Speak to Me Sunday, vol. 8 (taking it outside with Lord Byron)

Today, in honor of Earth Day, we're taking it outside with a morning hike and a picnic along the river. Then, this afternoon I will lounge in the hammock with a book, but I won't read a word because I will be distracted by rustling leaves, a bird's song, the scampering of squirrels.


It's a beautiful, magnificent, breathtaking world. Standing on a mountaintop or in a field of wild flowers humbles me and leaves me floating on a cloud of gratitude -- for this life God has given me, for my husband and sons, for my friends and family, for morning hikes and midnight walks, for the imperfect and perfect ...

And for adventure found in pathless woods.

There Is Pleasure In The Pathless Woods

– By Lord Byron
(from Childe Harold, Canto IV, Verse 178)

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.