More Than a Rock

The Important Thing16

I’m dealing with the most important things there are: life and nature. If this doesn’t work, if this doesn’t sustain me, I can’t go back to nature. I’m right there. There’s nowhere to go, and that frightens me.

—Andy Goldsworthy

I woke up early today and sat on my porch to watch the velvety darkness fade into an overcast and chilly morning. A good rain came yesterday and the air is rich with the perfume of pine sap and desert flora. I spent the last couple of weeks on the sagebrush plains and among sparse aspen groves of a remote high plateau, watching monsoonal thunderstorms come and go, having a front-row seat in a theater of majestic proportions as lightning, thunder, and rain danced upon the volcanic landscape, now verdant ...