Enchanted

This is my account of the one dream… you have again and again.

This is my journal from exactly eleven unforgettable adventures.

This is my love letter to the Enchantments.

My first journey atop Asgard Pass provides but a small glimpse of the divinity to come.

And upon reaching her core, how could I not feel divine too, when bestowed with such a view.

The shape of the Enchantments may have been depicted many-a-time before. But to me her story is so deep, and so personal, it cannot truly be told, but only behold.

A new day’s venture, and I travel further to Enchantments Pass. A place few often journey — off the beaten path. I look southeast toward Grandma and Grandpa, and I remember the feeling of Art, they once gave me.

I awake to a vision more vibrant than my dreams. I am reminded how inseparable reality can seem.

Then, hours later, the sun settles into its well-acquainted arc. The fresh autumn color stirs my heart.

This day, the season’s first snowfall graces these Enchanted Cascades. Atmosphere clouding and swirling, upon the mysterious and distant Prusik Peak.

Like the child I know… This atmosphere brings me back to a dream, only an image can perhaps manage to show.

I believe caligraphy is first, of nature. What I see is her broad and bold strokes. No interest in what or where, the world told her to go.

So youthful and pure, I love this world in a way no other human will ever know.

This is not to say another will not love it, equally, or more, in their very own.

But my love is mine, and mine alone.

Not a human in sight. I feel the wholeness of Mother Earth.

All her majesty and might.

Perfection in every pattern and texture. No effort or intention in sight.

I have come to understand that it is the beauty of the whole which moves me.

I know other way to say it.

And beyond a photo, I know no other way to convey it.

A natural place like this is so vibrant. Any image is but an ounce of a giant.

I understand nothing will rival its Color. And I will never attempt to match it.

For my role is not to match… but simply, to Meet.

To gaze and remember… the misty peak.

To remember my simple walk, among the colored trees.

To remember the ice blue lake, and the diffused autumn light. Not the same, but coalescent, like love at first sight.

Visions shrouded in clouds… I recall beauty in mystery. An indecipherable scene, which only Nature can fully see.

Oh yes, I recall a time when I needed Nature most. A time when nothing more could help. At the drop of a hat, I leave my work and everything else.

And she provides for me, perfection. Not a thing rarely seen. But, perhaps, it is the contrast, which makes her rare perfection sheen.

Reflections to me.. are the most simple of dreams. Certainly real to the dreamer, yet to another, not ever what is seen.

Like the vibrant larch, a finite vision. Only available to the human upon an adventure, and sincerely, their dream.

It is like I recall Snow Lakes. A doorstep, and a gateway, to the world which lies just above her space.

Above the lakes, autumn turns hastily to winter. The seasons as transient as can be.

I suppose, like my own journeys too… It’s a dream you’ll never fully see.

In the blink of a day, I’m standing upon the peak of Little Annapurna. I see the fullness of the core basin, which so many adventurers before me have come to know.

A human within it so small.

Yet the dusting on Mt. Stuart fills me with me with the youth of winter’s snow.

Then I return to the landscape any Enchanted traveler has once met. A brief moment of light illuminates the Brisingamen Lakelets, now becoming frozen and set.

But, still mid-October, not all lakes know the same fate. Small oases hold life, and water, late.

Water… the foundation of this Earth.

I know, from Her, all life gave birth.

Whether illuminated by wind.

Or refracted by sky. I believe all is available to the passerby… with a quiet, keen eye.

Most fittingly, I end with the single frame which lives in my heart. A frame which reminds me, from where my young love of photography gave birth.

The single frame which lives forever in me, when I recall this wholehearted, unequivocal and divine… Dream on Earth.

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

Picture of Dylan James Lockard

Dylan James Lockard