Venus may support life in its misty wraiths, so say scientists. Yeesh! How long did it take them to figure that out? It been supporting me for years every dawn that I ski the Valley trail at Elm Creek. Venus – the MorningStar – plays a game of “Sly Wink’em” with me, and my soul makes a break for the embrace of that Roman goddess of love and beauty, but alas, the surly bonds of Earth assert their pull. I am subject to the law of gravity and the quid pro quo of human frailties. Being merely mortal, I am governed by the even-up exchange of passion and other worldly parities. All the same, I thrill to the offer. Thank you, MorningStar. We have the best part of each other.

That said, Earth has its Heavens right here, even if they’re getting harder to find. Politics and pandemics have us back on our heels. Traditional ideals have been reverse-engineered and reassembled backwards to justify weakness and irresponsibility. Hope you’re as over it as I am. Oh, give me the road less traveled! Don’t care if the Interstate is being upgraded in a – if you’ll pardon the expression – infrastructure bill. And take my car before it’s hijacked or tapped out at the gas pump – I’d rather hike. I’m not going in the same direction as society anyway. If you’re as nervous as unpopped popcorn in a sauna over the road you’re on, I recommend the exit ramp to any destination that isn’t named The New Normal.

In fact, you might want to throw away your map. Because even if you can’t follow a drop of sweat to the end of their nose, you’ll be miles ahead if you follow your common sense. Back to nature! Mom Nature sorted it all out for us during a million years of basic training. What has cut us down at the knees is the plastic hysteria of groupthink, aggrandized by a shameless and self-serving media. Let nature heal the pain and restore us before we are too blind to read the fine print on our obituaries, too deaf to hear the silent truths of independent minds over manipulated hearts.

Burning calories is the least of it. At least physical calories. Spiritual calories and mental calories – that’s where it’s at. They will let you carbo-load your brain all you want with good intentions, inspiring photos, wishes and dreams, and you won’t gain weight in the mirror at all. So, feast away! Have some eye candy through your window. Snack on a whiff of good-clean air on the way to the mailbox. Stick out your tongue and savor a drifting snowflake as you cross the parking lot to the department store. You don’t have to compete with nature’s fastest, strongest, most athletic specimens, or huff and puff with the human whippets in the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing. You just need to get out from four walls and change the geometry of straight lines that shrink-wraps your mind. Let your ears listen to the serenity; smell the nuanced bouquet of taint-free air.

There. Feel better? All those nagging stresses are shoved offstage now. You can think again. Feel again. Sort out priorities and gain perspective again. And if you do that every day, you will start to get out of yourself and learn some lessons – some values and immutable truths – from nature. Nature is very forgiving and brooks no nonsense. Whatever is, is right. Here is how I put it recently on Facebook:

Very misty here today. Can’t even see beyond the lake. But the trees emerge like scrims on a stage, each recession a little paler than the last. Life is like that. Levels, layers, partitions. Each in its own world with its own shades of grey. You live in the one closest at hand, vivid with the color in your life – your passions and actions – but your thoughts and emotions are grey as ghosts, and travel unimpeded through all layers like ghost ships. They are the bond, the context, the continuity, the nebulous thing that gives relevance and meaning to the scenes in your life, past and present. Connective tissue. I revel in the swirls that escape layers. Mist unlocks my imagination, my freedom. Like a finger pressed to mute lips in a dream, it tells me to watch but not interact. Keep faith with mist, and it defines your partition and informs you of where you can go, what you can do and feel. It is the balance, the great equalizer, the bell that calls you home.

…and home is where the photos below begin. #1 The inspiring view outside my Creatorium (no “m” in the middle, please); #2-3 more inspiration implicit with the Goddess in my Garden (photobombed in #3 by some masher); #4-10 some views of Eastman, gateway to the Golden Field, aka White Feather Meadow; #11-12 moi at Eastman.

Thomas "Sully" Sullivan