Winter Mysteries

Winter snow brings mystery to the landscape: two 8 x 10 1/2 pastels.

Two more items from the Belden Lane book on The Solace of Fierce Landscapes:

A Zen Buddhist saying:  To the one who knows nothing, mountains are mountains, waters are waters, and trees are trees.  But when he has studied and knows a little, mountains are no longer mountains, water is no longer water, and trees are no longer trees.  But when he has thoroughly understood, mountains are once again mountains, waters are waters, and trees are trees.

"Most of us have little experience in paying careful attention to anything.  We marvel at a naturalist such as Louis Agassiz of Harvard, who once said he had spent the summer traveling, only to get halfway across his backyard."

Ridges and Edges

An 8x10 1/2 inch pastel of a view from a ridge of other ridges and edges.

In the outstanding book The Solace of Fierce Landscapes the author, Belden Lane, writes about an Englishman in northern India near Tibet who wrote, "We are saved in the end by the things that ignore us."  The 'things' he was referring to was the landscape.  Lane adds, "By its very act of ignoring him, the landscape invited him out of his frantic quest for self-fulfillment."