A Path Less Traveled

This quote is found in the Dillon Nature Center educational area. I added it to one of the images I took on our recent walk on the nature trails there.

Sometimes I go nowhere on the treadmill. Sometimes I kick up dust on our dirt road. And, once in awhile, I travel the road less traveled.

Randy and I had a little extra time between appointments in Hutchinson last week. So we went to Dillon Nature Center and walked the trails there for a change of pace - pun intended.

The birds sang. (No, I couldn't capture them in my camera viewfinder as they darted quickly from tree to tree. But I did catch glimpses of red and brown among the branches of trees as they flitted from perch to perch.)

The overhead branches formed a canopy of light and shadow over the nature trail. And I couldn't help but think of the very first song I sang for a music festival in junior high.

I know a green cathedral

A shadowed forest shrine

Where leaves in love join hands above

And arch your prayer and mine.

It's a lesson in irony to remember lyrics from a long-ago solo and not be able to remember why I came into a room. But it's my reality, it seems.

Some of the annual flowers brightened our way. My favorite was this beautiful columbine.

Flowering shrubs provided fragrance and beauty, too.

The sun created bursts of light through red buds and green leaves.

 

It was almost as if these cypress roots are like little people enjoying the view from the shoreline of the pond.

We enjoyed the view, too.

I Know A Green Cathedral: Fall Photos

Some days, I can't remember a word that's right on the tip of my tongue. And then I realize that I know many of the words of the very first vocal solo I sang at a music festival. Sad, but true!

When Randy and I went for a walk at Dillon Nature Center a couple of weeks ago, the words from that solo, " I Know A Green Cathedral," were the ones singing in my head:

I know a green cathedral, a shadowed forest shrine,

Where leaves in love join hands above

And arch your prayer and mine.

 

Within its cool depths sacred,

The priestly cedar sighs,

And the fir and pine lift arms divine

Unto the pure blue skies

In my green cathedral, there is a flowered seat,

 

And choir loft in branched croft,

Where songs of bird hymns sweet.

And I like to dream at evening,

When the stars its arches light,

That my Lord and God treads its hallowed sod,

In the cool, calm peace of night.

I'm sure Dillon Nature Center changes every day during fall. We were there in early evening, and it was gorgeous. Need your blood pressure lowered naturally? Here's your prescription.