Mountains and Oceans

Spring                                                                New (Emergent) Moon

Dark clouds over the Rockies this morning, rain and 57 after 78 yesterday. The horizon line shows bright just above the peaks, then another two degrees or so, the clouds point down toward the mountains, as if mirroring them. Virga falls in the distance.

(Rain Clouds Gathering-Scene Amongst the Allegheny Mountains  George Harvey 1840)

The weather changes quickly here, katabatic winds from the mountains meeting moist air from the gulf and cooler, drier air from the north. Depending on which one can be a weathermaker, Denver gets rain, heat or snow and cold.

The mountains have the same sort of presence as the ocean. They dominate the skyline to the west just as the ocean dominates the sight line to the curvature of the earth. Their difference from flat land is as dramatic as the ocean’s, too. Both remind us two leggeds that not all the earth was made for us. Or, better, that we were not made to enjoy all the earth.

That’s not to say we don’t venture onto and into the ocean, onto and up the mountains, we do; but, we make those treks with safety gear and attention for we are not on our element. Knowing their indifference to our welfare makes their presence nearby slightly unsettling, a reminder of the all to narrow slices of this planet on which our species can thrive.