Glen Of Scotland

More from Trail Ridge Road

Great vistas this high up, about 12,000 feet

 

I went further down to Bear Lake and there was still 2 feet of snow on the trails, it will be a late hiking season this year.

What's going wrong?

Very often people will look at a situation, see something they perceive as being off or different from what it "should be" of what they would be expect it or like it to be. Then it becomes a discovery of what's going wrong or what am I doing wrong, or what are they doing wrong.

The process of discovering what's going wrong is very stressful and frustrating as we search for what could be causing the delay in getting the promotion, losing the weight, getting healthy again, someones behaviour not changing quickly, a child still in diapers anything subject really.

As a neutral example let's look at the photos of the aspen trees, both were taken the same day within an hour of each other:

What's wrong that one set of trees are more developed than the other set, look at the difference, there has to be something wrong here. Who can we blame, what can we do, what do we need to change, who is responsible!

As it happens, the first photo is 2,000 feet higher than the other and it was still much cooler higher up with not as much exposure to the sun, all that is required is to be patient, the trees will blossom as it becomes warmer.

Back to human life, what if there is nothing wrong in theses situations we are examining and searching for what's wrong, rather all that is required is more patience.

I know we have all that conditioning so it's like we just automatically look for what's wrong. Which leads to frustration and stress and dare I say more things going wrong. Other than patience what if we looked at what's going right here. As we do that, does that lead you to believe that you might actually be on the right track, you are doing all the right things or most things right.

Would that help you to be more patient? Would it be less stressful?

Be sensible too, if you are on a lake and your boat is taking on water, would not be the time to do the above, stay as relaxed as you can, find something to get the water out and get to shore asap!

Road finally open

Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous road in the country, had one it's latest openings ever this year. Here are views from June 11th, the road opened a fews day before hand.

The snow run off  is helping the rivers and streams

Father's Day

Happy Father's  day to all the fathers out there, I hope you are receiving all the love flowing your way today, and everyday too.

I was thinking about the perfect father the other day, you know the father that would never raise their voice, or never make a mistake, or never get angry, or never need time away from the kids, or never ask you to wait a minute, or would never be late to watch your sports game, or would never be late ever for anything, would never say the wrong thing at the wrong time, would never be wrong period, would never get hurt or sick, and would never ever be at a loss for words under any circumstances.

Wish I knew a father like that! Of course I don't, no father or person like that exists, yet fathers everywhere compare themselves to this fictional or fantasy father and can never match up to that. Inevitably that leads to thoughts such as I am a bad father, and a few hours, days or weeks of self hatred.

So to all the fathers out there and  I know many of them, give yourself a break, please. You are all good fathers, so relax and be who you are,   rather than some impossible fantasy character.

Enjoy the day!

Croatia

I had never found a reason to think of visiting Croatia, this photo changed that. You can see more here:

Wild Weather Events

The planet is going through a number of weather and natural events, earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes getting active, powerful tornadoes, floods, fires, and droughts. The damage and loss of life is eye opening and we all have great compassion for those who have lost loved ones and are suffering after being impacted by mother nature.

I'm often asked what does it all mean? Humans love to find meaning in everything and if there is no obvious meaning and depending on their filters, they will make one up that fits their beliefs.

My answer is nature is going through one of it's cycles that it has been going through since time began. Sometimes it is more active than others and beleive it or not this isn't a particulalry active time. The time period from the mid 1890's to the mid 1930's from I can see was a more active time for all of these weather events.

It seems worse at the moment for a few reasons, generally speaking, people are still unsettled from all the changes going on whether economically or global political events and a little bit more fearful than normal. The death and destruction from these events are getting a lot of coverage from more outlets than ever before, the stories are heart breaking, the damage eye opening and sometimes beyond belief. The stories are more dramatic than ever before as we are able to see it up close and personal in a lot of cases, thanks to video clips from cell phones and the like that we have never had before.

It's understandable that it can appear as if this is the worst ever for these events and I can understand why people start connecting things together and come up with God is angry and the world is coming to an end, or it's the start of 2012 and it will get worse, then it's all over. It's understandable and I believe it's totally incorrect. Humans seem to have been doing this since time began. Y2K bring back any memories?

What is the answer then, accept reality the weather is what it is, find peace within as best you can, have compassion for those suffering, help if you feel you want to and can. Understand cycles and patterns of everything, human behaviour, human emotions, economics, business cycles, politics, even the weather, which will allow you to see through events and become less fearful as a result.

As we get closer to 2012, the fear factor will rise significantly and people will start panicking about all sorts of things and the weather will be a little more active than normal (more about that later) prepare yourself now to avoid all that stress.

 

Truly Spectacular 4

So this is Fern lake, well part of it anyway:

More of Fern lake

I'm sure some would be tempted to clean all this up, it's just as it is:

Getting near the end

A butterfly comes to say goodbye, could a day ever be better that this, of course it could, would it, yes of course, the very next week!

You do have power

A lot of people think they are powerless to change things around them, and while they may lack the power of the president for example, they still have power over situations under their control and importantly they have the power to join forces with others to effect change.

As people look to make more money and step by step move from being poor to becoming rich, the internet is a great resource for a lot of information that can help move you in that direction.

Take the time to write down what help you feel you need then use that as a base for your internet searches, take your time as the resource is vast and not everything is true or will be beneficial. There are groups such as Move the Mountain Leadership and their Circles Campaign to assist families moving out of poverty. Micro lending that is popular overseas is starting to gain traction over here, Kiva for example has a few listings in the USA through Accion and some church groups.

Virtually every industry is represented in some shape or form on the internet, there are message boards that you ask where to receive training, information etc, use them and don't be put off by any unkind remarks, keep looking. You will be amazed at what is available for free, some schools for example are using Khan Academy to teach math, it's free Bill Gates raves about it, check it out.

There are many finance sites that give you advice on savings and investing, check out Suze Orman, she is well known and reputable, there are many others find one that resonates with you.

Earlier this year in Egypt we saw the power of a couple million people hitting the streets demanding freedoms. You can gather with others too, using facebook and twitter and other means to find people with similar thinking to yours and join together to bring about change.

I believe for example that if 8 million people were to gather peacefully in this country for things like a simplified tax code, or legislation that treats people equally, or a legislative plain english standard, or other similar things you would quickly see a change in this country.

At the local level, you can join with others and gather signatures on the ballot at the state or city level. For example it will take 6,000 signatures in Santa Monica out of a population of 84,000 to make the ballot to ban circumcision in that city. I'm sure you might have some ideas that you feel strongly about, health care, mental care, who your city should or shouldn't be doing business with, interest rate caps, allow prescription drug imports from Canada etc.

You have more power than you realize to change your circumstances, you also have the power to do nothing and complain too. Power is often associated with the rich, and yes money does talk especially when it comes to lobbying and tv advertising to influence your vote. At the end of the day, we all get one vote and money can only go so far, just ask those in Egypt who had the money, power and influence and no longer do.

People often wait until they have been pushed so far, or have been beaten down so much before they step in to their power and say no more. When a product becomes so expensive, we say no more and buy less, demand drops and then so does the price, as seen often with gas prices. It hasn't worked in health care yet, as we keep paying the rising costs, apparently we haven't reached our threshold yet.

When are you going to step into your power? When are you going to use your power? When are you going to take your power back? When is, whatever the situation may be, get bad enough for you to do so? How much more can you take and for how much longer?

Truly Spectacular 3

It was time to further down the mountain, this was a mammoth hike, the next stop was Fern Lake. 

There are few other humans on the trails, never mind a surprise from nature pops up from time to time:

For the end of July there was still good water flow:

Bee at work:

Natures garden

Water finding it's way

What, there is more, yes there is.