Desert Solitaire

Paradise is not a garden of bliss and changeless perfection where the lions lie down like lambs
(what would they eat?)
and the angels and cherubim and seraphim rotate in endless idiotic circles, like clockwork, about an equally inane and ludicrous--however roseate--unmoved mover. That particular painted fantasy of a realm beyond time and space which Aristotle and the church fathers tried to palm off on us has met, in modern times, only neglect and indifference passing on into oblivion it so richly deserved, while the paradise of which I write and wish to praise is with us yet, the here and now, the actual, tangible, dogmatically real earth on which we stand.
--Edward Abbey
(from Desert Solitaire)
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Comanche Point from Cardenas Butte
Loreena Mckennitt: "La Serenissima"
Tanner Trail