the light into your souls so that you may join the Human race…It’s about time.
This Way
Each of us is walking a way that hemstitches light and dark, literally and figuratively, and we leave reminders in our wake of who we are and where we have been as we play a lifelong spiritual game of connect-the-dots…these trails are but vapors, floating in the atmosphere until such time as they are reabsorbed to be redrawn by another traveler…all things are temporary except perhaps the enduring nature of love. So today, as I try to tune out the news of hate mongering strangers filling the streets of my town, I am thrown out of balance by their anger…I am disgusted and saddened by the violence that they treasure…This town that struggles, yet tries to walk the way out of racist times and into the present where we as a community openly engage and try (though not perfectly) to embrace one another with respect. We have a long way to go, but we will pass through this space and leave love in our wake, to be reabsorbed into the atmosphere and shared by others who walk along this way.
Abstract Landscape – Waveform
Waves flow through the rocky landscape of Rock Springs, Wyoming as though the remnants of some grand ripple in the fluid of earth…motion transcending liquid and solid states of matter in our sight.
Heading Up River
Watercraft leave narrow lines of wake, capturing the glancing rays of light on their delicate ripples, creating a roadmap for others to follow as they cruise up the Colorado toward Havasu.
In Every Storm
In the midst of every storm, there are rainbows…glimmers of spectral light in the falling rain…apparitions of the hopeful sort that may linger invisible to those who feel the rain, but shine brilliantly for those who have the perspective to see the beauty of the cycling weather.
Abstract Landscape – Plan View
Deep inland in a mountainous land, Aguascalientes City appears in plan view, two dimensional, as if projected on a flat canvas of earth…As the contours of earth vanish in the city plan, we follow the distinct lines of avenues and alleys as they define a manmade geometric abstract landscape.
The Aerial Horizon – Photography
The Aerial Horizon 