Over The Line

Recently. Or maybe weeks ago. We were once again alerted to the change. The black streak of our sunset shadows raced away directly east. Shadows and sunshine drawing a line through our compass-oriented city. A black line that extended away from the sun, and an imaginary line that extended back toward the sun and across our solar system. A line we were crossing and stepping over. Stepping into a new season. Away from long days and short nights. Across the Equinox. And into the season of short days and long nights.

And perhaps this change is something of a relief. It has been a busy season for us. We filled many of those long days with long bike rides on rough trails. We floated in small boats down complicated streams and rivers. We tromped our way through deserts and mountains. We kept our eye on the sky. Our ear to the ground. Our nose to the wind. Our thoughts to the moment. And to all the moments that fell to the long, blind history of creation that saw stars form, planets congeal and cool, oceans fill, mountains rise, fall away, then rise again to be torn into the canyons and mesas that surround us. Thoughts tuned, also, to the step-by-slow-step temptation that lured molecules to coordinate and cooperate, to replicate, animate and differentiate, to probe new niches and fill them, to move over the face of the earth by cilia and tendril, by fin and root, by foot and feather.

Which I suppose is to say, that things are churning along more-or-less as normal for us. But perhaps you, gentle reader/watcher/lurker, have noticed that we haven't been saying much about it. Nor sharing many photos. And this is true. Though we have taken photos and have stories to tell, they haven't found there way here.

With this season change. With shorter days. Longer nights. We would like to propose the possibility that some of the missing adventures of the past might now find their way into form. Into pixels and posts. And -- if we're lucky and if we're engaging enough -- into the hearts and minds of those of you who are kind enough to visit.

In this busy world, ours is a rather slow production. This meandering stream of tales from our garden, from our natural neighborhood, and from our travels, is no competition for the ever-engaging onslaught of entertainment that fills our civilized world. And for this we do not apologize. But we do think there is a line. A vague and shifting and completely questionable line. A divide. Between the manic rhythms of the world we humans create for ourselves. And the slower, infinitely larger cycles of the world that created us.

If we have a purpose for this blog. A hope. It might be that our humble pictures and stories encourage the crossing of that line. That they can provide a needed push that gets someone -- maybe even us -- outside on a cloudy, chilly day. Or on a sunny bright day. Or on a dark, noiseless night. And into a place where humans are less integral and more transitory. Where geology and the lives of plants and creatures are available to the observing senses.

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Of course it's possible that we'll continue to fill these coming shorter days with our small adventures. That our backlog of photos and stories will only grow larger as weeks pass. But here's to a new season! And to hope.