"I love nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst, I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this." - Henry David Thoreau
The Ocean...
Starfish, Ventura, CA, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp. What is the message
signaled by the hordes of diatoms, flashing their microscopic lights in the night sea? What truth is expressed by the legions of the barnacles, whitening the rocks with
their habitations, each small creature within finding the necessities of its existence in the sweep of the surf? And what is the meaning of so many tiny a being in the
transparent wisp of protoplasm that is a sea lace, existing for some reason inscrutable to us - a reason that demands its presence by the trillion amid the rocks and weeds
of the shore? The meaning haunts and ever eludes us, and in its very pursuit we approach the ultimate mystery of Life itself." - Rachel Carson, 1955, The Edge of the Sea
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The Mountains...
Mount Rainier, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our
humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there." - Henry David Thoreau, 1864, The Maine Woods
"Once in a lifetime, perhaps, one escapes the actual confines of the flesh. Once in a lifetime, if one is lucky, one so merges with sunlight and air and running water that whole eons, the eons that mountains and deserts know, might pass in a single afternoon without discomfort." - Loren Eiseley, 1957, The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature
"…Living in the midst of such utter and overpowering beauty as nearly kills a sensitive person by its piercing glory…" - Everett Ruess, 1934, A Vagabond for Beauty
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The Desert...
Bouquet Canyon, Saugus, CA, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"No man in the middle of a desert or on top of a mountain ever fell victim to the delusion that he himself was nothing except the product of social forces, that all he needed was a proper orientation in his economic group, or that production per man hour was a true index of happiness…" -
Joseph Wood Krutch, 1985, The Desert Year
"Not to have known - as most men have not - either the mountain or the desert is not to have known one's self. Not to have known one's self is to have known no one, and to have known no one makes it relatively easy to suppose, as sociology commonly does, that the central problems are the problems of technology and politics…" - Joseph Wood Krutch, 1985, The Desert Year
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Canyons...
Canyons in Ventura, CA, 2009 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"The canyons create habitat for wildlife, birds and plants, and the foothills create a buttress that stops society at its edges, like a gated community for
the wild...There lies a "shoreline" between flat valley floor and the rise of foothills, where canyons serve as doors for human
entry. The perfect symmetry of manmade houses and orange groves stops abruptly at the mouth of each canyon in the Santa Paula Valley. Here, bobcats, cougars, rattlesnakes and
coyotes replace cars and children. Chapparel and vast green or brown hills, depending on the season, replace sidewalks and stores. Only birds soar where freeway overpasses
hover in the city." - Kirsten Anderberg, 2009
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The Sky (Astronomy)...
Venus over the Pacific Ocean at Ventura, CA, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"And I died in my boots like a pioneer, with the whole wide sky above me." - Stephen Vincent Benet, 1956, The Ballad of William Sycamore, 1790-1871.
"What is it to be admitted to a museum to see a myriad of particular things, compared with being shown some star's surface, some hard matter in its home! I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one, - that my body might, - but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, - the rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?" - Henry David Thoreau, 1864, The Maine Woods
Click here for more quotes about the sky...
Starfish, Ventura, CA, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp. What is the message signaled by the hordes of diatoms, flashing their microscopic lights in the night sea? What truth is expressed by the legions of the barnacles, whitening the rocks with their habitations, each small creature within finding the necessities of its existence in the sweep of the surf? And what is the meaning of so many tiny a being in the transparent wisp of protoplasm that is a sea lace, existing for some reason inscrutable to us - a reason that demands its presence by the trillion amid the rocks and weeds of the shore? The meaning haunts and ever eludes us, and in its very pursuit we approach the ultimate mystery of Life itself." - Rachel Carson, 1955, The Edge of the Sea
Click here for more ocean and shoreline quotes...
The Mountains...
Mount Rainier, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there." - Henry David Thoreau, 1864, The Maine Woods
"Once in a lifetime, perhaps, one escapes the actual confines of the flesh. Once in a lifetime, if one is lucky, one so merges with sunlight and air and running water that whole eons, the eons that mountains and deserts know, might pass in a single afternoon without discomfort." - Loren Eiseley, 1957, The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature
"…Living in the midst of such utter and overpowering beauty as nearly kills a sensitive person by its piercing glory…" - Everett Ruess, 1934, A Vagabond for Beauty
Click here for more mountain quotes...
The Desert...
Bouquet Canyon, Saugus, CA, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"No man in the middle of a desert or on top of a mountain ever fell victim to the delusion that he himself was nothing except the product of social forces, that all he needed was a proper orientation in his economic group, or that production per man hour was a true index of happiness…" - Joseph Wood Krutch, 1985, The Desert Year
"Not to have known - as most men have not - either the mountain or the desert is not to have known one's self. Not to have known one's self is to have known no one, and to have known no one makes it relatively easy to suppose, as sociology commonly does, that the central problems are the problems of technology and politics…" - Joseph Wood Krutch, 1985, The Desert Year
Click here for more desert quotes...
Canyons...
Canyons in Ventura, CA, 2009 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"The canyons create habitat for wildlife, birds and plants, and the foothills create a buttress that stops society at its edges, like a gated community for the wild...There lies a "shoreline" between flat valley floor and the rise of foothills, where canyons serve as doors for human entry. The perfect symmetry of manmade houses and orange groves stops abruptly at the mouth of each canyon in the Santa Paula Valley. Here, bobcats, cougars, rattlesnakes and coyotes replace cars and children. Chapparel and vast green or brown hills, depending on the season, replace sidewalks and stores. Only birds soar where freeway overpasses hover in the city." - Kirsten Anderberg, 2009
Click here for more canyon quotes...
The Sky (Astronomy)...
Venus over the Pacific Ocean at Ventura, CA, 2008 (Photo: K.Anderberg)
"And I died in my boots like a pioneer, with the whole wide sky above me." - Stephen Vincent Benet, 1956, The Ballad of William Sycamore, 1790-1871.
"What is it to be admitted to a museum to see a myriad of particular things, compared with being shown some star's surface, some hard matter in its home! I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one, - that my body might, - but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, - the rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?" - Henry David Thoreau, 1864, The Maine Woods