Museum of Northern Arizona Archives - Lakota Grace, AuthorLakota Grace, Author

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.
~ Oprah Winfrey

These young skunk cabbage were flourishing on a trail near the Museum of Northern Arizona one morning and I was struck by their vitality. There had been no rain and the ground was rocky and barren. Yet there they were.

What they had was enough: sun, air, a quiet place to grow.

I wonder if sometimes I am too focused on what I want and not enough on what I truly need to make life worthwhile.

Mindfulness helps you fall in love with the ordinary.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

Cracked volcanic rock, almost elephantine in its folds and crevices, lined a short walk on my way back to the Museum of Northern Arizona near Flagstaff.

What delighted me about this canyon was the overabundance of lichen, profligate in its blooming on this rough cliff wall. I wondered about the partnership between algae and fungus which produces lichen, and about its role in our modern world as a signal of pollution. Like the canary in the mine who only sings when the air is pure, lichen bloom only where high mountain air is unpolluted by industrial fumes.

And lichen are ancient. Some lichen colonies can be over 9000 years old. And older still is the rock to which they cling.

Nine thousand years from now, what will be our human legacy on this earth? Will our species still be as beautiful as these volcanic partners?

Lakota Grace, Author

The Pegasus Quincy Mystery Series

Tag Archives: Museum of Northern Arizona

Always looking for more

Like this:

Age and beauty define the lichen of this world

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: