Tag: Utah

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Warped, Cathedral of the Madeleine, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America

Warped ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #325

I enter a cathedral
As if into warped space
Not warped as a physicist might think
But as in how a mystic might think
That is, a spiritual space or dimension
Bent, folded and manipulated
To conform to a specific configuration
Long ago transcribed into books
From collective memories
Predating written language

Aside from a certain wonder
At the passion and dedication
To the exquisite expression
Of humanity’s greater achievements
In art and architecture
A cathedral reminds me
Of the power of group thinking
For both good and ill
How this can become a tight leash
On an individual whose spirit
Simply refuses to conform

But it also reminds me
Of the exultant satisfaction
I experienced
When I finally broke the leash
Chose my own path
And found my way to a spiritual space
Which conformed to me

Not that I am without
My own warped sense of spiritual dimension
But the distortion is familiar to me
Has meaning for me
And brings me to a place of peace

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God's House, Cathedral of the Madeleine, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America

One of Many Paths to Goodness

Raised beneath
Steeples and spires
Kneeling Sitting Standing
In pews row on row

First Holy Communion
Confirmation
Confession
Ash Wednesday
Palm Sunday
Incense and palm leaves
Midnight Mass

Now another confession:
Never a believer
Earliest memories
Saying what was expected
Doing what was expected
Praying aloud the lie on my lips

Though there were Pastors
Two at least
Who made as much
A philosophy of sermon
As theology
Who bespoke love
And compassion
Forgiveness
And kindness
As if these were as important
As believing in Father, Son and Holy Ghost

I kept the compassionate love
Discarded the trinity
And for a long while
Wanted nothing to do
With religion
Or the religious

Until I finally saw
The strength faith gives my mother
Courage, resilience, tenacity
Powered by compassion, love and kindness
All in God’s name

Now I understand
Something about the nature of goodness
And the many paths we may travel
To bring ourselves to the love
Which is its foundation

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Sunrise Over Valley of the Gods, From Moki Dugway, Cedar Mesa, Utah, United States of America

Sunrise Sojourn

I wake
Into darkness
Scramble out of the tent
Enough time to boil water

Coffee
Cereal
Almond milk

The breakfast of
Car camping
Photographers

Pre-dawn
On the horizon
Time to go

Camera bag
Tripod
Fresh brew in the travel mug

On the way
Not far from the campground
Dawn demands a stop
Unexpected glory
In a few hurried frames

Then to the switchbacks
Moki Dugway
Rising twelve hundred feet
Straight up Cedar Mesa

From the top
With the wide zoom
And the fisheye
Then, this one here
On the middle zoom
Expected glory

Deep sigh of success
And anticipation
For the work which takes
A latent image of RAW bits
To the finished photograph
Here

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Falling Away to Depth, Valley of the Gods, Cedar Mesa, Moki Dugway, State Road 21, Utah, United States of America

Falling Away to Depth

The mesa falls away
Into the depths of early evening
Low sun illuminates
Undulating canyons and buttes

Sedimented sandstone
Layers indicating a scale
Powerfully daunting
And exquisite

And I
Stopped halfway between
Floor and ceiling
Sense myself in the centre of aeons

Epochs pass
Every hundred steps or so
Up the trail

A hundred years
A thousand
A hundred thousand
A million

Unwinding time
As species come
And species go

Great, fearsome lizards
Ruled the known universe
For 165 million years

But only in the last tens of steps
Before the top
Do I walk in the footsteps
Of my most ancient ancestors
A paltry 6 or so million years ago

I am reminded
For all our accomplishments and cleverness
We are but toddlers on this Earth
Itself nothing more
Than a pale blue dot
Circling a minor star
Spiraling in an outer arm
Of one galaxy
In a universe dotted
With hundreds of billions

Layer upon layer
Of time and space
Stretch out to scales
Unimaginable

A few steps more
I stand atop the mesa
Returned to the time and place
That belongs to me now

Deep, heavy breaths
To gain my equilibrium
While scanning across the vista
Tallying a few hundred million years of strata

A snippet
In an existence billions of years in the making
Layer upon layer of time and space
To make this collection of sediments
Which seems so very vast and ancient
But is no more than a cosmic blip
In all that was
All that is
And all that will be

I feel small
Fleeting
Insignificant

Yet

Somehow

And nonetheless

Stupendously magnificent

Because in all this immensity
Stands me
A self-aware collection of molecules
Contemplating the inconceivable miracle
That is my own consciousness
Tucked away in some small backwater
Of eternal infinity

Just how fucking exquisite is that?

And the view up here is awesome.

The sun sets
Light falls away to darkness
But for the little beacon of light
That is me