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Isle au Haut: A Billion Stars and Pristine Trails

“This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden…

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To Be Open

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson I set out on an early morning walk fully prepared to listen to a podcast through noise-cancelling headphones for…

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A Walk Around the Timeless Kenoza Lake

Kenoza! O’er no sweeter lakeShall morning break, or moon-cloud sail,No lighter wave than thine shall takeThe sunset’s golden veil.— John Greenleaf Whittier, Kenoza Whittier wrote this poem for the dedication for a beautiful lake in Haverhill, Massachusetts that was to be named Kenoza Lake. Kenoza means “lake of the pickerel” in the native Algonquian language,…

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On Nature and Being… Courageous

“The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them….