Jane Pettibone

On a recent trip to the West Coast, it was almost as if the sea were sighing. In every reach of the broken waves and the lacey foam rushing up the sand, I sensed a heaviness. For me, that rhythm of weight epitomized what I perceived as Nature’s sighs, as if the earth, the ocean, the sky, were exhaling some burden of impending change. Sometimes the natural world, in all its creative wonder, expresses a … Read more

What sounds lift your heart? Merriam Webster defines sound as a particular auditory impression: tone; the sensation perceived by the sense of hearing; and the mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a medium (such as air) and is the object cause of hearing. But there’s an emotional component when sound heightens our sensitivity just when we seem to need it the most—perhaps out of the doldrums into enlightened wonder. I … Read more

What is your wilderness? Maybe it’s an unadorned trip to the natural world without technology or the creature comforts of civilization, a place of organic, if not raw beauty, in an experience of communing with the environment. Or, maybe the term wilderness conjures up uncertainties of the future, perhaps incessant and taunting unknowns that pester one’s sense of security or identity (jobs, finances, relationships, achievements, material possessions, etc.). Still, some might equate the word wilderness … Read more

What was that? From afar, a geyser of water shot into the air from the frozen lake. It was the first morning of the New Year here in the northern hemisphere at Evergreen Lake in Colorado, and I didn’t exactly see any polar bears that could have made the splash (at least not real ones). What could it be? Oh, there were a few furry-clad walruses walking around, but as I looked more closely, I … Read more

While closing the bound pages of 2023 and looking to the virginal pages of 2024 fluttering on the horizon (as yet unwritten and unbound),  perhaps, one has to wonder . . . what is ahead? Remember, it is still the season of Christmas as we welcome the first pages of the New Year, and Light, even in the darkest skies, or perhaps, the most uninspired text, still shines. So, for those experiencing the slightest wisp … Read more

Can you feel the change? Over the landscape? Across the starry sky? Against your skin? Within your breath? There’s a coolness in the air and autumn has blossomed its full array of color to behold. The sun has gently reduced its summerly glare and there is this sense of ripened contentment amid the earth’s enhanced hues. It always touches my heart—this turning of season—when the rhythm of creation delivers a musical cadence to the earth. … Read more

In the eyes of a child, I saw goodness. In the eyes of my grandchild, I saw purity. It washed over me like the flow of a stream over stones. There was this feeling of being unworthy of the grace looking into my eyes, of knowing that that exact moment was imparted as a special gift—to remember. And so I share a feeling that all too often escapes the crowded and despairing headlines of day-to-day … Read more

How do we wear the events of our lives? What sculpts the contours of who we become? What colors us? These are questions of wonder and hopefully questions that inspire introspection. I look south to the jagged silhouette of the serrated mountain edge of Glacier Gorge in Rocky Mountain National Park. Fifteen thousand years ago these peaks formed from an immense valley of ice that carved and clawed its way through the earth. Now glorious … Read more

Driving through Cottonwood Pass between Fraser and Hot Sulphur Springs in Grand County, Colorado feels like a journey along the historical ranches in that region of yesteryear, and further yet into primordial time. There’s this sense of ancient life when indigenous people hunted, gathered, protected, and celebrated their day-to-day existence throughout the lay of this land. Much of it is ranchland today, but the sense of ancient cultures feels very close every time I traverse … Read more

Ah, can you feel it? The joy of Easter, spring blossoms, and a good poem will brim any heart to overflowing. Even in the wake of unexpected storms that blasted Colorado this month, renewal has come in the aftermath from hard times. The greening has arrived! Spring snow, sleet, and rain saturate the soil,/ Run rivulets over the rock cliffs,/ Slick a glisten to all things at first light,/ So that washed, purified, and sparkling,/ … Read more