The intertwining of spirituality with images, metaphors, analogies, parables and other language containing strong veins of agrarian- and wilderness-oriented content is part of what gives scripture its power. Along with a large proportion of the rest of this Bible-reading country, as Mormons increasingly move inside and explore via the electronic frontier, scripture becomes one of [...]
We’ve added new pictures to the revolving gallery, not many because we spent much of the summer working at surviving rather than traipsing about the backrocks looking for photo ops. You’ll recognize a few favorites we left up: the aspens in Kane Gulch, scarlet gilia, the boot and hoof prints, etc.
Here’s a list of the [...]
My happy thanks to everyone who participated in WIZ’s People Month. My list of folks for whom I’ve felt deeply grateful includes:
Th.
Nephi Anderson (via Th.’s gravelly voice)
Mark Bennion
Tyler Chadwick
greenfrog
green mormon architect
Elizabeth R.
And, of course, many thanks to WIZ’s loyal readers and commenters.
I appreciate each writer’s help keeping People Month on WIZ interesting and fun. We’ll do it again next [...]
Listen to Patricia reading “The Pear Tree.”
When early autumn’s storm wrung from the clouds
Summer, wearing the last thundering rain thin
And sharp on the wind’s rasp; when thorns
Of the first frost bloomed over the grass,
And the morning glory hung brown and bitten
On the garden fence; on those first nights
Of cold window glass and the drip of [...]
Wilderness Interface Zone is happy to announce the arrival of its spring photo gallery, now showing in the photo box in the upper right-hand corner of the page displayed on your screen. It’s a little late, I know, but flowers, tree leaves, migratory birds, and torpid amphibians and reptiles have only emerged in abundance here in San Juan County, Utah over the last three weeks. [...]
I have a clown phobia and a lawnmower phobia. If you want to drive me over the edge, hire a clown and send him to mow my lawn.
But since it isn’t technically clown season and is most definitely lawnmowing season, I thought it would be interesting, and hopefully fun, to try a lawnmowing limerick thread. If you would like to contribute, here are [...]
April 21, 2009 (pre-Earth Day)
Today, as I head out for the trail into the canyon that will take me past the dead coyote, I decide to call that trail Coyote Trail, or maybe Coyote Way, to remember that coyote mouldering at the trailhead. As I pass those remains, I try to satisfy my curiosity about the [...]
by William Blake
Sound the flute!
Now it’s mute!
Bird’s delight,
Day and night,
Nightingale,
In the dale,
Lark in sky,
Merrily,
Merrily merrily, to welcome in the year.
Little boy,
Full of joy;
Little girl,
Sweet and small;
Cock does crow,
So do you;
Merry voice,
Infant noise;
Merrily, merrily, to welcome in the year.
Little lamb,
Here I am;
Come and lick
My white neck;
Let me pull
Your soft wool;
Let me kiss
Your soft face;
Merrily, merrily, to [...]
by theric jepson
Worm on the sidewalk
as the sun comes out—
How did they miss him?
How’d he escape breakfast?
A gentle flick to the
dirt under a bush,
and walk on.
May he survive.
To find more theric, sift here.
There’s something about walking out of the desert or other wild or marginally wild area that you don’t get walking into it. Something that you feel in your return to others sharing the fire or that comes from sliding into your vehicle to head home at the end of a hike or campout. Something about completing the journey on foot, walking [...]