Sun sets at Midnight Dome in the land of the midnight sun: Yukon, where autumn was October gold and firelight red just a week ago, and today, it is the color of November back home—trees undressing not so slowly, showing now the shoulders of nakedness, bark the color of a mud-stormed sky.
I grew up with the aurora borealis. It was a normal part of my childhood, a frequent occurrence. As happens in so many cases, it was only by moving on from that life, and becoming a different person, that I look behind me to see the staggering beauty that I took for granted.
This lesson made me teach my own children not to do that. The majesty of the mountains and forest that surround us here in British Columbia - we notice, absorb, respect, and know how fortunate we are to witness this incredible beauty.
I love the field of giving and receiving you have created Renee, thank you. Safe journey❤
Thank you for sharing about growing up with the aurora borealis. It is a dream for me to witness it. Not yet. The lights will come. . . .
Isn't it the nature of the "taken-for-granted," that it's such a normal part of our existence, especially if from childhood, that we scarcely notice the majesty and mystery that we are inside of and that is inside us? Your children are fortunate to have you as their mother. The land that surrounds you is fortunate you are there to "notice, absorb, respect, and know how fortunate we are to witness this incredible beauty." My sense is that nature is responding to your notice . . . in a "field of giving and receiving."
My first instinct is to reach out and touch these images as if I could lay my hands upon the grass, upon the moss, even upon the clouds. Then I withdraw my hand as though I would wake the sleeping giants that slumber there. This is to remind me that the landscape is forever changing and we are all at once a part of it, yet separate. We embrace the ongoing uncertainty the same as we do the landscape. With awe, with gratitude, with appreciation, with oneness. We cannot capture clouds as we cannot capture stars, they are already gone before we reach them, so we remain suspended in love, in time, in blissful patience. 🙏💫
I echo Jenna. Your reflection is so touching, so alive with the aliveness I hoped these images would evoke, so exquisitely present with the mystery in which we are ever "suspended in love, in time, in blissful patience." My heart quivers reading your words. This statement is not hyperbole. It is mutual recognition.
I am so soothed by your words Renee. I can’t actually explain what it means to be able to express myself in this way, I don’t often do it anyway else and I feel safe to bring my whole self here. That is the magic that you have created. Do you think that these photos will be available as prints at anytime. There is one that has a chink of blue sky that I love and the ‘sleeping giant’ near the beginning? 💫🙏
What an honor to receive your words here expressive of your whole self. I am humbled. Truly. Thank you for sharing. It is quite something to do so in an online setting--this being our primary form of communication with one another across the world now, it seems important to find our way toward such truths and intimacy with one another. I believe it is possible. You show me it is so.
Email me about images. I believe you have my email address: reneeeliphd AT gmail.
Is uncertainty not the way of water? A flowing stream needs not know where it flows but that it flows...
This speaks to the mystery of my own journey so much these past months. What a journey it is to feel the beauty in the uncertainty, but once you do, it feels all the more potent.
Thank you for sharing. I love what you offer: It *is* a journey. Isn't it? And we get there if we stay with it, to the beauty of the "watercourse way." And "once you do, it feels all the more potent." You know something, perhaps life itself, in an utterly new way.
Your pictures and prose are breathtaking! I think I kind of love the idea of hunkering down, waiting for the river to freeze. Maybe it's just the romantic in me (because I definitely don't know the realities of such a situation), but it feels like comfort to me: to get filled up on supplies then tuck in, with no need to engage the outside world. I hope you get to envelope yourself in the aurora borealis and be infused with its magic! 💖 Can't wait to hear about it!
I share the romantic inclinations. Part of me (in moments, a sizable part) wanted to stay for the winter, hunker down as you say, and let the elements and the stillness be my winter companion. I suspect you and I are not the only ones. There is a yearning, a growing yearning, I sense, in all of us to reclaim something at once primal and primordial.
No aurora borealis yet! I am waiting. But we did have snow!
I promise to tell and hope to do so with images!
Wholly enchanted that our paths have crossed, Jenna,
I had just a taste of eastern Alaska this past May and I didn't come close to filling my needs. So I am traveling along with you. I promise I'll be quiet and I swear I'll never ever ask "are we there yet?"
Thank you for sharing! I'm delighted you're traveling along. Chime in whenever. Don't be shy--even to tell me that my driving could be better! If we agree not to ask "are we there yet," then we agree that it's never about the destination. . . .
You have tasted Alaska. I'm not sure I've done much more, but the appetizer sure changed my whole appetite about life.
Renée; I meant to send this earlier in the week. Another Mary Oliver poem for you: "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell about grief, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, high in the clean blue air the wild geese are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over announcing your place in the family of all things." Love to you.
So many lines shimmer in this update. "A gap that looks both ways and so is not a gap at all but a field alive with communion" is just one. I hope you get your aurora before it's too cold for camping. It's remarkable to think of the faster-changing season. In *that* there is certainty. By winter, I imagine you indoors and warm, working on the book from all of this.
Here is a challenge, should you wish to accept it, for your use on those later days: If you are not already doing it, be sure to put yourself in some of these beautiful landscape photos that you take so well. Later, you will see things in those pictures that the landscape alone will not reveal. Maybe you're doing it already. :-) Peace!
Thank you, as always, for your astute read. And yes, we can be certain of the cold. Two nights ago, no aurora but snow!
" put yourself in some of these beautiful landscape photos. . . . Later, you will see things in those pictures that the landscape alone will not reveal." There is something inside your words that catches my breath a little. Not sure what but noted. Thank you.
Knowing you as an avid reader, knowing your love of words, I smile as I read yours, each one carrying worlds of meaning and nuance--an echo calling out from the wilds of the Yukon and Alaska back home to all of us.
Thank you, Renee, for your beautiful descriptions of Dawson City and the Yukon. I had planned to travel back that way from Alaska, but I realized that the urgency of the border closing tomorrow would cut short my time in Alaska and rush me onward, at a time when what I need most is to slow down. I haven’t had time to write in weeks, and there are so many stories waiting to be told from The Last Frontier. It’s a rainy day in Whittier and I’m camped overlooking a glacier, so I’m going to rest here a while and see what words come.
You mention wildfires blocking the way south. Does that include the Stewart-Cassiar route? I’d been planning to take that highway, so I guess I’d better check for updates.
Thank you for taking time to so beautifully share your adventures and reflections!
Perhaps with these images, you have had now your taste of Dawson and the Yukon and can rest where you are without the tug of "missed that." It can be exhausting being on the move all the time, as you so well know. Go you (!!) for listening to the cue to slow down, rest, and if words come, to give them to the page.
The passages are changing daily. Two days ago Stewart-Cassiar was closed. Today, one lane is open. Three days ago, Google maps routed me east by offering the Alaska Marine Highway (aka Ferry) as the only option! DriveBC.ca is a good place to keep an eye on things if you haven't already.
You have just rekindled my old passion and curiosity for the Yukon, not just but all of Alaska... your breathtaking images entice me further... thank you 🙏🏽
I grew up with the aurora borealis. It was a normal part of my childhood, a frequent occurrence. As happens in so many cases, it was only by moving on from that life, and becoming a different person, that I look behind me to see the staggering beauty that I took for granted.
This lesson made me teach my own children not to do that. The majesty of the mountains and forest that surround us here in British Columbia - we notice, absorb, respect, and know how fortunate we are to witness this incredible beauty.
I love the field of giving and receiving you have created Renee, thank you. Safe journey❤
Donna,
Thank you for sharing about growing up with the aurora borealis. It is a dream for me to witness it. Not yet. The lights will come. . . .
Isn't it the nature of the "taken-for-granted," that it's such a normal part of our existence, especially if from childhood, that we scarcely notice the majesty and mystery that we are inside of and that is inside us? Your children are fortunate to have you as their mother. The land that surrounds you is fortunate you are there to "notice, absorb, respect, and know how fortunate we are to witness this incredible beauty." My sense is that nature is responding to your notice . . . in a "field of giving and receiving."
With love,
Renée
My first instinct is to reach out and touch these images as if I could lay my hands upon the grass, upon the moss, even upon the clouds. Then I withdraw my hand as though I would wake the sleeping giants that slumber there. This is to remind me that the landscape is forever changing and we are all at once a part of it, yet separate. We embrace the ongoing uncertainty the same as we do the landscape. With awe, with gratitude, with appreciation, with oneness. We cannot capture clouds as we cannot capture stars, they are already gone before we reach them, so we remain suspended in love, in time, in blissful patience. 🙏💫
Louise,
I echo Jenna. Your reflection is so touching, so alive with the aliveness I hoped these images would evoke, so exquisitely present with the mystery in which we are ever "suspended in love, in time, in blissful patience." My heart quivers reading your words. This statement is not hyperbole. It is mutual recognition.
With love,
Renée
I am so soothed by your words Renee. I can’t actually explain what it means to be able to express myself in this way, I don’t often do it anyway else and I feel safe to bring my whole self here. That is the magic that you have created. Do you think that these photos will be available as prints at anytime. There is one that has a chink of blue sky that I love and the ‘sleeping giant’ near the beginning? 💫🙏
Louise,
What an honor to receive your words here expressive of your whole self. I am humbled. Truly. Thank you for sharing. It is quite something to do so in an online setting--this being our primary form of communication with one another across the world now, it seems important to find our way toward such truths and intimacy with one another. I believe it is possible. You show me it is so.
Email me about images. I believe you have my email address: reneeeliphd AT gmail.
What a beautiful reflection, Louise! ♥️
So true, Jenna. She has a way about her.
Thank you Jenna! ❤️
Is uncertainty not the way of water? A flowing stream needs not know where it flows but that it flows...
This speaks to the mystery of my own journey so much these past months. What a journey it is to feel the beauty in the uncertainty, but once you do, it feels all the more potent.
Kaitlyn,
Thank you for sharing. I love what you offer: It *is* a journey. Isn't it? And we get there if we stay with it, to the beauty of the "watercourse way." And "once you do, it feels all the more potent." You know something, perhaps life itself, in an utterly new way.
So glad you're here,
Renée
Beautiful photographs. Thank you.
Agree!
Thank you, Peggy.
Thank you, David. And thanks for sharing.
Your pictures and prose are breathtaking! I think I kind of love the idea of hunkering down, waiting for the river to freeze. Maybe it's just the romantic in me (because I definitely don't know the realities of such a situation), but it feels like comfort to me: to get filled up on supplies then tuck in, with no need to engage the outside world. I hope you get to envelope yourself in the aurora borealis and be infused with its magic! 💖 Can't wait to hear about it!
Jenna,
Thank you.
I share the romantic inclinations. Part of me (in moments, a sizable part) wanted to stay for the winter, hunker down as you say, and let the elements and the stillness be my winter companion. I suspect you and I are not the only ones. There is a yearning, a growing yearning, I sense, in all of us to reclaim something at once primal and primordial.
No aurora borealis yet! I am waiting. But we did have snow!
I promise to tell and hope to do so with images!
Wholly enchanted that our paths have crossed, Jenna,
Renée
Renee,
Thank you for your wonderful descriptions of a wonderful place. The beauty and utter scale have to be seen to be understood.
EZTejas123,
You know the beauty and scale first hand. I'm glad what I share evokes it and so appreciate you sharing this.
Such a delight to see you here,
Renée
I had just a taste of eastern Alaska this past May and I didn't come close to filling my needs. So I am traveling along with you. I promise I'll be quiet and I swear I'll never ever ask "are we there yet?"
dkolsen,
Thank you for sharing! I'm delighted you're traveling along. Chime in whenever. Don't be shy--even to tell me that my driving could be better! If we agree not to ask "are we there yet," then we agree that it's never about the destination. . . .
You have tasted Alaska. I'm not sure I've done much more, but the appetizer sure changed my whole appetite about life.
So glad to meet you on this journey,
Renée
Renée; I meant to send this earlier in the week. Another Mary Oliver poem for you: "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell about grief, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, high in the clean blue air the wild geese are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over announcing your place in the family of all things." Love to you.
Dear Ed,
This may be my favorite poem by Mary Oliver, and I thank you for sharing it here.
And love to you, Dear Friend!
So many lines shimmer in this update. "A gap that looks both ways and so is not a gap at all but a field alive with communion" is just one. I hope you get your aurora before it's too cold for camping. It's remarkable to think of the faster-changing season. In *that* there is certainty. By winter, I imagine you indoors and warm, working on the book from all of this.
Here is a challenge, should you wish to accept it, for your use on those later days: If you are not already doing it, be sure to put yourself in some of these beautiful landscape photos that you take so well. Later, you will see things in those pictures that the landscape alone will not reveal. Maybe you're doing it already. :-) Peace!
Tara,
Thank you, as always, for your astute read. And yes, we can be certain of the cold. Two nights ago, no aurora but snow!
" put yourself in some of these beautiful landscape photos. . . . Later, you will see things in those pictures that the landscape alone will not reveal." There is something inside your words that catches my breath a little. Not sure what but noted. Thank you.
Peace!
Renée
Vibrancy. Starkness. Acceptance. Preparation.
Peggy,
Knowing you as an avid reader, knowing your love of words, I smile as I read yours, each one carrying worlds of meaning and nuance--an echo calling out from the wilds of the Yukon and Alaska back home to all of us.
Thank you for sharing, Dear Friend.
Sending love across the miles,
Renée
Thank you, Renee, for your beautiful descriptions of Dawson City and the Yukon. I had planned to travel back that way from Alaska, but I realized that the urgency of the border closing tomorrow would cut short my time in Alaska and rush me onward, at a time when what I need most is to slow down. I haven’t had time to write in weeks, and there are so many stories waiting to be told from The Last Frontier. It’s a rainy day in Whittier and I’m camped overlooking a glacier, so I’m going to rest here a while and see what words come.
You mention wildfires blocking the way south. Does that include the Stewart-Cassiar route? I’d been planning to take that highway, so I guess I’d better check for updates.
Thank you for taking time to so beautifully share your adventures and reflections!
Liz and Renée: I hope you both get to stay north long enough for an aurora!
Me too!
Fingers crossed I will see it on the Alcan on my way back! It has been too cloudy along the coast.
Liz,
Thank you.
Perhaps with these images, you have had now your taste of Dawson and the Yukon and can rest where you are without the tug of "missed that." It can be exhausting being on the move all the time, as you so well know. Go you (!!) for listening to the cue to slow down, rest, and if words come, to give them to the page.
The passages are changing daily. Two days ago Stewart-Cassiar was closed. Today, one lane is open. Three days ago, Google maps routed me east by offering the Alaska Marine Highway (aka Ferry) as the only option! DriveBC.ca is a good place to keep an eye on things if you haven't already.
Thank you again.
With love,
Renée
Your photography..so moving in such an unexpected way. Thank you for sharing.
Amy,
Thank you for sharing. Your words captivate me: "so moving in such an unexpected way."
So delighted to connect with you here,
Renée
You have just rekindled my old passion and curiosity for the Yukon, not just but all of Alaska... your breathtaking images entice me further... thank you 🙏🏽
Saf,
Thank you. No aurora yet, but I am hopeful!
I've hoped thought to reach out to you by email. Might you email me? reneeeliphd AT gmail.
Note: If you do not hear from me right away, know that I am making the next remote passage and will respond as soon as I have connectivity again.
Warmest,
Renée