You can visit a place like Concord Mass and contemplate why it is the fecund birthplace of Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott, and Hawthorne. I'm always in awe, that some of our finest writers, minds sprung from the wooded areas around Concord. While I am on the Provo Rivertrail, I often find myself contemplating Walden Pond and how a place can be so filled with energy and inspiration to give birth to ideas and life-changing realizations, developments and philosophies. I have the great privilege of feeling a certain ownership of our Rivertrail. I've often commented that it is my own Walden Pond. I have been using the Rivertrail since 1991. I have seen every season repeatedly pass. But with each passing season I forget the splendor and the beauty of seasons before. I forget the inspiration it brings, until it sweeps through my mind, cleaning out dead ideas, like dry leaves from a tree, with a crisp January breeze blowing across the soft fields of snow. It is on Rivertrail I can most often find joy in the moment, allow it to occupy every cell of my body. It is here, I commune with loved ones passed on, understand the circle of life, take inventory of my life, commit myself to doing better, acknowledge the "cancer" in my daily living that must be cut away. Today each branch of each tree and shrub was covered in a thick layer of ice, giving a thick whiteness to every branch. Then, snowflakes crystalized and stuck to the icy fingered branches. In the sunlight, these crystals shone like millions of diamonds. Looking past the sparkling white branches across the sparkling white fields, I realized how often we believe we can shape nature when we are truly subject to and powerless to her will and beauty. I used to think I could change things, make history, save the world with my work. I realize now after being beaten down again and again, that I am not in charge of the Universe. If I can just learn to see the beauty in accepting what is; like the sparkling crystals on the tree branches in winter, rather than always hoping for some eternal Summer. | 