Last year in early November, with warm weather still with us, I sat in the forest along the Big Tesuque listening to its warbling stream, its edges softened with tussocks of autumned grasses. A wiry spider slid across a nearby granite boulder etched with patches of sparkling mica. Above, spires of Douglas fir pierced through honey sheened, gray-green trunks of swaying aspens. Long arches of these fallen and weathered trees framed the bare-branched understory of tea-leaved willow, currant, and rock spirea. Dangling seed heads of amber-mauve hued grasses, ruby berried kinnikinnick, and icy blue pussytoes, wove together this forest enclave. With pen and paper in hand, I noticed shadows from the low branches of the evergreen fir moving gently across thewhite page. A refreshing comfort seeped through me as I reflected on this constellation of visual cohesiveness and how it reveals the deep ecology apparent in this biologically rich environment, one rich in relationships as well as in species. The beauty in the looking and the beauty in the seen connect
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