In 1879, the preservationist and            
explorer John Muir took his first trip to
Alaska                                                       

As he explored the fjords and rocky   
landscapes of Alaska's now famous  
Glacier Bay, a powerful feeling struck
 him all at once                                        

In this single moment, it was as if the
entire world was in sync                       

He wrote, "warmed and quickened    
into sympathy with everything, taken
back into the heart of nature" from    
which we all came.                                

In this moment, he was experiencing
what Stoics would call sympatheia -
a connectedness with the cosmos.   

The french philosopher Pierre Hadot
has referred to it as the "oceanic       
feeling"                                                    

A sense of belonging to something larger, 

of realizing that human things are
an infinitesimal point in the            
immensity.                                         

Ego blocks us from the beauty and
history in the world. It stands in the
way.                                                       

STOP!

Creativity is a matter of receptiveness
and recognition. This cannot happen  
if you're convinced that the world        
revolves around you.                               

I AM SO
PRETTY!

By widening our prespective,

more comes into view. 

It is sad how disconnected from the past
and the future most of us really are.          

We forgot that woolly mammoths     
walked the earth while the pyramids
were being built.                                    

We don't realize that Cleopatra lived
closer to our time than she did to      
the construction of those famous     
pyramids that marked her kingdom. 

THAT'S WORK
OF MY GREAT
ANCESTORS  

England government only recently    
paid off debts it incurred as far back
as 1720                                                     

It's hard to be anything but humble  
walking alone along a beach late at
night with an endless black ocean    
crashing loudly against the ground  
next to you                                              

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour" - William Blake

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