Littleleaf Huckleberry or Grouseberry, skyview (Vaccinium scoparium), [ click photo for next . . . ]
High Wallowas . . .

Tiny berries with a big, sweet taste. (Photograph above is
a skyview, ie., from below, and very much enlarged.) The
Littleleaf is a rhizomatous shrub, forming whole understory
stands in the Wallowas, especially above 2000 m. under
Spire Fir (Abies lasciocarpa), Fiddle-top Spruce (Picea
engelmannii) and Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis).
They are wonderfully deciduous, the leaves turning a
delicate yellow sometime in September with the first high
mountain frosts. Just after snowmelt in spring, the light
and fresh green-colored leaves emerge, usually contrasting
beautifully with lingering winter snow banks and clusters
of colorful spring ephemerals.

On the road in the Northwest of America.

Nature knows no conflict,

no contradiction, no waste.


It is possible to say, therefore, that the

spiritual or religious life begins not with

any dogma or belief, but rather with the

deeply held intention to live a life with-

out conflict, contradiction, or waste.

WEALTH & POWER

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

The tendency of both outward material wealth and power is to become
not so much means to a better world or even a happier life, but to be-
come ends in themselves. Once this happens, what wealth and power
come to fear more than anything else is the loss of wealth and power.

Because of this all-powerful fear of loss, wealth and power are only
really interested in the arts and sciences insofar as the arts and sciences
can make the increase of wealth and power possible, and more secure.

And because this fear of loss corrupts all clear thinking, it leads us to
deny in the name of security everything we do not wish to believe.
This is why wealth and power are notoriously bad at dealing with the
disturbing facts of any kind of serious existential crisis, say like those
posed by abrupt climate change, or the collapse of democracy into
military dictatorship. That is the essential contradiction of outward
material wealth and power, in any era, in any age and place. And it is
why wealth and power rightly fear their own downfall, which, because
of the contradiction itself, is with time, tragically both necessary and
inevitable.



WEALTH?

Wealth? When I have the things I need
to share the things I love.

WEALTH & POWER is part of
THE LITTLE CLAVIER please preview 150 of 631 pages
w/ my black & white photography [opens in new window]